Dan Chapa

Martin Luther provides a devotional challenge applicable to Calvinists today: With reference to the elect we might distinguish between three classes.   First, there are those who are satisfied with God’s will, as it is, and do not murmur against God, but rather believe that they are elected.   They do not want to be damned.   Secondly, there are those who submit to God’s will and are satisfied with it in their hearts.   At least they desire to be satisfied, if God does not wish to save, but reject them.   Thirdly, there are those who really are ready to be condemned if God should will this.   These are cleansed most of all of their own will and carnal wisdom.   (Martin Luther.   Commentary on Romans.   Kregel Publishing. 1976 p 132) Would you be satisfied with God not electing you?   Should you be?   One the one hand, I can see a certain selflessness in what Luther calling for.   Whatever may happen to me, Thy will be Do...

Arnobius of Sicca (died c. 330) 64. But, my opponents ask , if Christ came as the Saviour of men, as you say, why does He not, with uniform benevolence, free all without exception? I reply , does not He free all alike who invites all alike? or does He thrust back or repel any one from the kindness of the Supreme who gives to all alike the power of coming to Him,—to men of high rank, to the meanest slaves, to women, to boys? To all, He says, the fountain of life is open, and no one is hindered or kept back from drinking. If you are so fastidious as to spurn the kindly offered gift, nay, more, if your wisdom is so great that you term those things which are offered by Christ ridiculous and absurd, why should He keep on inviting you , while His only duty is to make the enjoyment of His bounty depend upon your own free choice? God, Plato says, does not cause any one to choose his lot in life; nor can another’s choice be rightly attributed to any one, since freedom of choice was put in ...

Here's a link to Paul Manata's excellent article titled 'Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology: A Contemporary Introduction'.   ( link )  Paul's main point, that Calvinism is determinism, is spot on.  Paul recognizes and answers the movement being generated by those denying Calvinism is deterministic.  I also think the article serves as a highly useful interface into the literature on free will/determinism.  I do, of course, disagree with a number of points in the article, but they are fairly minor except in the arguments against libertarian free will section. 

Steve Ray recently pointed out that the bible attributes salvation to things other than faith.   ( link ) Salvation, taken narrowly, is a synonym for justification, but salvation also has a broad sense, including things like entrance into heaven itself.   We are justified by faith alone, but that does not mean we are saved (in the broad sense) by faith alone.   My ear alone hears, but if it’s torn from my head, it will no longer hear.   Likewise, faith, when not accompanied with works, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and forgiving others, does not save.   In this sense, things besides faith are conditions for salvation, but they do not receive God’s free gift of justification – only faith does. One of the categories of items Steve mentioned deserves special attention – God’s grace, the cross, Christ’s blood and His righteousness.   It’s wrong to oppose faith with God’s grace.   Faith does not earn but rather receives God’s gifts.

That Camping could know when Christ will return or that James White could know that if Camping seeks to rescue his reputation, he will end up in hell? James White:  "I fear if you seek to rescue your reputation, you will end your life under the wrath of God. Your unwillingness to listen to counsel has already caused great damage to the cause of Christ. You have one final chance for redemption, sir. Do not remain stiff-necked. Repent and turn from your ways ."  ( link )

I recently reviewed what the Church Fathers had to say on the atonement and was pleasantly surprised by what I learned. They often said things that support my understanding of the atonement - penal substitution. Penal substitution is the idea that sin we broke God's law, His justice demanded that we be punished, and Christ satisfied God's justice by a substitutionary penalty. Sometimes this idea is fairly explicit in the Fathers. In particular, I found Eusebius' statement that in OT sacrifices, animals were slain in the place of men, prefiguring what Christ would do, as a very powerful affirmation of penal substitution. Clearly, the OT sacrifices were offered to God, not Satan, so if you view the sacrifices as penal substitutions, you are basically there. The other person that stood out to me was Theodore Abucara, who plainly taught penal substitution. While he was pre-reformation, he is probably too late to be considered a church father. Beyond Eusebius and Abucara, the ...

In one of the additions to the book of Daniel, Susanna makes a statement that I don't think would sit well with Open Theism.  Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said: O eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass, ( Daniel 13:42 ) It seems safe to say the OT Jews were not Open Theists.