What Kind of Arminianism Does the Seventh-Day Adventist Church Embrace?

The Seventh-day Adventist Church aligns more closely with Wesleyan Arminianism than with Reformed Arminianism, though it has its own unique theological twists (especially in eschatology, annihilationism, and prophetic authority via Ellen White).

Why Wesleyan?

SDAs inherited a significant amount of their theology through Methodist revivalism in 19th-century America. Adventist doctrines on conditional security (a saved person can fall away), free will, prevenient grace, and particularly the strong emphasis on holiness, obedience to God’s law, and victorious Christian living are much more in line with Wesleyan Arminianism than with Reformed Arminianism.

The Great Controversy theme (the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan) also frames sanctification as moral perfection being both possible and necessary through grace, a very Wesleyan concern.

Where Adventism Fits

Adventism adopts Wesleyan Arminian soteriology:

• Strong stress on human freedom and prevenient grace.

• Conditional perseverance.
  
  
• An expectation of victorious, obedient Christian living through grace (i.e., sanctification as both positional and progressive, but with a stress on actual obedience empowered by grace).

But Adventism adds unique twists:

• Annihilationism (no eternal conscious torment, but destruction of the wicked).

• Soul sleep (unconsciousness in death until the resurrection).
  
  
• Sabbath-keeping is a sign of sanctification and loyalty.
  
  
• The Great Controversy theme frames salvation history.

• Acceptance of Ellen White’s prophetic authority alongside Scripture.