Best of
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Bringing Molinists And Calvinists Closer Together On Semantics, In Order That We Might Disagree With Understanding (If Not Agree On Calvinism!)
The intended purpose of this latest installment is found in the title. Sometimes we just talk by each other; so I offer five clarifying points, followed by some similarities, differences and implications of two opposing systems of thought. I hope it’s useful. And as always, chew on the meat and spit out the bones. 1. Continue reading
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Kevin DeYoung On Free Will And Divine Foreknowledge
I’ve decided to interact with this article by Kevin DeYoung on free will and divine foreknowledge. Although the piece is over fifteen years old and the author may have possibly refined his views since then, I nonetheless believe the article typifies the uncritical handling of this Reformed distinctive among contemporary leaders in the tradition. Why Continue reading
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A Calvinist’s Hope And Behavior – Participating In God’s Purposes By Faith
The aim of this piece is to identify some key theological differences between Calvinism and Arminianism in order to draw out a few practical benefits of adopting a distinctly Reformed mindset that applies to hope and behavior in the midst of trials. Some initial theological spadework must occur before trying to unearth the practical usefulness Continue reading
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Simplifying Simplicity (Parsing God’s Will And Attributes)
God is a simple being or he is not. If God is not a simple being, then he is made up of parts or a composite being, in which case God’s attributes would be what he has rather than is, making his attributes abstract properties that self-exist without ultimate reference to God. God would be subject to change Continue reading
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A Few Clarifying Words About Presuppositional Apologetics
A presuppositionalist claim is that the Christian worldview (CW) is necessary in order to make sense of human experience. However, even if the CW is consistent, coherent and explanatory, how would that prove that it is connected to how things truly are in the world? What if the external world can be organized by the Continue reading
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Davenant Hypothetical Universalism Even Denies Its Own Claim Of Efficacy For The Elect
An entailment of the Reformed doctrine of limited atonement is p: If Christ died for S, then S will be saved. Therefore, if p is true, S’ salvation is in some sense guaranteed by Christ’s death on behalf of S. Davenant Hypothetical Universalism (HU) rejects p by affirming that (a) Christ died for all and (b) not all will be saved. Consequently, even Continue reading
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No, The American Revision Of The Westminster Standards Does Not Undermine Westminster’s Civil Ethics
Kevin DeYoung recently wrote that in 1788, American Presbyterians revised chapter 23 of the original Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) because many “grew wary of granting coercive powers to the civil magistrate and were drawn to more robust notions of religious liberty”. DeYoung reasons that by virtue of the revision, “Presbyterians in America rejected an older, Continue reading
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Faith And Justification In The Life Of Infants
In Chapter 14 of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), saving faith is distinguished from believing. This distinction, which has implications with respect to infants and those who might suffer from cognitive impairment, is made plain when the standards teach it is by the grace of faith that the elect are enabled to believe to the Continue reading
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Within Molinism, The Possibility of Choosing Contrary to God’s Foreknowledge Does Not Imply The Possibility of God *Actually* Being Wrong About The Future
This is a sentiment I’ve seen put forth from skilled compatibilists: While Molinists say agents can do otherwise in the same circumstances, no Molinist would say that it’s possible for an agent to act contrary to God’s actual foreknowledge. Even if that were true, as the title of this latest entry suggests – I think Continue reading
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The Reformed Doctrine Of Divine Foreknowledge – A Call For A Coherent And Unified Voice
If the Reformed faith is God’s deposit of the purest doctrine in the 21st century, then being walled in by Reformed confessional theology can keep one believing true doctrine. Thankfully and in God’s kind providence, we have Reformed confessions and catechisms to guide us theologically and provide protection against believing false doctrine. However, merely believing true doctrine and Continue reading
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A Response To A Popular, (Yet Inadequate), “Reformed” Antidote to Federal Vision’s Use Of The Warning Passages
Like a robust Christian worldview, a Reformed system of doctrine should be consistent, coherent and explanatory. What this means is: (a) the components of a sound theology may have mystery but not contradiction; (b) although theological constituent parts should be assessed discretely, they must be evaluated in light of the whole so that each ingredient Continue reading
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No, I *AM* Spiritually Closer With Evangelicals Who Reject Certain Tenets Of “Classical Theism” Than With Classical Trinitarians Who Reject The Reformed Doctrine Of Justification.
I will interact with portions of this article by Professor Carl Trueman. A recovery of classical theology also raises an interesting ecumenical question. Why do Protestants, especially those of an evangelical stripe, typically prioritize the doctrine of salvation over the doctrine of God? If an evangelical rejects simplicity or impassibility or eternal generation, he is Continue reading
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Could The Fallible Universal Church Have Failed To Receive The Canon?
