Dan Chapa

Just took the family to Busch Gardens. Not my youtube clip, but this is my favorite ride in the park.

Dr. Whitby discusses Acts 13:48 in his Discorses on the 5 Points, page 70. First, he gives three problems with the Calvinist translation and then provides multiple examples of how tasso 'ordained' is often translated 'disposed'. Election entails reprobation and so what necessity could there be, 'that the word of God should be first preached to them as we read, verse 46. Was it only that their damnation might be greater? This impugns God's character. The Apostle gives this reason why he turned from the Jews to the Gentiles,—because 'the Jews had thrust away the word of God from them, and judged themselves unworthy of eternal life; (verse 46,) but that's not a good reason to turn from the Jews to the Gentiles, since the Jews were just rejecting because they had to. If Paul knew they were reprobate , why doth St. Paul, by God's commission, speak here to them thus, ' Be it known to you, brethren, that by this Jesus is declared to you remission...

Thomas R. Edgar's THE MEANING OF PROGINWSKW (“FOREKNOWLEDGE”) is a word study on 'foreknow' and 'foreknowledge'. Edgar first notes that " In secular Greek, proginwskw meant “to foreknow, to know beforehand.” Scholars do not seriously dispute this definition." He then contends that " due to strong evidence for the meaning “know beforehand,” those who argue otherwise face the burden of proof for establishing the exegetical necessity for their proposed meaning. The theoretical possibility or the interpreter’s theological propensity is not sufficient. If “to know beforehand” fits the meaning in a New Testament passage, then this must be the preferred interpretation." Edgar then discusss all the passages with foreknow (Acts 26:5; Romans 8:29; 11:2; 1 Peter 1:20; and 2 Peter 3:17) and foreknowledge (Acts 2:23 , 1 Peter 1:2.) and explains with "to know beforehand" works in each case. Edgar deals with the two main Calvinist objections: (1) T...

At first, I wasn't a big fan of Wesley's interpretation of Acts 13:48, but lately I have come to admire it's simplicity. Wesley doesn't get into technical debates about passive vs. middle voice, disputes about translating tasso as ordain vs. dispose or discussions about reflexive meanings with and without the reflexive pronoun. He is just straight and to the point. Here's the passage and Wesley's comments: Act 13:44-48 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of...

http://theojunkie.blogspot.com/ has been removed. I wonder why. Long ago, Theojunkie and I used to discuss Calvinism on crosswalk.com. Now Theojunkie might not be as read up on philosophy as Paul Manata, as knowledgeable of the church fathers as Turretinfan or as rhetorically effective as Steve Hays, but he did have some rare strengths. First, he always kept the big picture in view, we didn't debate details for the sake of it, we only ever got into the weeds as it related to the big picture. Second, he has a very logical mind. Third, Theojunkie didn't use strawman arguments, nor did he "sell to the crowd". If you were talking theology with Theojunkie, it was a legit conversation. Fourth and most importantly, Theojunkie is passionate, sincere and very kind Christian. Finally, he has a good sense of humor. I will miss Theojunkie’s blog.

Steve Hays and I have been discussing choice and determinism. However our last two posts have shown a significant increase in talking past each other rather then moving deeper into the topic. While I could give a line by line response, I would for the most part simply be repeating arguments I already presented. I am taking that as an indication that it's time to wrap things up (for now). My primary argument has been as follows: P1: The bible says we choose P2: Choosing rules out determinism C1: So the bible rules out determinism. P1 is plain in that every English translation of the terms bâcha and eklegomai as choose. Further, the concept of choice crosses linguistic barriers, because it describes something we all experience daily. It would take a conspiracy theory to even suggest that the meanings have shifted over time without scholars noting the change and translating bâcha and eklegomai differently. I supported p2 by citing multiple dictionaries which define choose as s...

This clip is a response to Steve on Frankfurt examples.

Paul’s final post contains somewhat of a summary of our debate, so I won’t respond point by point since that would just be repeating much of what has already been said. While I am not crying ‘straw man’ over his rundown of my argument, I do think it combines my initial argument with my responses to Paul’s statements on choose and determinism. Paul did bring up some new arguments about epistemology which I won’t address either since I doubt the relevance and I would have to do quite a bit of research– to his credit, Paul is much better read on these matters than I. Also, I won’t comment on the role of philosophy and scripture (since I said enough already), even though I actually consider that matter of greater importance than the LFW/determinism debate. The one area I will address is Paul’s definition of choose. Choose = df to select freely out of a greater number of things, where this selecting is a mental action explained in terms of reasons, where a reason is a purpose, end, or goal ...

