Dan Chapa

In Daniel Whedon's Comentary on Romans 9 , he argues that Paul's quotations of the old testament support the Arminian view of the passage. In some ways, I found Whedon to be a prototype of more recent Arminian explanations of the passage. Specifically, his digging into the context of "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" in Exodus 32-33 was a big step in the right direction. Whedon explains the verses and then refutes Barnes' (a Calvinist) view. He notes the Calvinist interpretation of defending God's justice is really a "might makes right" kind of view. He objects: "Power increased infinitely cannot change right. A creature can be supposedly wronged by even an infinite being. The predesinarian interpretation makes Paul pretend to give a reason, but really resorts to force, and seeks to frighten his opponents out of reasoning."

John Wagner recently edited and republished Daniel Whedon’s Freedom of the Will: A Wesleyan response to Jonathan Edwards . The book is an outstanding refutation of Edward’s Inquiry into the Will. Whedon seeks and engages top authors and arguments like Hobbs’ argument (latter adopted by Locke and Edwards) that free will is incoherent, because it either amounts to a causeless cause or infinite regression of causes. Whedon responds by pointing out 1) the will is the cause of choice (74), 2) defining indeterministic causes (38-39) and 3) explaining that indeterministic causes account for either choice (71-72). In other words, indeterministic causes explain the goal of our choices (or reason for our choices), but in the will is the cause we choose this goal, not that goal. This is essentially agent causation. Whedon’s discussion of foreknowledge is fascinating. His refutation of Edwards' God's foreknowledge rules out freewill argument is solid. I like his pointing out that we ...