Apologetics.com Neiswonger

The Five points of Calvinism. 
You know the whole ‘5 points’ thing is kind of funny. John Calvin never had five points. While I really think he would have agreed with them, his was mainly an exegetical way of looking at what he thought Scripture was saying about some very important things. I think that if […]

A Recent Spate of Calvinism.  Part Five.
http://neiswonger.wordpress.com/2007/06/29/a-recent-spate-of-calvinism-part-four/”>Continued from Part Four.
“Now since one and the same grace may in one instance be efficacious, and in another inefficacious, it follows that the so-called gratia efficax must be conceived according to its essence as efficax ab extrinsico. In this conception there is no lessening of the dignity and […]

First causes and second thoughts.  (an answer to a friend)
Plato and Aristotle were the big “First Cause” guys.  They wrote quite a bit about it in their books on everything from politics to metaphysics.  It’s must reading for those interested.  Aquinas was the main technical formulator of the Five Ways, or what we call the […]

 On Atheisms and why they are unthinkable.
There are things, we can call them things because we don’t really know what else to call them, like the laws of logic, numbers, consciousness, ethics, relations, things that seem to be eternal and unchangeable, that are inexplicable in terms of eternal material as the singular explanatory fact, or […]

A Recent Spate of Calvinism.  Part Four.
When you hear somebody that says they are a Calvinist say that man has no freewill, it’s hard to take that seriously.  We all know that man has a will.  The question is generally as to what man desires, not whether or not he does so.  There has been […]

A recent spate of Calvinism. Part Three.
“Only lest any one should presume so to deny freedom of will, from a desire to excuse sin.” Augustine.
“Of our own we have nothing but sin.” Augustine.
Calvinism can make your head hurt. You get into all of the confusing little nooks and crannies of the Christian faith just to […]

A recent spate of Calvinism.  Part One.
Calvinism… oooo… spooky.  If half of the things that people say about Calvinism were even half true I could never be a Calvinist.  It’s not so much that people disagree about these things, Christians have always disagreed about these things, but the zeal for misrepresentation that should cause us […]

On Religious Experience: The use of it as Proof for the existence of God.
Part 1.
Religious experience is, I think, the basis for a very powerful argument, but only powerful upon people that have had such an experience.  (This is a complicated claim that I will expand upon a little later.) With my theological background flowing […]

On History and Evidence. (A Response to a friend)
Interesting stuff. I like the Plantinga thing because one of the worlds foremost philosophers is actually taking the time to say that this guy doesn’t know philosophy from a hole in the ground.1 And you are right in saying that the rubber hits the road in the […]

So… Frank Beckwith has converted.  A Catholic would say, repented.  A Protestant (the more uppity term for an Evangelical) might say, lapsed.  Whatever we say, it should be said with Charity.
I had the pleasure of having a long talk with Beckwith about Roman Catholicism and his possible return to that communion well over a year […]