Long ago I provide a list of scriptural passages that I thought taught freewill. ( link ) Turretinfan asked me: Why do any of the passages you cited, or the combination of passages, require anything more than a simple, Calvinistic free will? I asked him what is Calvinist free will, so I can respond? He said: “ Calvinistic free will simply says that a choice is a determination or judgment by an animate being with respect to one object in preference to another object. ” I responded: “Choice and preference can be synonyms, but to use a synonym to define its counterpart is somewhat bootstrapped.” ( link ) I didn’t consider the “thesaurus approach” precise enough and pushed for a more rigorous definition, which Turretinfan was somewhat reluctant to provide, in fear that it would obscure rather than clarify the issue. Turretinfan warned me that philosophy may just confuse things. ( link ) Gene Bridges said: we Calvinists have no burden of proof to prove "compatibilism," but ...

This post is in response to Paul's post " Choose the best " based on 2 Kings 10.

This youtube clip is a response to Paul Manata's post called some clean up . I want to be clear that I do think of Calvinists as brothers in the Lord.

This youtube clip is in response to Paul's post called kaput . The big picture is that Paul's recent dictionary definition put him where Steve was several months ago and likely this path would have similar results to my exhange with Steve (i.e. him saying here's why such and such squares with determinism and me saying here's why it does not).

Paul claims some libertarian philosophers deny PAP (Principle of Alternate Possibilities). He cites Timothy O' Connor, David Hunt and William Lane Craig. ( link ) This topic is somewhat tangential to our determinism/choose debate, but it's interesting so I thought I would address it. I tend to disagree with PAP but I also disagree with some of Craig's recent comments. I don't think O'Connor was denying PAP and I find Hunt's comments prima-facia inconsistent, so I will only address Craig. PAP and Frankfurt Examples PAP is the idea that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. (Free will Handbook. Fisher. Frankfurt-Type Examples and Semi-Compatiblism. p283.) Note that not just some, but all events for which we are accountable must be free and not necessary under PAP. So for example those holding to PAP must deny we are morally accountable for our actions that result from prior free choices but are themselves not fr...

Paul seems to missunderstand my view on scripture. He states: Crucial to Dan’s argument is the claim that “common man” are all, each and every, libertarians. If Dan claims that some “common men” are not indeterminist, but determinist, then he defeats one of his premises, or makes the Bible speak in contradictions. To spell this point out, recall that Dan says, “The Bible is written by and to the common man, it means what they mean, since they mean certain words libertarianly, then the Bible so means those words.” Yet if we allow some (even one?) of the “common men” to whom the Bible was written to be determinists, then it must mean what they mean by the words that are the topic of our discussion. However, since there are indeterminist “common men”, then the Bible must also mean what they mean by the words we are discussing! Therefore, Dan must assume that each and every “common man” is a libertarian, which I find highly implausible. ( link ) It was not said what was said I said. The b...

Hard on the heels of my “the common man has a libertarian definition of choose” claim is Paul’s retort that not all common men are libertarians. ( link ) Paul cites a survey which he mistakenly attributes to Eddy Nahmias, Jason Turner, Steve Morris but was actually conducted by Thomas Nadelhoffer and Adam Feltz as a follow on study to the original survey. ( link ) The original survey can be found here . Both surveys seem to favor determinism, but only the original study points out it's own shortcomings, openly discusses them and appeals to others to fix them. The first study states: " we view these results as preliminary, not conclusive, and hence as motivation for further research on folk intuitions about freedom and responsibility and for further consideration of the role such intuitions should play in the free will debate " and " A potential problem more specific to our studies is that the presence of determinism might not have been salient enough in the scenarios...

In our debate, I argued that the dictionary definition of choose rules out determinism. In Paul's recent rejoinder he states: “I cited numerous dictionaries that didn’t include a PAP (Principle of Alternate Possibilities) element”. ( link ) This is true, but misleading. Paul defined choice, but not choose. My argument was based on the verb choose, not the noun choice. In this post I would like to revisit the dictionaries, and explain why it's important to distinguish between choice and choose. The Dictionary Definition of Choose The American Heritage College Dictionary (3rd edition) defines choose as: to select from a number of possible alternatives. Dictionary.com defines choose as: to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference thefreedictionary.com defines choose as: To select from a number of possible alternatives; decide on and pick out. The Oxford Compact English Dictionary defines choose as: pick out as being the best of two or more alternatives. Me...