Theology

Obviously, atheists object to God's existence, but surprisingly, many Christians (at least inadvertently) reject the existence of a maximally great being as well! This objection is commonly advanced by specific Christians who are committed to deterministic assumptions and oppose what has been referred to as " the single most fruitful theological concept " ever conceived -- Molinism! This opposition against Molinism is typically advanced by way of the Grounding Objection . Th

I took a philosophy class while I was in college. The topic of this class was on contemporary moral issues, so you know we got into some heated topics. I heard every objection under the sun to objective morality. Everything from it was not very "tolerant," to different cultures act differently so therefore there cannot be objective morality. I was the minority in this class to say the least! Objective morality means that moral statements like “murder is bad” is independent o

As I reflect on the last twenty years of my life, I’m struck by how much my theological outlook has changed. This is especially the case regarding my view of Divine providence. For sixteen years, I was a theological determinist; that is to say, I believed that God causally determined everything that came to pass, including every creaturely choice and action. Moreover, given the chain of sufficient causation from God’s decree, nothing – not even any creaturely choice or action

When talking about Molinism and its relation to the other major views of God’s sovereignty, omniscience and human freedom it seems there is much confusion on the issue of true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCF’s from here on). Namely, God’s knowledge of what would be the case if circumstances were different. One of the best, most popular examples is from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey gets to see what the world would have been like if he ha

I am amazed and frightened at the acceptance of, and even downright preference for Socialism among the young adults of today. Most young adults today possess little property due to the socialist bent of our current government and our administrative state, so it is not totally unexpected that they might embrace socialism as they have comparatively nothing to lose and know nothing else. However, the Founding Fathers of the USA rejected socialism as a governing philosophy by vi

I have been a Christian for many years—since I was a teenager—and I have been a pastor for about 42 years, but I have to admit that I know so little about God. I say that not with a fake humility, but because it is true. I want—like most of believers—to have a deep relationship with God, but far too often there are only periods that punctuate a rather ordinary life. In fact in my experience, there is a certain illusiveness about God. C. S. Lewis tapped into this longing when

Abstract: The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) has come under fire in recent years and shows no sign of cooling. Currently, one of the most interesting arguments against this doctrine is what has been referred to as the “modal collapse.” In this paper, I demonstrate that many of the objections raised against the argument are confused, logically contradictory, and inconsistent. I conclude that the modal collapse argument stands firm against these objections. Introduction Th

Last year I had the privilege of working on the AWANA Youth Ministry Advocates curriculum. But to be honest, I had never even heard of AWANA until I was contacted by my former Biola professor, Dr. Sean McDowell , to help work on the project. (I attended a Royal Rangers/Girls Ministries church.) So I thought I would ask him to explain what AWANA and this new Advocates curriculum are all about! Who is AWANA and how did you come to partner with them? AWANA is an international

SPOILER ALERT!!! As most of our regular readers know, those of us at FreeThinking Ministries absolutely LOVE comic books and superhero movies! A couple of weeks ago I watched the new Wonder Woman movie. This fun fictional flick touches on some important points which illustrate the actual truth about God and His relationship to all men and women. Although "Diana Prince" (Wonder Woman's alter ego) is the daughter of Zeus, two things struck me as theologically accurate when co

Summary: Paul Helm has contributed an article to Ligonier.org in which he presents two noteworthy objections to Molinism. First, Helm presents an internal critique of Molinism purporting to show that Libertarian Free Will (LFW) undermines God's providential control over the world. Second, Helm argues that Molinism is incompatible with the doctrine of irresistible grace. I demonstrate that Helm begs the question with his first objection and relies on a model of LFW which Molin

Recently, there has been a great disturbance within the “Christian community.” Dr. James R. White has recently been attacked by many “Christians.” I will try to present these attacks in an honest and courteous manner. In fact, although I disagree with White on several issues, I would like to set a tone of support for Dr. White and thank him for his services to the great commission (Matthew 28:16-20). For those who are unaware, James White is part of the Phoenix Reformed Bapt

