Dan Chapa

The Scholastics used to ask “does predestination place anything in the predestined?” A relevant question indeed concerning Acts 4:28. Consider the translation change from the 1984 NIV to the 2012 ISV: “They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” 1984 New International Version “to carry out everything that your hand and will had predetermined to take place” 2012 International Standard Version The NIV speaks of God’s choice – a mental resolution on His part – the ISV speaks of God’s actions impacting and determining the events. In the NIV, God’s mind is set; in the ISV the events are set. The Greek term proorizo is flexible in either direction – both translations are permissible. Yet the ISV clarifies the ambiguous term in favor of Calvinism. The argument for determinism based on the ISV is simple – God predetermined sinful actions for which man is morally responsible, therefore compatible determinism is true. But this argument is not quite so ...

In Unam Sanctum, the Pope declared himself to be over the secular government and history is replete with examples of Pope’s trying to control governments. 1 By contrast, the Baptist Faith and Message sates: “ Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work .” Which is more in line with the American Way  and the 1 st Amendment which states “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ”? ------------------------------------ 1 We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in...

Some Roman Catholics argue that the first council of Nicea proves the Bishop of Rome was a universal bishop over all regions. The ancient customs of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis shall be maintained, according to which the bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these places since a similar custom exists with reference to the bishop of Rome . Similarly in Antioch and the other provinces the prerogatives of the churches are to be preserved. In general the following principle is evident: if anyone is made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, this great synod determines that such a one shall not be a bishop. If however two or three by reason of personal rivalry dissent from the common vote of all, provided it is reasonable and in accordance with the church's canon, the vote of the majority shall prevail. ( link ) The statement is ambiguous if the bishop of Rome is over the surrounding provence of Rome or over everything.  However, it's important to note that Rufi...

Your Blessedness has also been careful to declare that you do not now make use of proud titles, which have sprung from a root of vanity, in writing to certain persons, and you address me saying, As you have commanded. This word, command, I beg you to remove from my hearing, since I know who I am, and who you are. For in position you are my brethren, in character my fathers. I did not, then, command, but was desirous of indicating what seemed to be profitable. Yet I do not find that your Blessedness has been willing to remember perfectly this very thing that I brought to your recollection. For I said that neither to me nor to any one else ought you to write anything of the kind; and lo, in the preface of the epistle which you have addressed to myself who forbade it, you have thought fit to make use of a proud appellation, calling me Universal Pope. But I beg your most sweet Holiness to do this no more , since what is given to another beyond what reason demands is subtracted from yourse...

Calvinist often site Hebrews 10:14 as teaching limited/definitive atonement. Specifically, the perfect tense of “has perfected” indicates our perfecting took place in the past – it’s settled and done with, though it has lasting results into the future. Of course, this leads to questions like are we born justified, and also, if we are already perfect, why are we being sanctified? But rather than critiquing the Calvinist view, I would like to focus on alternative explanations. For years, I held this passage references three time frames: three events. Here’s what it looks like as a timeline: First is the cross, which is the offering whereby Christ supplied the provision – the only basis for salvation. This is the “by one offering”. The third event is happening while the book of Hebrews is written; the sanctification of the believers. This is referenced by “are being sanctified”. In between is a second, implicit event; the conversion of the people spoken of in Hebrews; the ...

The Canons of Dort say Christ acquired faith for us by His death ( Point 2, article 8 ). 1  The significance of this seemly minor point is that Christ buying the condition of the covenant effectively changes the covenant from conditional to unconditional. Christ buying faith links the provision and application of Christ’s blood – ensuring the provision and application are co-extensive. When the bible says Christ bought us or redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, it’s talking about penal substitution. God’s law and justice demand the punishment of sinners, so we were lawbreakers and under a sentence of death. Christ redeems us by penal substitution – He satisfies justice by His death. The same cannot be said for faith. The bible never says Christ bought or redeemed faith. Does faith need to be rescued? Is faith a lawbreaker and under a sentence of death? It’s not like the bible speaks of Christ’s death overcoming some obstacle to God’s giving ...

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 1 Kings 11:2, 9 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.... verse 9  The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. God uses His middle knowledge to warn people. If you put yourself into a given circumstance, you will do this.  God knew what would happen if the Israelites intermarried.  He knew what the foreign wives would do and how the Israelites would respond.  Sadly, Solomon didn't listen. On divine determinism,...

