Dan Chapa

Thank you Dan and Turretinfan for engaging in this debate on Does The Bible Teaches Libertarian Free Will and edifying the body of Christ. We like to also thank you the listener for setting time aside and joining us for this debate. Just for a quick closing thought, we must remember this is an in house debate that has gone on for centuries in Christendom.  This is not a test of Christian orthodoxy but is still a very important secondary understanding.  We are called to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind so we must wrestle with this understanding as revealed to us in Scripture.  This is what Dan and Turretinfan has done here in this debate.  They have challenged the opposing view while expounding their own position to the edification of the body for the glory of God. What is not up for debate is the means of saving faith.  We all here agree that salvation is through Jesus Christ and Him alone.  The reformers taught that there are 3 compone...

Thank you Jeff and Turretinfan.  This debate has been helpful for me, in that it gave me reason to dig deeper into God’s word.  And that’s a good thing.  I want to say I appreciate Jeff and Turretinfan’s time and efforts that went into this.  That said, I do find turretinfan’s view monstrous.  Rodger Olson finds divine determinism monstrous because God is ultimately behind the fall, every sin after it and the losts’ being in hell.  I find it monstrous for another reason. The scriptural evidence for determinism is like the lock ness monster.  There’s plenty of fuzzy photo’s and doctored evidence but no hard proof to be found for divine determinism.  Arguments that turretinfan used like the hardening are irrelevant, because it’s an exception rather than the rule. Is anyone going to say that all the sins ever committed are the result of God’s hardening?  No way. It’s also insufficient because as I pointed out, the passages say that Pharaoh...

The first point that we should consider is that the affirmative burden has not been met.  If fact, all that scripture does is speak about choosing, which both on compatiblism and on LFW is the case. More significantly, scripture even speaks of the will being exercised, choices being made and God determining those things, hand in hand, which shows that those two things are compatible.  That’s the strongest evidence that we could get that those things are compatible and we haven’t had anything from the other side.  There’s no where in scripture that says the other way, that they are incompatible.  Most of the argument has revolved around whether or not something is a real possibility if unbeknownst to us, God has determined which of the two possibilities we will choose.  In other words, what it comes down to is one side shouting more loudly that such and such isn’t a real possibility if in fact God has determined we will select the other possibility of the t...

TF:  Thank you very much.  Do you believe God ordained the fall? Dan: Please define ordained. TF: ha, ha.  I see.  Did you provide in your affirmative constructive a definition of libertarian free will? Dan: Yes, I said the essence of libertarian free will is the ability to choose something or not.  I used the example of ice cream, the ability to choose ice cream or not. TF: did you address the question of whether or not that involves the denial of the compatibility with determinism? Dan:  No, not in my opening speech.  We just dealt with it in the last cross ex.  Specifically the one possible future vs two possibilities.  One does not equal two so one is incompatible with the definition of two.  One future, two futures.  One possibility, two possibilities.  TF: Did you provide a definition of possibility? Dan: No, would you like one? TF: In the usual sense people talk about possibilities, do t...

Dan: how should we go about defining scriptural terms? TF: The best way define terms in scripture is of course to look at them in context and try to determine authorial intent.  See what the author was intending to convey. Dan: Do you believe the bible was written to the common man?  To Israel or this or that church.  Was it written for the common man to read? TF: Yes. Dan: OK, do you believe dictionaries cite common usage? TF: Dictionaries provide common contemporary usage, yes. Dan: OK, do you believe the usage of the word choose has drastically changed over time? TF: No, I didn’t take that position. Dan: Ok, I was just wondering if that’s what you believed.  Do you believe an elect person can fall away and ultimately perish? TF: I don’t believe that’s a question about anything I argued but to answer the question the scriptures teach that all those, who He called, He justified, and all those He justified, He ultimately glorifie...

So far in this debate we are still without an affirmative presentation in favor of actual incompatibility between divine determination and human free will.  The first section  of the rebuttal dealt with accusatory comments alleging that my use of words is abnormal.  But in fact my use of the word choose has no sense of being incompatible with divine determination.  That’s the same as all those dictionary definitions we heard earlier.  In fact, they all flow negative, because not one of those definitions both the normal use of the word, the way I use the word, which is normal, and the way in which the scriptures use the word,  not one of those meanings is incompatible with divine determination.  In other words, even though in the context of a philosophical discussion or in the context of trying to answer a precise question, one might place careful qualifications to make sure that the meaning of one’s words is properly understood, still the meanin...

First off let me start with the issue of defining the word choose, obviously Turretinfan didn’t have a formal definition; it was something he cooked up as opposed to the dictionary.  Now English vs. Hebrew, we can go to the Hebrew if we need to, but every Hebrew grammar and Lexicon I have ever read translate the words in the passages I cited as choose and that goes for both the Greek and for the Hebrew.  So choose is the right word.  So really the question is what the English word means at that point, because we know from the Hebrew and the Greek that the words mean choose. Now if it’s called into question if the words should be translated choose or not, I would cite that every English translation always use choose for Deut 30 and no scholars dispute that.  So the word does mean choose and I simply posit that Turretinfan has a faulty understanding of what the word means, in English.  So let’s get into this notion of you can choose otherwise if you want to....