catholicsoldier

Despite what you may think Dr. Horton was being very gracious in his response and in no way was judging anyone’s salvation. If you will read my post again you will see that he was talking about the doctrines of Arminianism itself.
He was basically saying that since Arminianism is a false gospel, then if an Arminian is truly saved, it is despite it, not because of it.

By the way, the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism are not minor as you think.
To show you just how different they really are, let me relate something that hopefully shows you what I mean.
I was once talking to someone I know about limited atonement. After I had finished she gave me a horrified look and in a loud and angry voice said: "That is not my God!!!" Although I still talk with this person a lot, and get along great with her, she does not want to even talk about the issue anymore. Since then, I have had a few more emotional responses by other people.

Why would she react that way? She recognized the huge contrast between what she believes on the subject and what I believed.
I have to admit that one of the aspects of the doctrines of grace that I struggled with before I embraced TULIP was limited atonement. I spend many a sleepless night on the issue and must confess that in that process (not intentionally), caused a lot of stress in my family.
At the time, I didn’t really want to believe it because of its ramifications, it was indeed a huge contrast from what I had been taught up until that point. I finally embraced these precious doctrines because I knew in my heart they are biblical. It was quite a while after that that I finally began seeing that I had previously been looking at the issue through the wrong perspective. I had been looking at it through my own eyes, not the eyes of my sovereign God.
Seeing the matter through this new perspective, I began to see how much sense the doctrines of grace really made.
I will say that because of my experiences with this issue, I have grown to have a little patience with people that have not embraced these doctrines. I don’t know the condition of people’s heart, they may be in a similar position that I at one time was. Saved and teachable, but not at that time understanding doctrine.

Tom