Dan Chapa

Here's my opinion of the top 10 most influential post-apostolic theologians of all time: Athanasius – Defended the church from the most serious heresy it faced: Arianism. Martin Luther – Champion of justification by faith and sola scriptura. Augustine – Defended the church from the Manichean and Pelagian heresies, even if he took predestination too far. Basil – Defender of the doctrine of the Trinity. Thomas Aquinas – Reconciled faith and reason. John Calvin – His historical/grammatical approach to scripture paved the way for most of us, even if he took predestination way too far. James Arminius – Athanasius understood God, Augustine understood man, and Arminius understood the relationship between God and man. Anselm – His satisfaction of justice theory of the atonement is almost universally held among evangelicals. Jonathan Edwards – One of the founding revivalists of the first great awakenings and influential American philosopher. Jerome – His translation of the scripture into La...

IX. ARGUMENT SEVEN If man be purely passive in the whole work of his conversion, and it can only be wrought in him by an irresistible act of God upon him, then can nothing be required as a preparation, or a prerequisite to conversion; for either that prerequisite is something to be done on our part in order to God's irresitible act, or it is not ; if nothing is so to be done on our part in order to the work, no preparation can be requisite in order to it; if anything is to be done on our part, it is certain that we are not purely passive in the whole work of our regeneration, since he that must prepare himself for his conversion, must act in order to it. Now as all God's exhortations to men to consider and turn unto the Lord, demonstrate, that this consideration is a prerequisite to conversion, so the parable of the seed sown shows. (1.) Negatively, that the word becomes unfruitful, either because men do not at all attend to it, or because they are diverted from that attention ...

Vlll. ARGUMENT SIX Hence it must also follow that no motive can be offered sufficient to induce the person who believes this doctrine, (as, if it be taught in scripture, all Christians are obliged to do,) to enter upon a change of life, or a religious conversation, till he feel this irresistible impulse come upon him. For as an assent to mere truth does not move the will and affections, unless it be of concernment to us, propounding good to be obtained, or evil to be avoided, so neither can this be sufficient to excite endeavor, if I know as certainly that till this impulse comes upon me I cannot possibly by my best endeavors either obtain that good, or avoid that evil; which being plain to common sense, I shall not farther prosecute.

VII. ARGUMENT FIVE If such a divine, unfrustrable operation is necessary to the conversion of a sinner, then the word read or preached can be no instrument of their conversion without this divine and unfruslrable impulse, because that only acts by moral suasion. Whereas 'it pleased God,' says the apostle, ' by the foolishness of preaching to sate them that believe.'( 1 Corinthians 1:21 ) And St. James, by saying, 'we are begotten anew by the word of truth,'( James 1:18 ) plainly informs us, that this word of God is the ordinary means of our regeneration, it being the word preached, the word we are to hear, ( verse 19, 22 ,) and to 'receive with meekness,' by which God works this new birth in us and ' which,' says the apostle, 'is able to save our souls' ( Verse 21 ) And it is surely a great disparagement to the word of God, to think that his persuasions, admonitions, exhortations, attended with the highest promises and threats, should be ...

V. ARGUMENT FOUR If men are purely passive in the whole work of their conversion, and so are utterly void of all power of believing, living to God, or performing any acceptable obedience to his commands, is it righteous to consign them to eternal misery for their disability to do that which God sees them unable to do when he lays these commands upon them? Is not this to require brick where he affords no straw? Yea, ' to require much where nothing is given,' and then to punish eternally the not-doing that which is so unreasonably required? Yea, is not this equal to an absolute decree to damn them for nothing? It being in effect, and in the necessary event and consequence the same thing to damn then for nothing, and to damn them for not doing what they never could do, or for not abstaining from what they never could avoid. If God makes laws which we cannot without his assistance observe, and then denies that assistance, He by so doing makes obedience to such men impossible, and w...

IV. ARGUMENT THREE If conversion be wrought only by the unfrustrable operation of God, and man is purely passive in it, vain are, First, all the commands and exhortations directed to wicked men 'to turn from their evil ways, to put away the evil of their doings, to cease to do evil, and to learn to do well, to wash and make themselves clean,( Isaiah 1:16 )' to circumcise their hearts, and be no more stiff-necked,( Deuteronomy 10:16 ) to circumcise themselves to the Lord , and take away the foreskins of their hearts, to wash their hearts from wickedness that they may be saved,( Jeremiah 4:4, 14) to put off the old man and put on the new ( Ephesians 4:22-24 ) to lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and to. receive with meekness the ingrafted word.'' ( James 1:21 ) For to suppose that God commands the duty, or imposes that as our duty, under the penalty of everlasting wrath, which he both knows, and, according to this hypothesis, hath declared we neve...

