Dan Chapa

Theojunkie, a friendly levelheaded Calvinist, recently made an interesting comment about original sin: I doubt that you TRULY deny the federal headship of Adam (though your last sentence strongly suggests that you do). I think however that you misspoke, because just recently you stated that Arminians (yourself included) affirm the full reality (that is, the Reformed view) of Total Depravity in post-fall man. You stated that the difference between Reformed and Arminian theology does not lie in the doctrine of TD. Note that it is because of the federal headship of Adam that all men are naturally born into this condition of total depravity. ( context ) Some people explain original sin in that we would have done the same thing as Adam. I am not dogmatic about this, but I am inclined to disagree. Adam’s sin is foreign to us, but imputed to us. What we would have done (under compatiblist assumptions) seems to me to be an indictment of our character, not an imputation of somet...

Outline of Edwards’ Arguments in Part III.IV Commands inconsistent with LFW God commands the acts of the will, not the acts of body executing the will’s commands. If there’s a sequence of acts of the will, the first act that drives the train is the one God’s commands pertain to. Whatever comes before that first act of the will isn ’t the subject of the command. But some Arminians say the act of the soul determines the act of the will. So that act of the soul isn ’t subject to divine commands. Other Arminians say nothing causes the acts of the will, but then they happen by accident and pure chance. And if they happen by pure chance, there’s no point to God regulating them with a law. Inability and Responsibility Disobedience implies a moral inability to obey, because some moral cause must have determined the sin’s occurrence Natural inability is incompatible with responsibility if the will complies with a command, but the body is hindered, the man is excused Natural inability c...