The Castle Church Door

Below are all the links to the massive debate between Calvinism and Arminianism that took place between (mainly) Victor Reppert, Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Dominic Bnonn Tennant. This post will function as a (almost) one-stop shop for seeing anti-Calvinist arguments, and rebuttals to those arguments. Our opponent, Victor Reppert, has a PhD in philosophy and so makes for an ideal representative of the philosophical arguments Arminians use ...

They were designed to show that persons who allow a conception of divine goodness to govern their reading of Scripture and even to affect their acceptance of the doctrine of inerrancy can be serious and dedicated Christians, who have a clue as to what it means to be a Christian.No, Victor, you're wrong. At least with Wesley. He didn't say Scripture was in error, he said it couldn't ...

Reppert's latest:An issue that has come up in the exchange with Calvinists here deserves a closer look. Suppose we come to our study of Scripture with a set of ideas as to what it is for God to be good. What this amounts to, for at least many of us, is that for God to be good, God must at least attempt as best he can to save ...

Victor Reppert wrote:Here is Hasker's definition of determinism:Determinism: For every event which happens, there are previous events and circumstances which are its sufficient conditions or causes, so that, given those previous events and circumstances, it is impossible that the event should not occur.Is there something wrong with this definition? After all, Bill Hasker is one of those nasty open theists, who clearly can't be trusted. But the upshot ...

I was going to respond to Victor Repper't comments in the meta of my last post to him, in the meta. But, it got too long and so I figured to make it into a post.I see that Steve Hays also responded to Reppert.VR: Paul, it's time to stop confusing a setting aside an objection in order to focus on other problems with an admission that the objection ...

Reppert has given a new, toned down version of his argument against Calvinism. A little nip/tuck never hurt anyone.He thinks this one has got potential.If you go over to Triablogue, you will find all sorts of dismal remarks about how poorly I have made the case for the critics of Calvinism.Not quite. You'll find observations to the effect that I, for instance, have answered questions and responded to ...

I assume (hope?) this is Victor's parting shot. I want to group together our back-and-forth so that people can read the debate in chronological order. Make up their own minds. See both presentations. Hopefully, Reppert's latest post was his way of ending this current discussion.His post is called Calvinism and the burden of proof.Our whole discussion started off as an attempt to show that Calvinists can't solve the ...

Victor Reppert wrote a post called "The Calvinist Argument."This post stands in the long line of posts where Reppert has continually dodged or ignored the responses given to his arguments. What started out a while back as post on why Calvinists can't solve the problem of evil, has degenerated into a a hodge podge of mystery soup. Reppert's in red.Paul wrote: ii) Again, Reppert misses the argument: If ...

Victor Reppert has a question for Calvinists. I'll do my best to answer. But, since this discussion has been public, I'll still make comments on much of what Victor says for the benefit of readers. The by-product of our discussion is that our Calvinist readers can generalize from it and apply it to other discussions. Also, many of Victor’s arguments, assumptions, and questions are those that atheists ask. ...

Bnonn can speak for and defend himself. He doesn't need my help. I'm just going to make a few quick observations on Reppert's latest:I pointed out previously that Reppert is shooting from the hip in his debate with Calvinism. He is evidencing that he has not taken the time to study those he is critiquing. He would expect this of someone who tried to refute his arguments in ...