Interpretation brings out the meaning of something. There has to be some original being interpreted and some level of faithfulness to represent that original. When interpreting the bible, you have to know what the bible says and try to represent what it says. Now bad interpretations are still interpretations. Much leeway can be given for those who are not experienced in the word of truth (Hebrews 5:14). A child might interpret scripture badly, but they are still interpreting scripture, so long as they are trying to represent what they read. But if someone simply disagrees with scripture, they are not interpreting scripture. For example, if someone “rationalizes” a biblical account of a miracle, they are not interpreting scripture. Because intent is involved, sometimes it’s hard to say if someone is interpreting the bible or not. For example, I recently read a homosexual argue Paul, in Romans 1:26-27, does not condemn all homosexual activity. When someone challenged this, the...

Some Calvinists say God desires for us not to sin, even though He determines us to sin. This divine desire is  like Paul’s unfulfilled desire not to sin (Romans 7:15) or my desire to eat cake when I am on a diet. If all things were equal, I would act on my desire, but all things are not equal. At the same time they accuse Traditional Baptists and Arminians of holding to an idea of an eternally frustrated God. God pines away throughout all eternity as He watches those He loves suffer. Some even go as far as to call God (on Traditional Baptist views) a looser. But how does their view avoid this charge? Here’s Bruce Ware’s example explaining the “two wills” of God. “ Second, I do think we can understand something of how God can genuinely desire the salvation of all yet ordain and determine the salvation of only some.43 We can understand something of this because we experience much the same reality at times in our human experience. I recall watching a PBS special many years ago t...

John 3:16 is one of the most well known and loved passages in the bible - because it summarize the Gospel so nicely. Some Calvinists limit "world" from meaning everyone, but many Calvinists do see that John 3:16 is about everyone. 1  That is to say, they agree that God has a general love for all mankind that moved Him to send His Son.  But they stop there, just short of saying God intends to apply the work of His Son to each and every person to save all.  But don't forget verse 17: 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. God's purpose in sending His Son was so that the world [each and every individual], through Christ Jesus, might be saved.  Contra Dort's claim that: " it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which he c...

James White and Turretinfan are doing a good job responding to Jason Stellman’s interview about converting to Roman Catholicism  ( Response 1 , Response 2 ), but I wanted to add my two cents on a few things.  About 30 minutes in, Stellman argues if you really understand sanctification you don’t need imputation.   If the Holy Spirit makes us fulfill the law, why do you need the imputation of Christ’s righteousness?   But Stellman’s argument works equally well (or poorly) against forgiveness.   If you really understand sanctification you don’t need imputation forgiveness. If the Holy Spirit makes us fulfill the law, why do you need  the imputation of Christ’s righteousness forgiveness? 1   If Stellman truly understood forgiveness, he would have no need for penance, purgatory or the Roman Catholic doctrine of suffering, which confuses suffering for sin with suffering for Christ. Likewise, when Stellman argues that God does not require perfection, ...

Being associated with the Pharisees is normally unflattering.  But considering Paul was originally a Pharisee, it's important to understand what they believed.  And they maintained God's providential control and man's freedom in a way only Molinists today can.  Here's how Josephus described the Pharisees view: 3. Now, for the Pharisees, ... when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-18.htm the Pharisees are those who are esteemed most skillful in the exact explication of their laws, and introduce the first sect. These ascribe all to fate [or providence], and to God, and yet allow, that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men, although f...

According to Roman Catholic theology, both penance and purgatory make reparations to God’s justice by satisfying the temporal punishments for sins that have already been forgiven .  Given this line of thinking, why not go for the more brutal forms of penance?  ( link ) Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

Luis De Molina is often called the inventor of the idea that God knows what we would choose in any setting.  But Molina’s role is really more of a systematizer and defender of this idea, rather than inventor.  Of course, the idea is in the bible itself ( link ), but it’s also in some of the Church Fathers.  For example, Gregory of Nyssa uses this idea to theorize why God allows infants to die.  Now Gregory’s use is somewhat speculative and may not be all that helpful to grieving parents (“Oh great, not only is my kid dead, but he would have grown up to be a Hitler…”).  So I don’t bring this up to sign off on Gregory’s theory, but rather mealy to note the use of the idea in the Fathers, well prior to Molina’s time.  Here’s Gregory of Nyssa’s comment: "It is a sign of the perfection of God's providence, that He not only heals maladies that have come into existence, but also provides that some should be never mixed up at all in the things which...

