Arminius’s eternity is not endless extension of clock-ticks. It is a mode of the essence: no beginning, no end, and no succession of former and latter in God himself. Wesley’s doxology is simpler and sweeter: the King of eternity—and how unspeakably sweet that thought is to believers. John 1 and Genesis 1 are read together: when created things began, the Word already was.
1 Timothy 6’s “who alone has immortality” keeps the difference between God and creatures honest. We are given life; he is life. Romans 16’s mystery kept secret for long ages and now disclosed does not mean God has just arrived. It means the eternal God has spoken in time. Daniel’s “everlasting dominion” is the same confession in a pagan court.
Pastoral Arminian notes use eternity for worship, not speculation. You cannot wait God out, and you are not an afterthought in a late universe. There is no historic fork here with Calvin on whether God is eternal. The argument, when it comes, is how an eternal purpose relates to those who will believe—taken up on the sovereignty and election pages.
The Shorter Catechism’s “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable” is the Reformed child’s sentence and the theologian’s outline. Westminster places “eternal” among the perfections of the one God, not as a poetic extra. Calvin’s John 1 will not let the Word begin when the world begins. Eternity is asserted by contrast with created commencement.
On this reading, “before the ages” in the Pastorals and “in the beginning” in John are one timeline God does not occupy from the inside the way we do. Daniel 7’s Ancient of Days is not a tired deity. He is the one whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. Time is a creature; God is not.
Pastoral Reformed notes use eternity for both humility and rest. Our lives are short; his years have no end. Election “before the foundation of the world” is how many Reformed writers apply this attribute in salvation—without claiming Arminians deny that God is eternal. The fork is the decree, not the calendar of heaven.
Key contrast Both confess that God is without beginning or end and that the Word was in the beginning. There is no historic split on the attribute itself; remaining disagreement belongs to how an eternal purpose relates to election, not to whether God is everlasting.