Jerry L. Walls

A useful critique of Calvinism, accessible and well made points that will cause you to think about the assumptions that you have in your own ways of thinking and believing. This book begins with one of the best explanations of the basis for generous Christian dispute that I have ever read. Unfortunately the presentation of the arguments doesn't always live up to the high standards aspired to here. The section on Biblical interpretation is the best of the other chapters. The philosophy sections too often slip into inconsistency and snide digs at the Calvinists writers being engaged with. It feels like two essays, by the two authors, have been bound in one cover without a huge amount of collaborative work.… (more)

Again, these sorts of books won't convince a Calvinist to "switch sides," yet they may help reinforce the views of Arminians. The authors here are good Methodists (if there is such a thing, ha!), and they engage Calvinism very irenically. They give the Calvinist side every time, and are very sympathetic to their views, but they then support the Arminian side fairly well. Sometimes their real-world examples, allegories, get a bit kooky and hard to follow. The chapter entitled "Engaging the Bible" does just that, undermining the calumny on Amazon that this book is "all philosophy and no Bible." Again, Calvinists often suffer under the delusion that Calvinism is all Bible and no philosophy, and any other theological system is a corruption of fallen man. Walls and Dongell show that, indeed, Calvinism is a philosophical system that only works if every bit of TULIP works. They do a good enough job of knocking some of the acronym down, though as Methodists instead of, say, Free Will Baptists, they don't hit the nail of Hebrews 6:4-6 that hard at all. To sum up, this is an interesting, thought-provoking book, better than Debating Calvinism, but nowhere near as good as Grace, Faith, Free Will by Picirilli.… (more)