“A Declaration of Sentiments” – This work is authored by James Arminius and serves as both a survey of differing opinions and inner workings of the doctrine of predestination as well as an insight to Arminius’s personal beliefs concerning it. More specifically, Arminius focuses on double predestination, which is the idea that God predestines some to salvation and actively predestines the remaining populous to damnation. His concern also takes into account the notion of supralapsarianism, or the predestination of certain individuals to heaven or hell by God before the foundation of the world. When predestination is accepted with the prerequisite belief that God makes these decisions without taking into account belief/unbelief and repentance and …show more content…
One of the chief argument statements that he puts forward is the favoring of the belief that God actually does take into account the belief and the level of repentance that people have. The notion of God behaving in any manner that runs contrary goes against the very foundation of Christianity and the message and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Arminius. In addition to this type of incombatibility, Arminius states that the doctrine of predestination gives false pretensions of both the nature of God and of human beings. He asks why would a God that is supposed to be wise and just intentionally create creatures that he knows will sin, which will ultimately lead to their misery and destruction? The freedom of will of humanity is also not allowed for in this idea of predestination. Even the very act of creation is negatively distorted by predestination. Creation is supposed to be a result of God’s goodness, but the thought that God intentionally creates people who are destined to be reprobates is an act of evil and hatred. This idea is not acceptable when contemplating a God who is defined by his goodness. As for