All quotes from Eef Dekker’s Was Arminius a Molinist? The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 337-352.  Arminius: The knowledge of God is a faculty of his life, which is the first in nature and order, by which he distinctly understands each and every thing, whatever entity they have, will have, have had, can have, or might hypothetically have, and of each and every thing their order, connection, and various aspects that they have or can have; not even excluded that entity which belongs to reason, and which only in the mind, imagination or enunciation exists or can exist. (Public Disputation IV.30) Dekker: … "Hypothetical entity" may sound just the same as "possible entity." There is, however, a weighty reason not to regard it as such. It is one of the characteristic features of Molinism to distinguish that which is possible from that which can hypothetically exist. In the first case it is about things that can exist, in the seco...

All quotes from Richard Muller’s God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Directions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early Orthodoxy. Baker Book House, 1991. By way of repudiating the Reformed view, Arminius would not only adopt a concept of scientia media, he would also argue an alternative view of concurrence…. Walaeus notes, however, that this hypothetical knowing is not necessarily to be understood as a third kind of knowledge separate from the scientia simplicis intelligentiae.  Arminius argues precisely the point that the definitions offered by his Reformed contemporaries have purposely excluded.  After his basic set of definitions, Arminius presents the thesis that: The Scholastics say besides, that one kind of God’s knowledge is natural and necessary, another free, and a third intermediate (mediam).  (1) Natural or necessary knowledge is that by which God understands himself and all possibilities; (2) free know...

Simon Episcopius led the Remonstants at Dort, after Arminius’ death. ( link for background on Episcopius ) Like Arminius, he held to middle knowledge. ( link ) Here’s what he had to say about middle knowledge: This order to be rightly understood, has come to be observed, by usually attributing to God threefold knowledge. One which is necessary and practical and is called simple intelligence, which by its nature is prior to all free acts of [the divine] will, which God has of himself and knows all possibilities. The other free, which is called vision, and is after the free act of the [divine] will, by which God has decreed to do or permit all things, knows the same order, when it decided to make or permit to be done. Third, Middle, by which God knows what men or angels would do by their own freedom, under conditions, if with these or those circumstances, in this or that state, or established order. Whether this distinction is rightly said of the divine knowledge, we do not consid...

Genesis 15:5-6: He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be. Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. What a monumental event. Did God foreknow Abram’s belief? Most Christians say yes. The question I would like to ask is, is such a belief consistent with simple foreknowledge? Simple foreknowledge is the view that God simply knows the future. Those who hold to simple foreknowledge are not divine determinists; they hold to libertarian freedom. Likewise they are not Molinists, God does not have middle knowledge (the idea that God knows what people would choose in various settings). Also they are not open theists, they believe God has exhaustive foreknowledge. They say God simply knows the future.  But simple foreknowledge is providentially useless. Consider the grandfather paradox (i.e. you go back in time an kill your own grandfather). Simi...

This election was heartbreaking.     It’s heartbreaking that our best choices were a heretic and an apostate.     It’s heartbreaking to see most Americans vote against biblical morals on abortion and homosexuality.   It’s heartbreaking for me to realize that the “liberal media” is not some loud minority view, but in some cases represents the majority view.    It’s heartbreaking that my kids will inherit socialism and massive debt.   My hope is in Christ alone.   He alone can bring good out of this.   He alone can save America.   He alone makes all things new.  

The election of a new Coptic Pope is a good reminder that Rome isn't the only ancient church claiming to be the one true church.  ( link ) Rome and Alexandria split over a bit of theology that would by today's standards look trivial.  Same with Rome and the East.  Makes you wonder, did they take theology more seriously back then?  Or were the theological issues only the pretext and the political autonomy was the real goal?  Probably both.  In any case,  the ancient church was not perfectly united in the idea that the Pope in Rome was the boss. 

