I grew up Arminian (Wesleyan). I know their theology well as I studied it in Undergrad earning one of my Bachelors in an associated field (Religion-Philosophy). I still have the blue test books from those Theology classes in my file cabinets. In those test books I received top score for my ability to slice and dice Calvinism, along with praise from the Professors.
Along the way, resisting as much as I possibly could, I gave up Arminianism and was born again, again. I became a Christian (sometimes known as Calvinist).
One of the hurdles I could not get over, thus pushing me towards Calvinism was the problem found in all standard Arminianism. Evangelical Arminianism, teaching Hypothetical Universalism (the idea that Christ died for all people without exception) had to likewise hold that all men has libertarian free will. If Christ dies for everybody, but everybody isn’t saved than that factors that divides those who are saved and who are not saved, per Arminianism is the fact that some cooperated with prevenient grace while others did not cooperate with prevenient grace. The reason that some cooperate with prevenient grace (the grace that goes before salvation) while others don’t cooperate is the result of some using their Libertarian free will to choose to be regenerated while others use their Libertarian free will to say no to God’s resistible grace.
The Arminians have this problem though. If man has this kind of Libertarian free will to tell God to “go pound sand,” as the Spirit of God intends to convert them, then Arminians can no longer teach that God is sovereign and so controls all things. Still, Arminians would teach that while God may not be exhaustively sovereign such as their Calvinist foe’s teach God still did foreknow all things that would come to pass even if God didn’t predetermine or predestine the beginning from the end the way the Calvinist insisted. So, as it pertains to individual salvation, per the Arminian God knows (but does not determine) how each person will use their Libertarian free will in order to either accept or reject the “Gospel Invitation.”
The problem that eventually presented itself to the “smarter than the average bear” Arminian is that they understood that if God foreknows everything that happens or will happen, God thereby renders that thing He foreknows as certain. God in foreknowing all that will happen has in that foreknowing made certain all that will happen. If God foreknew from eternity past that I would mock Arminian theology in 2026, then that mocking had to happen. I would not be free to not mock Arminian theology. This is true even if we, along with the Arminian, reject that God makes everything happen. The relevant point is that God’s foreknowing of an event to occur before it occurs makes it certain that the event will occur even if God is not the causative source of said event happening. Even if there is some other causality to my mocking Arminian theology, God foreknew that the other causality would lead me to mock Arminian theology and so the mocking of Arminian theology in 2026 by me would by necessity come to pass. Exhaustive divine foreknowledge necessitates determinism, whether or not determinism is the result of divine causality. The nub of the matter is that some Arminians began to understand they were on the horns of a dilemma here. What to do?
Well, there really are only two choices. The Red Pill solution was “become a Calvinist,” and deny Libertarian free will. Forty years ago plus, I took the Red Pill. However, some former Arminians took the Blue Pill and so denied foreknowledge. The Blue Pill allowed the Arminian to become more consistently inconsistent. By taking the Blue Pill the Arminian moved from Arminianism to Open Theism. The Arminians joined the Open Theists (a form of Socinianism) and so rejected the idea of the Arminian doctrine of God’s foreknowledge. For the Open Theist if God was sovereign He was sovereign quite apart from any exhaustive foreknowledge. Of course the idea that God can be sovereign without either Calvinist sovereignty or Arminian foreknowledge is just a surd. The Arminian by choosing Open Theism became more consistently inconsistent inasmuch as he now has found a way to consistently embrace Libertarian free will. However he has done so at the cost of magnificently gross inconsistency inasmuch as he has embraced a God, who by definition, has been drained of all that makes God, God. As it were the Arminian, when affirming Libertarian free will, was already worshiping a emasculated god. However, in moving to Free Will Theism (Open Theism) he is now worshiping a emasculated man as god said loudly. The Arminian has embraced anthropological consistency at the cost of theological inconsistency.
It seems like, to a certain degree, Open Theism has been beaten back. However, Arminianism remains the major report in terms of numbers as among American Evangelicals. Very few people believe in a muscular doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Most Evangelicals … even most Reformed, in a De facto sense, embrace enough of the shards of Arminianism to bring into doubt their Calvinistic bona fides.
And thus the Church in the West continues to limp along.
Addendum:
Touching Libertarian free will we would note that for every bit of Libertarian free will that you give to man you take that much from the Triune God. Man cannot have Libertarian free will without God not having Libertarian free will.
The Scripture exhaustively teaches that God exhaustively controls all things (Lamentations 3:37-38; Rom. 8:28, 11:33-36; Eph. 1:11). As that control extends to our free decisions we read in Scripture wherein God controls the free decisions of people. (Joseph’s Brothers – Gen. 45:5-8; Cyrus – Isa. 44:28; Judas – Lk. 22:28, Acts 2:23-24, 4:27-28, 13:27.)
Now, that people do what they want to do while it still being the case that God is in exhaustive control is taught by the doctrine of Compatibilism. Compatibilism teaches that man does what he wants to do and is not coerced in his decision making. Man’s decision are voluntary. Compatibilism further teaches that man’s freedom presuppose his nature. Fallen man is free to choose all kinds of option but because of his fallen nature, fallen man can never choose not to sin. Compatibilism teaches that whatever it is we voluntarily choose it does not mean we had the freedom to choose otherwise. We were pushed to choose whatever we choose consistent with pre-existing influence, inclination, or disposition. In choosing nobody starts from neutral in choosing what they choose. Considered from the macro understanding though, compatibilism affirms that all wills are in bondage to God’s sovereignty.