Dan Chapa

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...