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 ...

Some Arminians were kind enough to help the world out by giving them a dictionary of Calvinist terms. In the spirit of brotherly love, we do the same:********************All (1): All always means all. Yup, Jesus died for every single human, including those already dead and in hell, and even including himself.All (2): (as to sin) If its related to sin, "all" doesn't include babies.Amazing Grace: Horrible song composed ...

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 ...

Last time Victor Reppert thought he had a silver bullet objection to Frankfurt-type counter examples. I pointed out that Frankfurt-cases have been employed that dealt with choice and not only action.Another objection to Frankfurt-cases we will look at has a strong pedigree. It has been advanced by Kane (who many of our Arminian friends here have lauded ad nauseum), Widerker, Ginet, and Wyma. It goes like this:If free ...

Reppert's post:Harry Potter, Love Potions, and Free willThe value of free will does not end there. All sorts of relationships acquire special value because they involve love, trust, and affection are freely bestowed. The love potions that appear in many fairy stories (and the Harry Potter series) can become a trap; the one who has used the potion finds that he wants to be loved for his own ...

Dan at Arminian Chronicles gives some necessary and sufficient conditions for ascribing "libertarian free will" to an agent. Rather than write an entire post interacting with his post, I'm just going to draw attention to two statement. Dan said,"[Libertarian Free Will is not] The ability to create ex nihilo."But God's free will has this ability."[Libertarian free will is] Being able to choose either option implies both options are ...

I propose three brief arguments against the conjunction of some fairly basic, historic, and (mainly) uncontroversial Christian doctrines with libertarian free will. Some of the cash value of these arguments can be applied to the current debate both Hays and I have been engaged in with Victor Reppert. Given his statements on freedom and moral responsibility, some highly problematic propositions follow. Propositions Reppert wouldn’t, apparently, want to jettison.I’ll ...

(I actually think Arminianism has many problems of evil. This post is meant to take one of their objections to Calvinism and apply it to them. Show their constant use of self-excepting arguments. I have listed some problems they have in other posts of mine.)Acts 2:22-23; Acts 4:27-28"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and ...

Back to Reppert:“I think you are making a mistake. You assume that if I accept Hasker's argument for incompatibilism of free will and determinism, that I must accept his arguments against the compatibility of foreknowledge and freedom.”How is that a mistake? “I'm pretty sympathetic to open theism myself. It's hardly a reductio in my book.”So it’s not a mistake after all. Reppert is tacitly admitting a tension between ...

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 ...