Dan Chapa

Scripture is authoritative, meaning it is worthy of us believing its teachings and obeying its commands. Its authority comes from its Author: God, based on His truth, power and sovereignty. What the scripture teaches comes with all the authority of “thus saith the Lord”. Denying the authority of scripture is denying God’s authority, because the scripture is God’s Word. Catholics, in my opinion, indirectly undermine the authority of scripture, because: They teach errors, and claim exemption from the scrutiny of scripture. People are not allowed to look in scripture to find out if submission to the Pope is necessary for salvation. They subject scripture to another authority, the church. In practice they are not equivalent authorities. If you think scripture is telling you to do X and the church says do Y, you must do Y (and also unthink that the scripture said to do X). They use and teach the use of eisegesis (as opposed to exegesis). Instead of turning to scripture for the meanin...

Dave Armstrong provided some arguments against sola scriptura that I thought I would address. Initially he provided some definitions of sola scriptura , which I more or less agreed with. Here's his first issue regarding "victory conditions" in the sola scriptura debate. The Catholic needs to go further than that and establish, based on unassailable biblical evidence, examples of tradition or Church proclamations that were binding and obligatory upon all who heard and received them. Whether these were infallible is another more complex question, but a binding decree is already either expressly contrary to sola scriptura , or, at the very least, a thing that casts considerable doubt on the formal principle. I don't think what you suggest would disprove sola scriptura . Unquestionably, before the bible, there were oral teachings which were binding. Of course anything Christ said was binding. Before Moses, God taught His people in means other than writing. Fu...

Charles Cameron’s article, “Arminius―Hero or Heretic?” explains that James Arminius comes as a bit of a surprise to both Calvinists and Arminians today, as he is closer to Calvinism than people expect. Cameron starts with some preliminaries about Arminius (his affinity for Calvin’s commentaries, his approach to reconciling differences and his commitment to scripture) and then dives into the 5 points of Calvinism. On Total Depravity, Cameron notes Arminius’ focus on grace, not freewill. On Election, Arminius teaches a Christocentric, evangelical, eternal, decree whereby God chooses to save believers. Cameron questions the “from eternity” and “based on foreknowledge” aspect of Arminius’ explanation of election. On the Atonement, Arminius avoids universalism, but advocates God’s universal love and the availability of forgiveness for all. On Grace, Arminius avoids deterministic necessity, but affirms man’s dependence on God’s grace. On Perseverance, Cameron notes that Arminius does n...

In Robert E. Picirilli’s article Foreknowledge, Freedom, and the Future, he explains that Reformation Arminians hold that God knows what we will freely choose in the future, whereas Neo-Arminians (a.k.a. Open Theists) disagree. With a little help from Arminius and Richard Watson, Pircirilli carefully defends his thesis that “ there is nothing about the certainty of the future that is in conflict with the ability of human beings to make free, moral decisions ” by defining certainty, necessity and contingency and demonstrating how contingency and certainty don’t conflict. Picirilli explains that the difference between Calvinists and Arminians is foreordination, not foreknowledge. For the Reformation Arminian, then, the final set of facts to hold is: (1) the future is certain and foreknown certainly by God; (2) this is in full harmony with the fact that human beings make free, moral choices for which they are held justly responsible. (link)

I recently read Michael Patton's post on the canon of scripture , Dave Armstrong’s response , and Turretinfan’s debate with Matthew Bellisario on sola scriptura . Before I continue, let me make it clear that I agree with sola scriptura and reject the Catholic explanation of the rule of faith. Further, I think Michael and Turretinfan did a good job overall, and were more convincing than their Catholic opponents. Nevertheless, both Michael Patton and Turretinfan made maneuvers that surprised me and in my opinion weakened their defense of sola scriptura. Michael Patton, in responding to the Catholic argument that without the infallible declaration of the Church, there would be no way of knowing what books belong in the canon of Scripture , replies Protestants have a fallible canon of infallible books . Why does he make this surprising move? Michael realizes the question is one of epistemology - “How do you know?” But Michael rejects absolute certainty for relative certainty. T...

I made a quick youtube video on James Arminius, giving a brief overview of his history and of the 5 points of the Remonstrants. Enjoy!!!

In Brian Abasciano’s article Corporate Election in Romans 9: A Reply to Thomas Schreiner , Abasciano corrects Schreiner’s mistaken notion that corporate election denies any place to the individual . He argues that election is primarily corporate based on 1) the OT concept of election, 2) Paul’s statements about election to salvation and the fact that 3) first century culture was collectivist rather than individualistic. However, even though the primary focus of election is the community , the fact remains that the individual is elect secondarily as a member of the community . All this sets the stage for correctly understanding election in Romans 9 and answering Schreiner’s arguments. (link)

In Martin Glynn’s critique of the Articles of the Remonstrants, he provides a brief and helpful historical introduction and then dissects each of the five articles. Glynn notes the two surprises in the pile: article 3 is an unqualified expression of Total Depravity and in article 5 the Remonstrants are undecided on the issue of apostasy and simply say they need to research it more in Scripture . (link)

Man’s faith and Freedom is a collection of 5 essays and a sermon presented at the 1960 Arminius Symposium in Holland in 1960. Instead of giving the overall volume mixed reviews, I will review each essay separately. The Life and Struggles of Arminius in the Dutch Republic by Gerrit Jan Hoenderdall presents a succinct and accurate summary of the life and times of James Arminius. Arminius' theological training and pastoral experiences in Amsterdam prepared him for professorship at Leiden, where his disagreements with Calvinistic predestination came to a head. Hoenderdall does a good job capturing the political undercurrents involved in the theological debates in Holland. The topic of debate was predestination but what were the rules and more importantly who was to preside over the debate? Arminius enjoyed some limited, hard-fought progress, but shortly after his death the Calvinists would prevail. The irony in Arminius’ life was his quarreling to gain peace. From Arminius to Armin...