Causal Determinism
Josh Lowery, A friend of mine from Facebook has created a series of videos exploring the idiosyncraties of Calvinism. This series is titled “The Damned”, and it provides a pretty good synopsis of some of the biggest problems in Calvinism. Doug’s first taste of Calvinism Doug’s Theological Trap It’s the Glory, Stupid! Force feeding Theologizing [...]
Here is Voddie Baucham Jr.‘s treatment of the question of evil: A couple of things need to be observed here: Voddie completely dodges the question. Voddie turns the question around to be about the questioner. Voddie derides the questioner by assaulting their intelligence (his preamble regarding first year philosophy students is not only uncalled for but [...]
Continue reading about How not to answer the question of evil
A friend of mine on Facebook posted the following video with the following claim: No responsibility doesn’t presuppose freedom, but responsibility does presuppose authority. Here is my initial response, along with the ensuing conversation’s highlights. It presupposes both actually. Responsibility requires both someone to be held accountable and someone to be held accountable to. Both [...]
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Here is a follow-up to the exchange I posted on earlier wherein I received and answered a question from someone interested in learning more about the Biblical doctrine of Molinism/Middle Knowledge. “Now, I may be incorrectly understanding Craig’s explanation of how middle knowledge is supposed to have worked, but I believe he detailed a scenario in which [...]
Continue reading about Another primer on Molinism/Middle Knowledge 2 of 2
I recently received the following via a Facebook message (reposed with permission): Wes Pardon the unsolicited message–and I see that with your 3K+ friends, your ability to reply may be limited–but I’m a long-suffering “anti-Calvinist” who’s only now beginning to study Molinism. I noticed through Facebook’s VERY unprivate data search mechanisms that you are a [...]
Continue reading about Another primer on Molinism/Middle Knowledge 1 of 2
One of the most common proof-texts used to show that God arbitrarily elects some to salvation while damning others without merit or cause is Romans 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Many people have a hard time with this passage as it is often posited as evidence of [...]
I recently debated the relationship between libertarian freedom and God’s sovereignty with a dean of a reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. During our discussion He told me that libertarian freedom is a myth. Here’s my response: To claim that libertarian free will is a myth is to introduce a logical paradox in that we disagree, [...]
Counterfactuals are statements about “what might have been” regarding an event in time had circumstances been different.1 Counterfactual statements are characterized by the conditional keywords “if-then”, as in “if Obama had not raised the national debt to record levels, unemployment would have been much higher.” The “counter” part of a “counterfactual” statement is that such [...]
A friend of mine recently asked what, if any, impact the belief in causal determinism (or lack thereof) has in practical day-to-day living. Here’s my answer: Well, one example to the contrary1 is this: I never locked my doors. This was because I believed that men had no free will and that not only were [...]
Continue reading about How does a belief in causal determinism influence how one lives?
I’ve used the phrase “causal determinism” quite a lot recently when talking about the doctrine of Middle Knowledge/Molinism and one of it’s chief competitors, the Calvinistic notion of soverigenty which posits God as being the one who “decrees all that comes to pass”. Since this isn’t a phrase that isn’t often used outside of philosophical [...]
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