If he’s not a Molinist, and if he’s simply a “foreknowledge Arminian,” then his view faces arguments to the effect that God’s foreknowledge, together with his omniscience, collapses into an epistemic determinism which leaves no room for agency of the libertarian variety.

Thanks for stopping in and commenting. I would of course agree that it is important for Olson (and other Arminians) that God allows individuals to choose whether they will embrace salvation and supplies to all a prevenient grace to help in that.

The main point, though, is that Olson criticizes the Calvinistic view of God because it acknowledges that God does not do all that he possibly could do to save all human persons while Olson himself (at least implicitly) says the same about God when he affirms that God can ensure that human beings will make certain choices without compromising the integrity of their volition. In other words, whatever else may be said about classical Arminianism, it does not actually get God off the hook, as it were, at just this point – and for Olson it’s a very important point.

Without taking the Barthian road myself, I would also heartily agree that election and reprobation are ‘asymmetrical’ (to borrow your terminology above).

I don’t think that Olson is saying that any individual’s salvation is necessarily (irresistibly) saved, apart from their free assent. A basic point of Arminianism is that saving grace requires the free response (assent) of the creature — a libertarian freedom (of being able to not assent). For those who do not assent (reject grace), the culpability for their damnation is upon the individual entirely, not upon God who desires that none should perish. Thus, God’s love for all is secured, so long as no person is damned because they weren’t given sufficient grace. All persons are given sufficient grace to be restored — otherwise, it could not be said that God wishes none should perish. In other words, if God desires that everyone repent (and not perish) then He will give everyone the means of grace sufficient for such repentance and redemption.

Interestingly, even Reformed orthodoxy can push in this direction — insofar as the asymmetry of election and reprobation is stressed. For many of those who stress this asymmetry, the reprobate are reprobate because they reject the grace of God, not because of any insufficiency on God’s part to provide the means for their salvation. This is hotly debated, of course, and many Calvinists would indeed say that the reprobate are reprobate because God gives them no sufficient means for their salvation (because He has decided their reprobation from eternity). Someone like John Owen is clearly saying the latter.

As for myself, I’m still working on this issue (for 10 years now!), and I’m coming to the point of just going with Karl Barth’s dialectical take. Barth doesn’t “solve” this dilemma, but at least Barth lets us say that God really loves everyone! I’m afraid that the strict ordo salutis of, say, John Owen is incompatible with any serious statement that God loves everyone. As Barth would say, God does not love everyone because he “has to” (necessity) but because he freely chooses to be such a God from eternity.