The very heart of Christianity can be seen clearly if we look at it from the egocentric versus theocentric way. As discussed before, a person can be egocentric and profess to be an Arminian or Reformed. Egocentricity (man-centered) will take any doctrine and view it in a man-centered way. The human heart is born dead in sin and is lost to pride and self. Jesus Christ humbled Himself to take human flesh and then humbled Himself to go to the cross to suffer and die in the place of sinners. It is so hard for sinful human beings who are bound in their pride and self to see how wicked their pride and self really are. Yet as long as they are in bondage to sin they are proud and self-centered. They may be very religious, but they are religious from a man-centered (egocentric) way. They think of God in terms of their pride and they think of the Gospel and of life in their egocentric way which is full of pride.
In his work A Display of Arminianism John Owen called free-will an idol and various other strong terms. In our day he would be thought of as rather extreme for that view, but perhaps he knew things we do not know. Perhaps he operated from a God-centered point of view and examined the teaching of free-will from that point of view rather than from the man-centered point of view. As the quote below says, “there is no single aspect of religion which may not bear the marks of egocentricity or theocentricity.” The proud heart always wants to be the standard by which God and all others are judged. But a doctrine of Scripture viewed from the proud sight of a proud heart will be much different than one that is viewed from a humble heart. This is simply to say that the proud heart wants all things to be man-centered and the humble heart wants all things to be God-centered. This is why the sharpest contrast in theology is not Arminianism and Calvinism, but between the proud and the humble. A man-centered view of Calvinism will drag it down to a non-Christian theology wrapped in orthodoxy.
“There is no single aspect of religion which may not bear the marks of egocentricity or theocentricity, according as the one or the other of these constitutes the fundamental character of the religious relationship…The two types of religion we have described, it is clear, stand in the sharpest opposition to one another. In their purest forms they would be mutually exclusive. But in actual practice they rarely appear in their purity. As we have already said, all religions show at least some traces of the theocentric motif; and we may add that even the most theocentric of all religions has been unable, in the course of its history, to escape the influence of man’s natural tendency to adapt everything to his own point of view. The history of Christianity is a story of continuous conflict between the two contrasted tendencies.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
Throughout history, the quote above claims, even the most theocentric of religions has been unable to “escape the influence of man’s natural tendency to adapt everything to his own point of view.” This is an incredibly insightful statement. The tendency of pride is to take whatever it is looking at and turn or twist it to fit its own perspective. It will then value it and its use solely on self-centered grounds. In the time of John Owen he thought of Arminian thinking as from a man-centered perspective which from pride tried to usurp the place of God. In modern thought the Reformed view has become man-centered and so the real distinctions between Arminianism and Calvinism have been blurred. It appears that the heart of Arminianism was set up to defend certain aspects of man in contrast to the Reformed thought. Once that slide began, it eventually took over virtually all parts. Those who were God-centered in their approach saw it for what it was. John Owen was one of those who saw it for what it was.
During the time of the Reformation the term Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory) was at the heart of all things. The drive for salvation by faith alone was meant to protect a salvation that was by grace alone which would then be to the glory of God alone. If salvation is meant to be to the praise of the glory of His grace, then it must be by grace alone. The true teaching of justification by faith alone was meant to defend grace alone that was the Gospel of the glory of God. What we simply must see is that just because a person holds to all the intellectual teaching of the Reformers does not mean that the person has the same view of those doctrines as the Reformers did. The Reformation was really a tune devoted to the glory of God alone. That was the battle cry of the Reformation and the standard by which all other things were to be judged by. However, for a long time now egocentricity has wormed its way into the camp and Reformed theology is more of an intellectual system of thought than a ringing defense of the glory of God. It is an attempt to stand with the Reformers in history and yet it does not have the declaration of the glory of God. We have repeated history and are once again adapting all things to a man-centered view. It is nothing short of pride to view things from a man-centered view rather than God’s.
God Loves... Himself 
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