Dan Chapa

As some may know, I have been on break from blogging while I re-write my analysis on Romans 9-11. I am doing so in preparation for my debate with Turretinfan. I look forward to getting back and finishing up the Owen/Atonement topic, but I realized I couldn't effectively blog and prepare for the debate simultaneously. But I thought I would pop in and mention why I debate Calvinists. I have debated Calvinists either in person or over the web for many years. It's not to convince Calvinists to switch to Arminianism. If that happens, God be praised, but that's not my goal. I don't debate them to clear up misconceptions about Arminianism. Many hold mistaken notions of Arminianism, which I am happy to correct, but that's not why I debate. It's not because I think Calvinism is dangerous, walking a tight rope over hell with banana peels for shoes. While I would like the reformed to reform a tad bit more, I am happy to say they are dead center in the middle of o...

Having finished the review of Owen’s objections to unlimited atonement I wanted to briefly review where we have been and go over, God willing, where we are going. Where We Have Been. We started with a Review of Owen’s understanding of the atonement . This shows Owen’s primary misunderstanding in Books 1 & 2 of the Death of Death in the Death of Christ, relating to the differences between Christ’s death and His intercession. Then we moved to the top 10 reasons to believe Christ died for all . Owen’s objections to these reasons, found in Book 4, were discussed as well. Included within the top 10 was a detailed analysis of every New Testament usage of the word world , to discover the right sense in which Christ died for the world. Recently, we just finished reviewing Owen’s arguments against unlimited atonement . This step-by-step review of Owen’s objections to unlimited atonement covers Book 3. What’s Upcoming I plan on taking a break from the topic for little bit, while I fo...

Turretinfan and I have worked out a resolution and process for the debate. Here's the resolution: Romans 9-11 teaches unconditional individual election to salvation. Turretinfan will be affirmative and I will be negative. Further, we have worked out some of the rules. Here's what we have: 1AC - 2k words Neg C-X of Aff (three simple questions (i.e. not multipart or highly argumentative) - answers limited to 500 words) 1NC - 2k words Aff C-X of Neg (same as Neg C-X) 1st Neg Rebuttal (2k words) 1st Aff Rebuttal (2k words) Audience Questions (person to whom question is directed gets 500 words, other side gets 150 word followup) Neg Conclusion - 1k words Aff Conclusion - 1k words That's the visible part. Before the debate gets started we are going to do a few things. 1) I am going to update the paper I put out on Romans 9 The original, which started this whole debate, is here: http://www.geocities.com/freewilltheology/romans9.html 2) Turr...

I recently read through Romans 9 looking at the Greek. I compared the Westcott & Hort to the Texus Receptus. There were not significant variants. I also looked at the various ways words could be translated and why the translators chose what they did. For the most part, I was good with the King James Version, which is based on the Texus Receptus. I also liked the New American Standard Bible, which is based on the Westcott and Hort. Below are my notes. I started in verse 4 and when to verse 24. In verses I skipped, I didn’t come up with anything different than the King James. Verse 7: (KJVA) Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. (NASB) nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED." ουδ οτι εισιν σπερμα αβρααμ παντες τεκνα αλλ εν ισαακ κληθησεται σοι σπερμα The last word in the translations klethesetai can be translated either ca...

Turretinfan has agreed to a debate on the correct interpretation of Romans 9. We have yet to work out the timing, rules and resolution but will be doing so shortly, DV . In the mean time I have been going through Romans 9 and translating it. At the time I wrote this article: http://www.geocities.com/freewilltheology/romans9.html I hadn't yet studied Greek. So far, my reviewing the chapter in Greek only provides minor modifications to my understanding of the chapter. When I have finished I plan on posting a few translation notes.

Recently I asked Turretinfan if he would be interested in a debate on the correct interpretation of Romans 9. This came about through an aritcle I wrote on Romans 9 about 5 years ago. Here’s a link: http://www.geocities.com/freewilltheology/romans9.html Turretinfan mentioned he objected to practically every aspect of my interpretation, but we haven’t had an opportunity to go through the passage together. So I figured this would be a good way to do so. I have proposed some rules as to how to approach the debate and asked him to take a shot at the resolution. We will see where this goes.