Quotes from Roger E. Olson

The idea of having no limits, either through education or money or possessions or power, is radically alien to everything the Bible assumes and says.

Only God has no limits (except those he voluntarily imposes on himself). The mantra "no limits" is actually a call to idolatry.

As the perfect parent, God suffers emotional pain when his creatures, created in his own image and likeness, rebel against him and do evil instead of good.

Human beings are special, of higher dignity and worth than other animals, because they're created in God's own image and likeness. It's actually true humanism.

Only a loving and covenant-making personal God can provide humans with unique dignity, worth, and rights. Blind nature cannot do that. So, for the Christian, "secular humanism" is an oxymoron.

Knowledge has come to be defined as what can be proven by secular evidence and arguments.

Before you disagree make sure you understand. In other words, we must make sure that we can describe another's theological position as he would describe it before we criticize or condemn. Another guiding principle should be 'Do not impute to others beliefs you regard as logically entailed by their beliefs but that they explicitly deny'.

If God's love is absolutely different from the highest and best notions of love as we derive them from Scripture itself (especially from Jesus Christ), then the term is simply meaningless when attached to God. One might as well say "God is creech-creech"—a meaningless assertion.

Scripture is our norming norm and tradition is our normed norm and that in a doctrinal controversy Scripture alone has absolute veto power while The Great Tradition (orthodox doctrine) has a vote but not a veto.

An irenic approach to expounding Christian beliefs is one that attempts always to understand opposing viewpoints before disagreeing, and when it is necessary to disagree does so respectfully and in love. An irenic approach to doctrine seeks common ground and values unity within diversity and diversity within unity. An irenic approach does not imply relativism or disregard for truth, but it does seek to live by the motto "in essentials unity,

Non-Calvinists take God's permissive will more seriously than Calvinists and explain biblical stories such as Joseph and his brothers (gen. 50) and the crucifixion of Jesus in that way—God foresaw and permitted sinful people to do things because he saw the good that he would bring out of them.49 But God by no means foreordained or rendered them certain.

Only a moral monster would refuse to save persons when salvation is absolutely unconditional and solely an act of God that does not depend on free will.

Plantinga explained, the scientific search for truth assumes nature is not all there is. If nature is all there is, then truth itself is a chimera and our human faculties for discovering and knowing it are unreliable.

Traditional Arminian theology says that in and through the cross of Christ the sin of Adam inherited by all was forgiven (Romans 5) so that people are only condemnable for their own sins. The cross completely removes every obstacle to every human being's salvation except their own resistance to God's freely offered grace, which is given to all in some measure but especially through the preaching of the Word.

Arminian theology does affirm divine election, but it interprets it as corporate rather than individual.

Wesley noted that "to say, 'This man is an Arminian,' has the same effect on many hearers, as to say 'This is a mad dog.' "11

Finally, Clement laid down a principle of Christian leadership and discipleship: "Therefore it is right for us, having studied so many and such great examples, to bow the neck and, adopting the attitude of obedience, to submit to those who are the leaders of our souls, so that by ceasing from this futile dissension we may attain the goal that is truly set before us, free from all blame."4

Arminians share with classical Calvinists a firm belief in human depravity and the necessity of divine initiative for salvation.

I once informed a leading evangelical theologian that his newly published systematic theology is thoroughly Arminian even though he never uses the term. His response was, "Yes, but don't tell anyone!

It is not uncommon to hear Arminians describe themselves as "moderately Reformed" in order to ingratiate themselves to the movers and shakers of the evangelical movement.

Taken to their logical conclusion, that even hell and all who will suffer there eternally are foreordained by God, God is thereby rendered morally ambiguous at best and a moral monster at worst.

The world, including America, is filled with alternative, competing visions of reality—what is ultimately and "really" real behind what everyone sees every day. These visions of reality are philosophies of life, worldviews, or metaphysical perspectives.

no theology is worth believing that cannot be preached standing in front of the gates of Auschwitz.

A basic presupposition of this book is that the Bible does contain an implicit metaphysical vision of ultimate reality—the reality that is most important, final, highest, and behind everyday appearances. That vision of reality has been called various things such as "biblical theism" and "biblical personalism." Perhaps "biblical personal theism" or "biblical theistic personalism" would be good terms for it.