Discussions over the canon have often pertained to surveying patristic evidence for the process and completion of canonization. These traditional pursuits have been aimed at answering important historical questions more than thorny epistemological ones. Yet in Reformed circles there seems to be a renewed interest in the theology of the canon and a deeper appreciation Continue reading
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Lifting The Veil That Covers Molinism’s Necessary Counterfactuals Of Creaturely Freedom
Molinists and Calvinists agree over the soundness of the following argument, where x is a future creaturely choice. 1. Necessarily, if God foreknows x, then x will happen2. God foreknows x3. Therefore, x will happen Molinists and Calvinists even agree that the following argument is not just unsound but invalid: 1. Necessarily, if God foreknows Continue reading
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Subtle Yet Significant Differences Between Molinism And Theological Determinism. Does It Really Matter To The Reformed Tradition?
After writing this article, a number of questions came my way from committed Calvinists. This brief installment is a result of some of those correspondences. Molinism affords a strong view of divine providence along with a principle of free will such that if Luis freely chooses the chili dog at the carnival, then it is Continue reading
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Of God’s Eternal Decree In Light Of Four Commentaries on WCF 3.2. Have we drifted?
It has been my contention for many years that the doctrine of God’s eternal decree is widely misunderstood, even unwittingly denied, within the Reformed tradition. Having served on a pastoral search committee in the OPC and candidates and credentials team in the PCA at the presbyterial level, I’ve seen a fair share of candidates for Continue reading
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Covenant, Election And Realized Eschatology
The four part drama of creation, fall, redemption and consummation is not just soteriological but eschatological and covenantal. This is to say, the whole of redemptive history is according to promise and fulfillment. Yet perhaps less familiar to many of us is that redemption in Christ has made the future now present. With respect to Continue reading
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Knowing the Incomprehensible God
Regarding the creator-creature distinction, there is no disagreement among Christians as to whether God knows a greater number of propositions relative to man, or whether God understands how all bits of knowledge exhaustively relate to each other in a mode or manner not available to created beings. Indeed, there is a quantitative difference between God’s Continue reading
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Parents And The Apostasy Of Covenant Children
There is nothing more amazing than the grace of salvation conferred to those who are afar off. And although conversion of covenant children is no less a matter of grace, pious parents ought not to doubt the election and subsequent conversion of their children. Because covenant children are not among those who are afar off Continue reading
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An Essential Tenet Of Reformed Theology *Is* Determinism. The Reformed Need To Embrace It.
When it comes to the question of whether Reformed theology entails a principle of determinism, either disagreement abounds among Reformed theologians or else many within the tradition are talking by each other. Perhaps some are in theological agreement over this essential aspect of Reformed theology while expressing themselves in conflicting ways. Perhaps. Regardless, there is Continue reading
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Internet Sin vs. Biblical Sanctification
We live in a day in which personal testimony is considered more powerful than the ordinary means of grace. Many young men who are believed by profession to have entered through the narrow gate that leads to life have become indistinguishable from those that remain on the broad road to destruction. Because succumbing to internet Continue reading
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Trinity & Paradox (A Defense of Christian Orthodoxy Against Claims of Modalism and Polytheism)
If God is one and all three persons of the Trinity are God, how does orthodox Christianity adequately deflect charges of modalism and polytheism? In other words, if the Father is God and the Son is God, how is the Son not merely an appearance of the Father if there is only one God (monotheism). Continue reading
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False Teaching Among The Prominent Non-Confessional Reformed: From Lordship Salvation to Today’s Christianity and Culture In The PCA
A pastor can be more or less Reformed, but a doctrine either is or is not Reformed. A debtor to mercy The church will always have to war against false gospels. From the time of the Judaizers to this very day, the church has been bewitched by sacerdotalism, syncretism, decisional regeneration, social gospels, prosperity gospels, Continue reading
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What About Those Who’ve Never Heard of Jesus? Would a chance even after death change anything?
