If People Are Born Unable to Believe: Six Options

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Are people born unable to believe? If so, how does anyone come to faith?   As I work through these issues for an upcoming book examining “total depravity,” it might help to conceptualize the different answers given to explain how people who are born unable to believe can ever come to faith. Here are six options.  “People are born unable to believe, therefore…”  Patristic: you need
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A Is for “Able to Believe”

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Bob and I wrote an article called “TULIP or ASSURE?” in which we briefly outlined what we thought was the Biblical alternative to the Five Points of Calvinism (and Arminianism). Our thinking has grown since then.  Previously, we defined “A” as “All have sinned.” That was too general a statement. I now prefer “Able to believe.” It gets at the heart of the issue.  The key issue in total
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The Ability to Believe

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Question  Shawn, in recently countering Calvinism, you mentioned man has the “ability to believe or not believe”.  I agree with this, however it conflicts with GES’ normal position that “believing is passive”.  Bob often says “one either believes or he does not” and this not by decision of his will.  If man does not “decide to believe”, then how does one get
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How Does Satan Work?

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I plan to complete a series of books outlining what I think are the Biblical alternatives to the five points of Calvinism (and Arminianism). Chosen to Serve: Why Election Is to Service, Not to Eternal Life, was my answer to Unconditional Election. I have two more manuscripts in the works—one on Limited Atonement (The Cross: Different Benefits, for Different
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J. I. Packer and The Bondage of Tradition

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J. I. Packer, the famed Reformed Anglican theologian, has written more book forewords than anyone I know. It seems that every book published by a Calvinist either has a foreword or an endorsement written by Packer. Packer, along with O. R. Johnston, translated Martin Luther’s The Bondage of the Will (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1957). They
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