# Any Calvinists who deny Owen's Double-Payment argument?



## fralo4truth (May 13, 2013)

Are there any notable Calvinists who deny the double-payment argument set forth by John Owen in his defense of particular redemption? Not that they denied limited atonement, but just didn't feel that this in itself was a sufficient argument for refuting universal redemption. 

I just watched a video by James White in which he responds to comments made by Dr. David Allen at the John 3:16 conference. One in the audience had asked about the double-payment argument. Dr. Allen stated that R.L. Dabney, among a few others, denied Owen's argument. He then went on to draw a distinction between corporal debt and penal debt, something this country boy has never heard of, in an attempt to show that Christ could pay one's debt, yet the sinner could still end up making his own payment.

Is this true? Did Dabney disagree with Owen on this? Are there other Calvinists who do so? And if so, what were their arguments? And what is this corporal vs. penal debt distinction?


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## earl40 (May 13, 2013)

I don't know if the argument that the atonement has procured peripheral benefits to the unelect comes in here, but I strongly suspect such which would include many a Calvinist.


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## fralo4truth (May 14, 2013)

*bump*

Just to see if anybody knows anything about this.


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## MW (May 14, 2013)

There is a body of literature which seems to commence with Clifford's "Atonement and Justification" and alleges the fallacy or flaw of Owen's argument because of its Aristotelian logic. It is answered in part in Carl Trueman's "Claims of Truth." Dabney's discussion is found in his Lectures on Theology, p. 521. It does not refer to Owen. It simply rejects a part of the argument on the theological premise that elect unbelievers are still accounted guilty. One must distinguish what different theologians are doing in rejecting the argument. Some are sub-Calvinistic and deny limited atonement; others are fully Calvinistic but seek to defend limited atonement with care and precision.


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