Many Christians believe that the first section of Romans 13 – verses 1-7 -- forbids any form of resistance to government... even when it clearly goes tyrannical. If one analyzes this passage of the Bible carefully, however, as The USA’s founding fathers did, we can see that Paul was speaking in generalities in this passage, and that unlimited tolerance of government tyranny is a highly wooden, hyper-literalistic reading of his words which is impossible to reconcile with other

Muchas veces me hacen la pregunta: "Tim, ¿cuál es tu versículo favorito de la Biblia? Esta es una pregunta difícil para mí de responder porque hay muchos versículos que luchan por este primer lugar. Lo primero que se me ocurre, algunos de mis versículos favoritos incluyen (en ningún orden en particular): Romanos 12:2; Mateo 22:37-39; Romanos 1:20; 1 Corintios 10:13; 2 Corintios 4:17; Colosenses 1:16; Deuteronomio 30:11-19; Salmos 1:19; Salmos 97:1-6; Jueces 6:12; 1 Timoteo 2:

En una reciente carta al editor en el periódico local, un autor se quejó que la "hipótesis del big bang" estaba siendo enseñada en las escuelas públicas. Él dijo que necesitamos un hipótesis mejor. Su respuesta: enseñen "¡Creacionismo!" Lo que este cristiano no entiende es que el modelo del big bang es en realidad evidencia para el creacionismo. El cosmólogo eminente, Alexander Vilenkin, lo dejó claro: "Con la prueba ahora en su lugar, los cosmólogos ya no se pueden esconder

¿Es el molinismo verdaderamente compatible con la idea de personas en otros mundos posibles? ¿Realmente puede ser posible que haya una verdad contrafáctica sobre mí tal como "Si hubiera nacido en el siglo 18, me hubiera puesto del lado de los colonos americanos contra los británicos"? Así que, aquí, depende mucho la teoría de la identidad personal de uno, así como lo que cuenta para discernir verdades modales. Yo personalmente sostengo al menos un resumen básico de la teoría

¿Soy responsable por mis creencias o acaso algo más me las impone? ¿Qué crees? ¿Cómo sabes que esas creencias que sostienes son buenas (sin mencionar si son verdaderas)? Hoy en día muchos filósofos, científicos y teólogos rechazan la idea de que los seres humanos puedan tomar decisiones genuinas. Creo libremente que están equivocados, ya que parece como si poseyéramos el libre albedrío y pudiéramos tomar decisiones reales (al menos ocasionalmente). Además, como he demostrado

Recientemente me he dado cuenta de un video en Internet que está haciendo su camino alrededor del campus de la universidad local. Varios estudiantes universitarios me dijeron que después de ver el video, realmente les hizo cuestionar su fe. Ahora, esto podría sorprenderte, pero estoy a favor en cuestionar la fe de alguien (animo a los ateos a hacer lo mismo), pero si hay que cuestionar lo que creen, ¡debería ser por razones lógicas y buenas! En mi experiencia, usualmente son

I used to be a 5-point Calvinist! Not only did I hold to each petal of the TULIP , I also rejected the idea that humanity possessed libertarian freedom in any form or fashion. I held to the position that not only did God causally determine salvation and damnation, but also that God causally determined everything. If one chose to drink Coke instead of Pepsi or if one chose to eat at McDonalds instead of Burger King: God caused all things to happen exactly as they happen. More

A Facebook friend of mine and I have had a respectful debate regarding Molinism and Calvinism over the past few days. Sean Luke is a committed Calvinist as I used to be for over a decade . I freely chose to leave the Calvinist camp several years ago for several reasons (or God causally determined me to stop being a Calvinist). Sean reminds me of myself back in those days. I argued against Molinism in a similar manner before freely choosing to abandon the Calvinist conclave. I

It looks like CARM is discussing Molinism again . From the first sentence, we find ambiguities that may affect the ability of a person to dissect the claims. Nonetheless, I will stipulate what I reasonably believe CARM to mean so we can move on (from here on out, I will refer to Matt Slick, since he is the one who wrote the article). First, he starts out with “Molinism fails as a philosophical position.” What does this mean? Does it mean that Molinism fails to be a philosophi