ARGUMENT TWO Of this we shall be more convinced, if we consider with what vehemence, and in what pathetic expressions God desires the obedience and reformation of his people. Thus when the Jews said to Moses, 'speak thou to us all that the Lord shall speak to thee, and we will hear it and do it;' ( Deuteronomy 5:27-29 )' God answers, 'they have well said all that they have spoken; (mi jitten) tis deoei Oh that there were such an heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments -always!' Can it rationally be imagined that he himself, who so passionately desires they might have, and thus enquires who will give them this heart, should himself withhold from them what was absolutely requisite that they might have it? Could he approve their willingness to hear and do his commandments, and yet himself deny them grace or strength sufficient to perform them? i " Who will give that there may be in them such an heart? is" says the bishop of Ely, ...

Proposing the arguments which seem to overthrow this assertion, of an irresistible or unfrustrable grace, necessary to the conversion of a sinner. AND this I shall begin with some general considerations, as God wills. I. That which is sufficient to cause any man to distrust, if not entirely to reject, this doctrine is this, — That the defenders of it are forced, by the evidence of truth, to grant what is inconsistent with their doctrine, and to assert an universal grace, which to all, excepting the elect, is really no grace, as v. g. First, they grant, "that preventing grace, as it is given irresistibly, so likewise is it given universally to men, and that this initial and exciting grace being once granted, is never taken away by God from any man, unless he first of his own accord rejects it;" and yet they resolve the non-conversion, or not believing of all those who are not effectually converted into the want of means sufficient for their salvation, or, which is the same thi...

I have been reading through Daniel Whitby’s Discourses on the Five Points, starting with his view of grace. As I am reading, I am editing slightly, breaking up long sentences, creating paragraph breaks and sometimes updating archaic words and spellings. I started, just to read Jonathan Edwards’ opponent, to better understand were Edwards was coming from, but now I find myself interested in what Whitby has to say. As I read, I plan on posting his work here, and perhaps I will format it up one day. I recently posted some of his thoughts on grace. That was the first of three chapters, within his discourse on grace. The focus of that chapter was defining the issue. I plan on posting his second and third chapters as well. In the second, Whitby argues for resistible grace. In the third, he defends against arguments for irresistible grace. I wanted to note a few differences between Whitby and myself before I continue. Whitby is going to argue that God’s commands make no sense if gr...

In the last two sermons, I hypothesized that Wesley didn't hold to the imputation of Christ righteousness (i.e. the idea that God looks at the believer and doesn't see their sin, but instead sees Christ's perfect obedience to the law.) I wanted to look at a few passages commonly cited to teach imputed righteousness to see what Wesley had to say. Here's his [relevant] notes on 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Romans 4:1-9-12, 1 Corinthians 15:22 and Philippians 3:9 . Wesley does not use these passages to defend the imputed righteousness of Christ. Instead, he claims that imputed righteousness is equivalent to non-imputation of sin and also to forgiveness. This does seem to support my guess that he didn't hold to imputed righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing thei...

The cowboys play Green Bay tonight. So far this year, the Packers look like and NFC leader, so this could be one of the toughest games for the Cowboys all year. The Packers have weapons all over the field, so instead of attempting to take away one point of their game, the Cowboys defense needs to be disruptive. On offense, I think we can run the ball on them. It was a fun win over the Eagles last week, though we won’t beat too many teams that score 37 points.

To proceed then, thirdly, to explain, as far as I am able, what is the manner of the operation of God's grace, and Holy Spirit on the soul. SECTION III. First, I assert that the manner in which God's grace and Holy Spirit acts upon the minds and hearts of men for the production of the fruits of the good Spirit, and the preparatory disposition of the soul towards them, may reasonably be conceived to be such as is suitable to the reason and faculties of men, the understanding and the will. Now it is certain that what naturally makes the understanding to perceive, is evidence proposed and apprehended, considered or adverted to; for nothing else can be requisite to make us come to the knowledge of the truth, and understand what the will of the Lord is be wise to salvation. Hence the apostle prays that the ( Philippians 1:9,10 ) Philippians might abound more and more in knowledge and in all wisdom, en pase aisthesen, in all perception, that they might approve the things that are mos...