God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
There are several problems with the Arminian view:
1. The doctrine of prevenient grace, on which the Arminian view of conditional election is based, is not found in Scripture.
2. Note well that there is no reference in [Romans 8:29] to faith or free will as that which God allegedly foresees in men. It is not what He foreknows but whom.
3. [Arminianism] assumes that fallen men are able and willing to believe in Christ apart from the regenerating grace of God, a notion that Paul has denied in Rom. 3:10-18.
4. Would not this view give man something of which he may boast? Those who embrace the gospel would be deserving of some credit for finding within themselves what others do not.
5. This view suspends the work of God on the will of man. It undermines the emphasis in Romans 8:28-38 on the sovereign and free work of God who foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies. It is God who is responsible for salvation, from beginning to end.
6. Even if one grants that God elects based on His foreknowledge of man’s faith, nothing is proven. For God foreknows everything. One must determine from Scripture how man came by the faith that God foreknows. And the witness of Scripture is that saving faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-10; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:1; 2 Tim. 2:24-26; Acts 5:31; 11:18).
Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His power and presence with them.
