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Spencer Toy has written a critique about the presuppositional method of apologetics. His main critique seems to be that, given the Calvinistic underpinnings of the method there would be no way to sure that God has not revealed some error to the Calvinist to further his own glory. The problem, as Toy sees it, is the relationship between human reasoning and Calvinism. This, Toy argues, produces a problem for presuppositionalists. There are two 'presuppositions' Toy thinks produce the problem: TD: Total Depravity, the view that "human reasoning is so totally depraved that any effort to understand or believe the Gospel is futile. Unless and until the Holy Spirit regenerates the reprobate mind, a person will continue to suppress the truth regardless of how well it is articulated or argued for." DD: Divine determinism, the view that "God causally ordains all things that come to pass. There is no sense in which God merely “permits” things to occur. Everythi...

The foreknowledge argument is supposed to establish the truth of determinism. I think it works in the favor of determinism (of the divine kind not the naturalistic, causal kind). Whether or not one is convinced by the conclusion of the argument is dependent, at least in part, on whether or not one can come up a valid form of the argument. In this post I intend to provide one (but not invent or originate one; only to repeat one from my elders and betters). First, let's distinguish determinism from fatalism. Fatalism is the view that whatever happens must happen. There is no way things could have been anything other than what they are. This is to be distinguished from determinism that holds that there is some antecedent condition such that, given that condition obtaining , it is not possible that things could have been other than what they are. It has been suggested that fatalism is supported by the logical entailment of the following: if it is true that some event, e, will o...

Here's a really interesting argument for libertarian free will. I found it in Greg Boyd's Satan and the Problem of Evil : If humans lack a logically consistent concept of self determining freedom, What provides the analogical ground by which we can talk about God is gracious self determining freedom? A concept devoid of all experiential content is vacuous. If we assume that it is meaningful to claim that nothing outside gods will caused him to create and interact with the world, That he could have done otherwise, And that his decisions are not capricious, Then we must affirm that we experience something like this sort of freedom. In short, Unless we were free in a self determining sense, We could never meaningfully says that God is (page 70). So what is the argument? Something like the following: A concept is knowable/intelligible only if there is some experience that gives us the content of the concept.  If there was no experience of having something like self-determi...

Just what, if one is a Calvinist, can be meant by human free will? And how, given that everything that happens is decided in advance, makes a human beings responsible for their actions? These are the most common questions aimed at those who are committed to a strong doctrine of sovereignty,  one that features the idea that God determines all that happens in advance. Determinism  is the idea that for everything that happens there are antecedent conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could occur. For a Calvinist, the antecedent condition in question is ultimately God's will. God's will is such that every event in creation is determined by God in advance of the event. We call this  Divine Determinism  (DD). The debate over free will hinges on whether or not free will is compatible with any kind of determinism .  One is either drawn to  compatiblism  or  incompatiblism.  This leads to...

Dear non-Calvinist, I am reading a book that prompts the following: Calvinism, whatever you think about it, is not like a song. One can like or dislike a song. If I disagree with you and think it is a good song and you hate it, I might wish you liked it and wonder why you can't see how great it is. But that is all I can do. But not so with Calvinism and non-Calvinism. Calvinism is not like a song. A piece of music can no more be true or false than an argument can be in or out of tune. If you are writing a book about Calvinism and seek to persuade your reader that Calvinism is false, it is no good telling me about how bad Calvinism makes you feel and expecting me to agree with you. Calvinism may be false, but nothing you have said makes the case.  Calvinism is not like a song. There are no good arguments that I can make that will change your tastes. At least, if you do change your taste it will not be because of good arguments. Perhaps many bad arguments will do the t...

Wesley Walker, writing on Scot McKnight's blog over on patheos , argues that Calvinists don't have a good definition of good and evil. Walker writes: “In a Calvinistic worldview, everything is as God wills it to be… The world exists the way it does because God wills it to bring himself as much glory as possible. Therefore, in this system, the definition of “good” is relegated to whatever is because whatever is somehow brings glory to God.” There are two arguments here. Some of the premises are not explicit, but the first one goes roughly as follows: 1. Everything that happens is God’s will 2. Some of the things that happen are Evil 3. Therefore, Evil is God’s will So far, there is no problem, at least no problem for Calvinists. Calvinists think that God determined everything that happens and so believe that God determines evil. But Walker goes on to suggest that Calvinists must also hold to the following: 4. Everything that happens is God glorifying ...

In his hour of agony on the cross, Christ cried out to his Father, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). What did he mean? Did the Father reject the Son in such a way that the Triune God was temporarily broken? Does the Son suffer the rejection of his Father as the Son or is Christ forsaken in an entirely different way? Tom McCall argues that the forsakenness of Christ does not mean a rupture in the unity of the Trinity, but that the Father forsakes the Son to his death at the hand of sinners for the purpose of our salvation. [1] McCall contends that the godhead is not at odds with itself, love is not opposed to wrath, and that Christ’s death was part of the plan of God for our salvation. McCall rejects the “rupture view,” the view that the Father breaks a once close and loving union by intentionally rejecting his Son. On rupture view, the Father forsakes the Son through relational enmity. The Father abandons, rejects, hides and separates himself from his Son. ...

Just what, if one is a Calvinist, can be meant by human free will? And how, given that everything that happens is decided in advance, makes a human beings responsible for their actions? These are the most common questions aimed at those who are committed to a strong doctrine of sovereignty,  one that features the idea that God determines all that happens in advance. Determinism is the idea that for everything that happens there are antecedent conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could occur. For a Calvinist, the antecedent condition in question is ultimately God's will. God's will is such that every event in creation is determined by God in advance of the event. We call this Divine Determinism (DD). The debate over free will hinges on whether or not free will is compatible with any kind of determinism . One is either drawn to compatiblism or incompatiblism. This leads to two distinct views of what free will is. ...