You think that others, too, are gods, whom we know to be devils. However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to which free-will and not force should lead us—the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice. For they can have no desire of offerings from the unwilling, unless they are animated by a spirit of contention, which is a thing altogether undivine. ( link )

Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner conducted a survey on free will. [i]   They argue these studies suggest that ordinary people’s pre-theoretical intuitions about free will and responsibility do not support incompatibilism.   It appears to be false—or certainly too hasty—to claim that ‘‘most ordinary persons. . . believe there is some kind of conflict between freedom and determinism’’ (Kane, 1999, p. 218 ).   In this post, I am going to dispute their interpretations of the results of their study.   The surveyors only present the results of a doubly revamped survey in their paper.   Of the first round they say: “ In some initial surveys we found that people do not understand the concept ‘determinism’ in the technical way philosophers use it. Rather, they tend to define ‘determinism’ in contrast with free will .” (565)   Likewise they report “ Examples of participants’ definitions of ‘determinism’ include: ‘‘Being unable...

1 Corinthians 10:13 states: No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Paul claims God's faithfulness in light of what some Jews did, such as grumble in the desert. Not all the Israelites fell into sin, but many did, even though God always provides His people with an exit path. That God does not allow unbearable temptations is a frank expression of His faithfulness. The application for Paul's audience and Christians generally is that every time we are tempted, God gives us the ability not to yield. Sadly we sometimes do give in to temptation, even though we are able to do otherwise.   Most people agree the Bible teaches libertarian free will without further ado.   But some, perhaps those from Missouri, need details, so this post attempts to provide argumentation that 1 Cori...

William Lane Craig did say he thinks Calvin was a hyper-Calvinist.  ( see Defenders Podcasts section 17 The Doctrine of Man, lesson 13 ).  Dr. White pokes fun at this statement in his intro to "Radio Free Geneva" and recently someone cited this as evidence that Dr. Craig does not understand Calvinism.  While Dr. Craig was speaking loosely, I am sure if pressed on the point he would agree there are differences between John Calvin and say Vince Chung or David Englesma’s (or if you disagree they are hyper-Calvinist, insert your favorite hyper-Calvinist).  Rather, he's saying Calvin was equally deterministic as Chung and Englesma.  The context of Dr. Craig's statement was an extended discussion on if Calvinism paradoxicly asserts both libertarian freedom and divine determinism.  Some of Dr. Craig's students were arguing both are true and somehow it all works out.  As a response to show that Calvinism is fully deterministic and does not include liber...

Dr. Andrew Davis wrote chapter 3 of Whomever He Wills 1 , which counters Dr. Richard Land's chapter in Whosoever Wills called Congruent Election.  Two high level observations before digging into the details.  First, Dr. Davis does not get into corporate election.  It's not Davis' fault - he is responding to Land and Land doesn't get into corporate election.  But given the popularity of corporate election among Traditionalists and other non-Calvinist, the chapter feels incomplete.  Second, Land constantly calls for a balanced view, one that accounts for passages on election as well as passages such as John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:4-6 and 2 Peter 3:9, which express God's love for all and will for all to be saved.  Davis only deals with election passages - he doesn't touch texts expressing God's love and desire for all to be saved.  Maybe Davis' view is as balanced as Land would like, but his treatment in this chapter is not. The first thing about this chapte...

Many Calvinists argue that if conversion is free in a libertarian sense, then we have some role in if we end up saved or not, an so we get some credit for ending up saved.  Now the simplest line of response is we play a role in believing, but not in salvation.  Believing does not save and believers would still go to hell, were it not for God's mercy. However, the lingering problem is that given God's decision, to save believers and offer of salvation, God obligates Himself to save believers.  Given this covenant, God should save believers and it would be morally wrong not to.  Consider Hebrews 6: 13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself,14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when G...

Article two of the traditional understanding of the SBC view of God's plan of salvation ( link ) has been called Semi-Pelagian   here ,  here  and  here .  What is semi-Pelagianism?  The short answer is the denial that we need grace in order to believe in Christ.  The longer answer is that semi-Pelagianism is probably best defined in the Cannons of Orange (529AD) that condemned the view. ( link )  Here's the article that gets accused of Semi-Pelagianism: Article Two: The Sinfulness of Man We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell. We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any perso...