Dominic Bnonn Tennant

A response to Stuart’s assertion that God’s wrath and hatred is exclusively reserved for sins, rather than sinners.

A basic argument, with commentary, in favor of the Calvinist view of election, and against the view that God purposes to save all people without exception.

Victor has posted a further response in our ongoing discussion regarding the nature of good as presented in the Bible, and how it compares to our moral intuitions. I invite you to read it in full; it is not very long. I will quote only pertinent segments here. The gist is that (I) Scripture only indirectly addresses the question in which we are interested (is predestination good?); (II) it is only authoritative once we already believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, so a preexisting conception of goodness is logically necessary to belief in the Christian God; and (III) it is unclear the extent to which we can get precise meaning out of Scripture via historical-grammatical analysis.

A couple of weeks ago, Victor Reppert posted an argument against compatibilism, and invited a general critique. This argument looks as follows (I’m paraphrasing since Victor’s original formulation had some typos):

1. If compatibilism is true, then God could have created the world in such a way that everyone freely does what is right.
2. If God is omnipotent and perfectly good, then, were it possible, he would have created the world in such a way that everyone freely does what is right.
3. But God did not create the world in such a way that everyone freely does what is right.
4. Therefore, compatiblism is false.

This article is the culmination of some discussion with hyper-Calvinist Ron Di Giacomo on the nature of God’s intentions towards the reprobate. In it, I argue that there is a sense in which God desires all people without exception to be saved, even though he has determined that he will only save his elect.

One of the blogs to which I subscribe is ‘The Reformed Baptist Thinker’, who recently posted an article entitled ‘Bishop Carlton Pearson, “The Way I See It”‘. Briefly described is the announcement by this Pentecostal bishop that no one goes to hell. In his own words, In reality, hell is not such an intention of [...]