When it comes to the question of the eternal state of those who’ve never heard of Jesus, at least three views have gained attention over the years, all of which entail Christ’s redemptive work. 1. Good works release Christ’s benefits. 2. The Holy Spirit baptizes people into Christ. 3. People will get a chance to Continue reading
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Don’t Look Now But Your “Reformed” Theology Might Not Be Confessional
In recent years the debates of the Reformation period have taken priority over the theology of the debates. Somehow possessing vast acquaintance with multiple sides of doctrinal disputes has in some circles become more academically impressive and pastorally relevant than possessing an intimate working-understanding of which doctrines are theologically Reformed and defensible. Consequently, there has Continue reading
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The Failure of Classical Apologetics in the light of Biblical Contextual Reality (A Case For Presuppositional Apologetics)
At the heart of Christian apologetic methodology is the consideration of ultimate authority. How the authority of Scripture should shape the Christian’s defense of the faith is a matter of bringing every thought captive to obey Christ, (even as the Christian gives an answer for the hope that is in him, with meekness and fear). Continue reading
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Westminster Civil Ethics vs R2K Natural Law on Kidnapping
Christians and non-Christians alike have grieved this past week while also trying to process ethical questions regarding longtime convicted kidnapper Cleotha Abston who is being charged with abducting and murdering Eliza Fletcher. Many ethical questions are at hand and convictions run passionately deep regarding how those questions might best be answered through a Reformed Christian Continue reading
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Dining Out on The Lord’s Day
My father grew up in the borough of Brooklyn, in a neighborhood just north of “Bed-Stuy” called Williamsburg. Those familiar with the district know that in the early 1900s with the completion of the bridge that bears the neighborhood’s name, Hasidic Jews from the “Lower east Side” began populating the community along with other immigrants Continue reading
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Divorce, censure, and session responsibility
We synthesize particular biblical principles in order to compose theology that is biblical, practical and compassionate. Under the gospel of Christ there exist two permissible reasons for divorce: adultery and willful desertion. (Matt.19:8,9; 1 Cor. 7:15) Elders often have to judge whether certain acts of the flesh constitute adultery. Elders also have to decide whether Continue reading
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The Philosophical and Moral Impotency of Natural Law in Refuting Homosexuality
Although all men know by nature that homosexuality is sin, it’s only through Scripture that one can adequately defend the claim. (Natural theology types are free to try sometime.) Since most people are autonomous in their thinking it’s understandable why most cannot justify with any consistency (and without avoiding arbitrariness) the claim that homosexuality is Continue reading
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RC. Sproul, Impeccability of Christ & Broadly Logical Modality
The Sproulian view of the peccability of Christ ends in either in an abstraction of the human nature from the second Person or else it attributes human personhood to the Son. Either way the denial of the impeccability of Christ implicitly, yet unwittingly, denies Chalcedon. (At the 21 minute mark I interact with Sproul, though Continue reading
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Simplicity, Attributes and Divine Wrath
God is a simple being or he is not. If God is not a simple being, then he is a composite of parts, in which case God’s attributes would be what he has rather than is, making his attributes abstract properties that self-exist without ultimate reference to God. God would be subject to change and Continue reading
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Strict Merit vs Pactum Merit and Union with Christ. (Is Imputation Eclipsing Adoption In Christ?)
Let’s consider afresh the relationship of pactum merit with respect to Adam in the covenant of works and how that relates to strict merit in redemption. With respect to Adam the reward of living forever would have been disproportionate to the finite work performed. In other words, the justice of life-eternal would not have been Continue reading
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The Free Offer Of The Gospel, Not What You’ve Been Told!
Q. What is effectual calling?A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel. WSC Q&A 31 Moreover, it Continue reading
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Proof of Infant Baptism by way of Promise and Precept
Here is a link to a SS class that presents much of the same material. Proof-texting versus Theology It is the hermeneutic of the cults and not that of historic Christianity that seeks merely one or two Bible verses for all true doctrine. This should come as little surprise when we pause to consider that Continue reading
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A Robust Depravity – A Return To Calvinism
Total Depravity, as often depicted: In the Reformed tradition, total depravity does not mean utter depravity. We often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely, so the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be… As wicked Continue reading
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Evidence And Resurrection – A Preamble To Easter & “Keep It Simple For Sinners” Approach To The Gospel
Induction, the basis for all scientific inference, presupposes the uniformity of nature, which is to say it operates under the expectation that the future will be like the past. From a Christian perspective, it is ordinary providence that explains how the scientific method is possible. Therefore, to argue for the miracle of the resurrection according Continue reading
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John MacArthur’s Lordship Salvation
In this post I addressed the aberrant view that justifying faith is assent alone apart from trusting in Christ. Therein I made a passing reference to another extreme view of faith – the “Lordship Salvation” gospel whose advocates not only define justifying faith without reference to the Reformed view of trust, but also add forsaking Continue reading
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Free Will and Compatibilism, a brief sketch
Discussions on “free will” inevitably lead to analysis of (a) moral responsibility, (b) the limits of metaphysical freedom – from autonomy and pure contingency to necessity and causality, and (c) divine foreknowledge. What is indubitable is that moral agents, when they choose, are morally accountable. Therefore, if determinism is true, then determinism must be compatible Continue reading
Philosophical Theology 