The Moderates and the Legitimates

Carlos Baca
Theological Review
Election

When it comes to election there are only two camps that have the correct idea that election is absolutely biblical concept, the Calvinists and the Arminians. The Calvinists believe that God elects some entirely based on his will, having nothing to do with the free will of man. They also believe that in addition to man having nothing to do with election that man will never interfere with election for the centuries to come. In this particular camp there are two sub-camps know as the Moderates and the Legitimates. The Moderates believe in free will but they believe it to be very limited. In addition when the believer gets the gospel message they have the free will to not except it but because that they are the elect they will want to accept it. The last difference between the two is when God elects the few to be saved he chooses the few and just simply pushes the rest aside. People that are known as the hyper-Calvinists have a much stricter view. When it comes to these people they not only believe that God chooses the elect to be saved but he elects the rest to go to hell as well. This theory is know as double-predestination, when God wants some to go to heaven as well as wanting people to go to hell. Allot of these kind of people go to Romans chapter 9 to prove their reasoning for this. Another completely different view of what Gods election is based on is known as the Arminian view. This view is different because of the fact that they believe in God electing some of the people based on mans free choice over time. Basically what they believe is that the free will and the choices of man could change Gods election. But there is a major flaw in that theory is that there saying that the freewill of man is above the sovereignty of God. The last theory of election is called Pelagianism or known as heresy. Theses people think that there is no election or predestination at all whatsoever. And that the opportunity of salvation is entirely based on the free will of man. Worst of all the don’t think that Christ didn’t come down to be an atonement for our sin but rather to live as a perfect example of how we should of lived. I don’t believe that I need to explain what the problem or problems are in this theory so but I guess I kind of have to because I don’t have enough space to finish this essay. The problem with this is that it denies everything to do with salvation and without salvation there is no way that there could be election and because of that there would just be a morality to obtain salvation.