Does it matter if a person has "goodwill" toward you? There is one secret thing you need to learn about how to know if a person has goodwill or not.

How can we know that the Bible we have in front of us contains the same message as what Moses or Paul wrote down? Do we need to do textual criticism and find older and older copies? Until we do that, are we left with doubt that we have the Word of God? The answer is that we can know with certainty that we have the same Word of God as given to the authors of the Bible.

There are so many religious books. Every religion tries to stand out and say its book is from their god. Isn't the Bible just another example? Can we know if it really is the inspired Word of God?

As part of my ongoing study of the history of philosophy and philosophers, this lecture explains 3 things you must know to give context when learning about any philosopher. 1. Clear general revelation; 2. sin and the fall of man; 3. the curse and especially physical death.

Is the human will really free?

In this episode of Ten Minutes in the Doorway, Dr. Owen Anderson continues his discussion of Molinism by turning to a deeper assumption shared by pagan philosophy and modern humanism: the idea that the will is neutral, detached, and capable of calmly choosing between options without inclination.

Drawing on pagan thinkers, Renaissance humanism, and modern assumptions about autonomy, this episode contrasts that view with the biblical and Augustinian account of the will. Paul, Augustine, and Calvin all insist that the will is never disinclined. After the Fall, it is bent toward evil—not coerced, but enslaved by what it loves. A free choice, in the Christian sense, is an uncoerced choice, not a morally neutral one.

The episode concludes with Paul’s haunting question from Romans 7: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”—and the Christian answer that freedom does not come from better options or more information, but from redemption in Christ.

If the problem is not lack of freedom but the will itself, the real question becomes: who will save me from me?

The Jesuit Counter-Reformation offered Molinism as the way to explain God's foreknowledge and defeat the Reformation. The problem is that the "God" of Molinism is contingent, and the "free will" of Molinism is incompatible with counterfactuals of freedom. The God revealed in both scripture and general revelation is the God of the Reformation, who is eternal and decrees all things that come to pass.

You can find Evangelical philosophers today advancing the cause of the Counter-Reformation. Here we examine why Molina and the Jesuits opposed the Reformation, and how that same cause is championed by contemporary Molinists. The essence of the Counter-Reformation is an argument against sola Scriptura and sola gratia. This discussion leads us into the distinction between primary and secondary causes, and how the Reformed view of God’s predestination provides both the scripturally and philosophically accurate understanding of the created human will.

This video breaks the 10-minute rule, but I think you'll be happy I did. I explain what I observed as a philosopher at this year's AmFest.

Do you have free will? What is it? And how does it relate to God's eternal decree? The Jesuit and Arminian view of free will insists that there are uncaused events. The Reformed view teaches Sola Christus and Sola Gratia.

Molinism, like Pelagianism, medieval sacramentalism, the Jesuits, and the Arminians, confuses two important ideas and because of that has a core problem: it rejects sola gratia.