As I was reading in the book of Exodus this morning, I came across a couple of verses that provoked some reflection on the debate about the nature of human freedom. After defining the Arminian view of human freedom, I’ll share the verses and throw out a question for discussion. Calvinists and Arminians have debated the nature of free will for centuries. While mainstream Calvinists tend to hold to a compatibalist view of the will, Arminians have typically gravitated toward a libertarian view. Bruce Ware defines the libertarian view as follows:

I am preparing a sermon for Southern Seminary’s chapel on Tuesday, and I have been making extensive use of R. T. France’s commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. France holds to the priority of Mark, but he nevertheless believes that Matthew’s Gospel was written before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD. Thus he is persuaded that the apostle Matthew is indeed the likely author. This commentary was published in 2007, so it is relatively up-to-date. It is an excellent exposition of the text, and I commend it to you. R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Eerdmans, 2007).

I have recently begun to read N. T. Wright’s new book on justification, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. In an earlier post, I noted that this is the book in which Wright responds to John Piper’s book on the same topic. I am not posting a full review here. I only want to make an observation about the book’s tone thus far. Last month, there was quite a bit of discussion about IVP’s release of the endorsements of the book (see also Justin Taylor’s discussion). Though endorsers touted the book as an “irenic” response to Piper, we found the endorsements to be anything but “irenic.” We withheld judgment about…