Friday, January 23, 2009

Response to Jay Dyer on Calvinism (Part 1 of 13)

I had never heard of Jay Dyer before, but he is a non-Calvinist, ex-Protestant. He has eleven claims (source) with respect to what a consistent Calvinist must be.

At first, I thought I'd give a quick answer to each and make this a single blog post. However, the more I looked at the issues, the more I realized that there are, for most of the criticisms, three issues to be addressed: (1) What is the actual error (or conversely, doctrine) at stake? (2) How does or doesn't Calvinism correspond to the error (or doctrine)? and (3) Does this criticism fit Catholicism better? (Jay is apparently now a part of that religion, having turned away, practically at the last minute, from joining Eastern Orthodoxy last June, if my understanding is correct.) I'll address each in order, in separate (hopefully brief) posts, in the upcoming days.

Obviously, Jay's post is largely simply meant to mock and poke fun at Calvinism, rather than being a serious critique. Nevertheless, it provides an interesting platform for discussing the issues. The plan is to make this a thirteen part series in which I will consider each of his points in a separate post and then wrap up with some concluding thoughts.

To the glory of God,

-TurretinFan

Continue to Part 2

8 comments:

  1. Greetings. I would welcome an open discussion of this. Yes, that post was designed to be provacative. However, I have several articles that explain this more fully. I think we should definitely interact on this, if you are willing.

    Jay

    ReplyDelete
  2. This article details the claims in particular:

    http://www.nicenetruth.com/home/2009/01/more-incarnational-musings-against-the-lutherans-calvinists.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. As well as this article:

    http://www.nicenetruth.com/home/2008/12/christs-assumption-of-our-fallen-nature-the-pelagianism-of-calvinism.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. The short term plan is simply for me to critique the 11 points, rather than a dialogue. Obviously, the initial response will take about two weeks if I post one per day (longer if I take a day off here or there).

    I'll try to take a look at the other articles, but the initial series is mostly already written, focusing on the 11 points themselves, without more.

    Of course, you are welcome to respond - I should point out that the most effective place to respond may be through your own blog, since I moderate comments and generally don't publish meaty controversial comments until I have time to reply to them.

    -TurretinFan

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear NatAmLLC,

    I appreciate your support. Mr. Dyer has been respectful in his comments here, and I don't want to unnecessarily antagonize him. I'm sure he will be unhappy enough about the "part 3"s of my next eleven posts in this series, if he has decided that Rome is the place for him.

    -TurretinFan

    ReplyDelete
  6. Don't know if you care, T-fan, but the T-bloggers have recently interacted in detail with Dyer.

    ReplyDelete

Comment Guidelines:

1. Thanks for posting a comment. Without you, this blog would not be interactive.

2. Please be polite. That doesn't mean you have to use kid gloves, but please try not to flame others, even if they are heretics, infidels, or worse.

3. If you insult me, I'm more likely to delete your comment than if you butter me up. After all, I'm human. I prefer praise to insults. If you prefer insults, there's something wrong with you.

4. Please be concise. The comment box is not your blog. Your blog is your blog. If you have a really long comment, post it on your blog and post a short summary of it here.

5. Please don't just spam. It's one thing to be concise, it's another thing to simply use the comment box to advertise.

6. Please note, by commenting here, you are relinquishing your (C) in your comments to me.

7. Remember that you will give an account on judgment day for your words, including those typed in comment boxes. Try to write so you will not be ashamed if it is read back before the entire world.

8. Stay on topic. If your comment has nothing to do with the post, email it to me (my email can be obtained through my blogger profile), or simply don't post it.

9. Don't post as "Anonymous." If you are going to post anonymously, at least use some kind of recognizable "handle," so we can tell you apart from all the other anonymous folks. (This is moot at the moment, since recent abuse has forced me to turn off "anonymous" commenting.)

10. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; and abstain from doing to others what you would not wish upon yourself.