A. W. Tozer the Arminian
“Redemption is an objective fact. It is a work potentially saving, wrought for man, but done independent of and exterior to the individual. Christ’s work on Calvary made atonement for every man, but it did not save any man.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“Universal atonement makes salvation universally available, but it does not make it universally effective toward the individual.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“If atonement was made for all men, why are not all saved? The answer is that before redemption becomes effective toward the individual man there is an act which that man must do. That act is not one of merit, but of condition.”
“This act of appropriating salvation is one which only man can do.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“God cannot do our repenting for us. In our efforts to magnify grace we have so preached the truth as to convey the impression that repentance is a work of God. This is a grave mistake, and one which is taking a frightful toll among Christians everywhere. God has commanded all men to repent. It is a work which only they can do.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“before we can be saved we must of our own free will repent toward God and believe in Jesus Christ. This the Bible plainly teaches; this experience abundantly supports. Repentance involves moral reformation. The wrong practices are on man’s part, and only man can correct them. Lying, for instance, is an act of man and one for which he must accept full responsibility. When he repents he will quit lying. God will not quit for him; he will quit for himself.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“The remedy is to see clearly that men are not lost because of what someone did thousands of years ago; they are lost because they sin individually and in person. We will never be judged for Adam’s sin, but for our own. For our own sins we are and must remain fully responsible.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s.
“Faith is a gift of God, to be sure, but whether or not we shall act upon that faith lies altogether within our own power. We may or we may not, as we choose.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 2 – God’s Part and Man’s. [1]
A. W. Tozer – The Pelagian
“Another doctrinal hindrance is the teaching that men are so weak by nature that they are unable to keep the law of God. Our moral helplessness is hammered into us in sermon and song until we wilt under it and give up in despair. No matter what the intellect may say, the human heart can never accept the idea that we are to be held responsible for breaking a law that we cannot keep. Would a father lay upon the back of his three year-old son a sack of grain weighing five-hundred pounds and then beat the child because he could not carry it? Either men can or they cannot please God. If they cannot, they are not morally responsible, and have nothing to fear. If they can, and will not, then they are guilty, and as guilty sinners they will be sent to hell at last. The latter is undoubtedly the fact. If the Bible is allowed to speak for itself it will teach loudly the doctrine of man’s personal responsibility for sins committed. Men sin because they want to sin. God’s quarrel with men is that they will not do even that part of the will of God which they understand and could do if they would.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 5 – Doctrinal Hindrances.
“To teach that the insufficiency of the law lay in man’s moral inability to meet its simple demands on human behaviour is to err most radically. If the law could not be kept, God is in the position of laying upon mankind an impossible moral burden and then punishing them for failure to do the impossible.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 5 – Doctrinal Hindrances.
“The Bible everywhere takes for granted Israel’s ability to obey the law. Condemnation fell because Israel, having that ability, refused to obey.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 5 – Doctrinal Hindrances. [2]
“In the Bible the offer of pardon on the part of God is conditioned upon intention to reform on the part of man. There can be no spiritual regeneration till there has been a moral reformation.”
- The Best of A. W. Tozer, Book 2 (page 115-117), compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe. [3]
A. W. Tozer endorses the heretic Charles Finney
“God used Finney to get people thinking straight about religion. He may not have been correct in all his conclusions, but he did remove the doctrinal stalemates and start the people moving toward God. He placed before his hearers a moral either/or, so they could always know just where they stood. The inner confusion caused by hidden contradictions was absent from his preaching. We could use another Finney today.”
- Paths to Power – A. W. Tozer – Chapter 5 – Doctrinal Hindrances. [2]
A. W. Tozer taught the universal love of God
“The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate thing, too. God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men. He loves us all with a mighty love that has no beginning and can have no end.”
- The Knowledge of the Holy – A. W. Tozer. [4]
A. W. Tozer the Mystic
“Christian mystics. Their knowledge of God and absorbing love for Him profoundly attracted Tozer. They were spirits kindred to his own. He relentlessly pursued their writings in order to find out for himself what they knew about God and how they came about their knowledge. The way to God was paramount in Tozer’s thinking. He so identified with their struggles and triumphs that people began referring to him, also, as a mystic, a designation to which he never objected. Tozer’s list of these “friends of God” grew with the years, and nothing delighted him more than to uncover a long-forgotten devotional writer. He eagerly introduced these newly discovered mystics to his friends, bringing many of them into public awareness.”
- James Snyder, The Life of A. W. Tozer, pp. 17-18.
Christian Mystics and Movements in the Early Church:
- Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-c.107)
- St. Polycarp (c.69-c.155)
- Justin Martyr (c.105-c.165)
- Irenaeus (c.125-c.202)
- Tertullian (c.155-c.222)
- St. Antony (c.251-356)
- Basil the Great (c.330-379)
- Augustine (354-430)
- St. Gregory I the Great (b. at Rome, c. 540; d. there, 604)
Catholic Mystics in the Mediaeval Church:
- William of St. Thierry (c.1085-1148)
- Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153)
- Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
- Hugh of St. Victor, canon regular at Paris (b. in Saxony, 1096; d. at Paris, 1141)
- Richard of St. Victor, canon regular at Paris (d. at Paris, 1173)
- Francis of Assisi (John Bernardone) (1182-1226)
- Albertus Magnus (1206-1280)
- Beatrice of Nazareth (1200-1268)
- Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1282)
- Bonaventure (John Fidanza) (1217-1274)
- St. Bonaventure, Minister General of the Friars Minor (b. at Bagnorea, 1221; d. at Lyons, 1274)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275)
- Angela of Foligno (c.1248-1309)
- St. Gertrude, a Benedictine (b. at Eisleben, 1256; d. at Helfta, Saxony, 1302)
- Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
- Henry Suso (1295-1366)
- Johannes Tauler (1300-1361)
- Richard Rolle (1300-1349)
- Birgitta (Brigida) Suecica of Sweden (1302-1373)
- Walter Hilton (d. 1395)
- Julian of Norwich (1342-1413?)
- Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
Catholic Mystics 15th to 19th Century:
- St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
- Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
- St. John of the Cross (Juan de Yepes) (1542-1591)
- Venerable Luis de Lapuente (1554-1624)
- St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
- Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)
- Saint Catherine Labouré (1806-1876).
Tozer quoted Nicholas of Cusa (created cardinal on 20 December 1448 by Pope Nicholas V) in his book ‘Pursuit of God.’
A. W. Tozer’s recommended mystic reading list included an anonymous monk (The Cloud of Unknowing), Brother Lawrence (Practicing the Presence of God) and St. John of the Cross (Dark Night of the Soul).
Reference: [1], [2], [3], [4] View Article