Forgive me if I have missed something in this discussion, I do not want to interrupt this conversation. However, unless I have missed something you believe that God looks down the corridors of time and sees who will believe and elects those who will believe. Is that correct?
Since it's a public board, I don't think that it's an interruption at all for you to chose to interact with the topic.
You ask whether it's the Arminian position that “God looks down the corridors of time and sees who will believe and elects those who will believe.”
Metaphors can produce clarity, but they also can hinder clarity. If I was using visual and spacial metaphors for the position, I would probably say that God sees into time (rather than saying that He looks through time). But even more briefly, I could say that God knows all, including everything in time. Seeing itself is a metaphor for God's knowledge.
Metaphors aside, though, Arminians do hold that God knows who believes (at any point in time) and chooses to elect those people to salvation. So you are absolutely correct there. But those are only two steps in the situation. The whole situation looks something like this:
[Note: Saying that God knows that a man “will” have faith implies that God looks into the future. God is outside of time and therefore it is not “future” to Him. Saying “in time” is more precise than saying “will” from the perspective of eternity.]
1 – (Optional to the Arminian position, Molinists believe:) God knows what any creature would do given any situation
2 – God determines who He wants to make, where in time He wants to put them, what grace to give, and what situations to put each one in
3 – Given these situations, God know who has faith in time (and who will lose weight, and who will like Star Trek and everything else about every human at every point in time)
4 – God's good pleasure is to save those who, being in time, have faith
5 – Therefore, God uses His knowledge (of who has faith) to accomplish His desire/motive of electing each man and woman who has faith in Him to eternal life, and predestining them to be conformed to the image of His son.
You summarized point 3 and part of point 5. So I would agree with you that that is the Arminian position, but I would add clarification so that you do not think that those points are the whole of the Arminian position. It holds that God uses knowledge to accomplish His good pleasure and sovereign will. Any description of the position that does not address that is, therefore, too brief.
Even with your quote in mind, unless I am missing something, how can this be monergystic; seeing it is man’s faith that is the determining factor for their salvation?
“Ergy” is greek that means “work.” It also, I think, is the root from which we get “energy.”
Mon-ergy, then, means “one Being working” or “one energy working” or “one energy being applied.” Syn-ergy, on the other hand, means “two beings working together” or “two energy sources combined” or “two energy sources being applied.”
So, if you ask an Arminian: Who does the work in justification?
A: God does 100% of Justification
Q: Who does the work in regeneration?
A: God does 100% of the work in regeneration. Man's energy is applied to neither.
With justification and regeneration (salvation), God does 100% of the work, and is the only Being whose energy is being applied to the matter. Therefore, mon-ergy is the only word that would describe the accomplishment of justification and regeneration.
It does not matter, to the question of how many people/Beings are applying energy to produce a result, who the determinant is. Even if Armianian determine their own salvation, the process of salvation itself would be a work of God 100%, and therefore monergistic.
However, to answer whether they believe that or not, we'd need to get discuss what “determine” means. If I tell my brother that I will punch him, if he sits down, and then he sits down and I punch him – who would you say “determined” the outcome? Was it me for deciding to punch him if he sat down? Or was it him for fulfilling the condition I reacted to?
Personally, I believe that the person making the decision to act is the determinant. In the above story, I would be the one who determined to punch him (and would be responsible). In Arminian theology, God would be the one who determined to save believers (and would be responsible).
I do not have time to go in detail, or for that matter defend what I am about to say. However, in context the word does not have the connotation of looking through the “corridors of time”, rather the connotation is “foreloved”
Yes, and that's fine that you don't have time to really get into a discussion about it.
I agree that foreknow, in that context, isn't simply about knowledge. (Though I already rejected the time corridor analogy for the Arminian viewpoint)
Arminians believe that God “foreloves” (using your term) those who have faith in time. Not just the loe with which He loves the world, but a more intimate love for the Bride of Christ.
We see no indication of a prevenient grace in Scripture that indicates that a person can reject faith once it is given to them.
My topic in this thread isn't even about whether Arminian theology is right or wrong. My topic was merely regarding what Arminian theology does and does not claim.
