Hello.  Welcome back.  Long story short: Aaron and I have been busy this summer.  We’ve also encountered some issues regarding the role of apologetics in Christianity which have put our operations on hold.  While we’re still figuring things out, we will be turning our attention more to doctrinal discussion than defending the faith.

As some of you may be aware, I am a Calvinist.  I believe in all five points of the Doctrines of Grace.  My next posts will go into these five doctrines in depth, but for now I wanted to describe my position as an introduction for where all of this is going.

I recently engaged in a discussion on Reformed theology and was told that I did not due justice to certain traits of God.  Specifically, I did not make God seem very personal or relational.  At the time, my main focus was to promote God’s holiness and sovereignty, but my friend seemed to think that what I said negated other characteristics of God.

I’ve been reading an outstanding book by James White titled The Potter’s Freedom.  I think White does an awesome job at showing just how personal the God of Calvinism is against the God painted by Arminianism.  I find it sad that an Arminian, when faced with the Scriptural support of Calvinism, sees God as impersonal when his own theology makes God nothing more than an impersonal negotiator. Continue reading »

“The world around you is full of amazing things. . . . These things, or others . . . may lead you to ask a question. A question is the beginning of science. Science is the knowledge obtained by observing the natural world in order to discover facts and to formulate laws and principles that can be verified or tested” (Holt 4). Science is the pursuit of knowledge, but only of a particular kind. It deals specifically with the natural world, and cannot cross over to another realm. As defined above, science makes observations on the natural world. However, the boundaries of science have seemingly disintegrated over the past century. Barely two pages later, the question “Why Ask Questions?” is given as a title to the next topic. The same textbook answers: “Although scientists cannot answer every question immediately, they do find some interesting answers” (Holt 6). Now if one is to accept science as a discerner of truth, they must also acknowledge the fallacious philosophy: that science can answer every question, which imasquerades under a single theory.

Evolution, as known today, belongs not even to the wisdom of science, but to the philosophical branch of materialism called scientism, which in itself is not a very successful standing. To this effect Keith Ward, in his book Is Religion Dangerous?, states: “Looking around my philosopher colleagues in Britain, virtually all of whom I know at least from their published work, I would say that very few of them are materialists… the point is that religious views are underpinned by highly sophisticated philosophical arguments” (Ward 91). Continue reading »

I saved this post for part two because I wanted to show in part one that the doctrine of inerrancy is a worthwhile consideration because Scripture itself claims to be inerrant.  That is, Biblical inerrancy is not a doctrine of man, but of verbum Dei.  So from the previous post, we saw that Scripture claims to be inspired and, thus, it follows that it is inerrant. 

What we’ll do here is consider the best case for inerrancy.  If you remember back to September, I wrote a post entitled “A Question of Inerrancy“.  In it, I laid out the seven ways Jesus taught that the Old Testament was God’s Word.  I draw on the same information there, and from my previous post, for this one.  What we’ll be getting into is the best explanation of Biblical inerrancy, and why we must hold this doctrine as Christians.

There is a popular New Testament scholar whose story illustrates the danger of misunderstanding inerrancy.  In his sophomore year of high school, Bart D. Ehrman had a “bona fide born-again experience.”  He then went on to earn a diploma at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and an undergraduate degree at Wheaton.  He initially held the view taught him at Moody: that the Bible was “inspired completely and in its very words–verbal, plenary inspiration.”  By the time he reached Princeton Theological Seminary, these views were crumbling.  The sort of Biblical criticism we’ve dealt with in previous posts got to him (and obviously stuck with him to this day). Continue reading »

This will be part one of a three part series concerning the inspiration and veracity of the Bible.

There is a fallacy among many Christian thinkers which says that the Bible–the Word of God–cannot be infallible or inerrant.  They do not disagree with the idea of inspiration, but their concept of inspiration does not preclude (indeed, it includes) errancy in the transference of God’s Word to man’s papyrus.  I use the word “cannot” purposely, for in their understanding, humans must err, even in transcribing the voice of God (vox dei).  As some have said, “Errare humanum est”–To err is human–and so it may be, if not for a few valuable verses which we’ll look at shortly.

I agree that man is imperfect.  I agree that nothing we do is perfect.  But we have a special case with the Bible, and the whole situation hinges on a certain presupposition.  Let’s ask two questions and see where they lead us.  First, who, if anyone, is able to perform on a perfect level?  God, obviously.  God alone is perfect in everything.  Second, what is the Bible?  Or rather, let’s ask: “What does the Bible say the Bible is?”  Let’s look at some scripture. Continue reading »

I’ll be relying on the following article by William Lane Craig for this post.  Please read it before continuing.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5206

[I forgot those articles are only available for members.  However, registering there is free--you just provide a name and email address.]

For the time being, I’m going to focus on a small point the article brings up, specifically in the debate between Craig and John Dominic Crossan.  As you know from the article, and Craig gives a nice little history of the movement, Dr. Crossan was co-founder of the Jesus Seminar. 

Let me first point out how astonishing it is to find scholars–men and women who spend their lives in the highest levels of academia–still assuming naturalism as a basis for their arguments.  As Craig notes, naturalism is “philosophically untenable.”  Indeed, I’ve heard from one source that some of these scholars–Crossan included–claim to be part of Christianity.  That is, they claim to believe in Jesus as their Savior.  But on the other hand, they deny the miraculous: they deny the virgin birth, and what’s worse, they deny the RESURRECTION.  I’m waiting for a good explanation of how they can claim Christ as Lord and Savior and maintain that He was never raised on that third day… Continue reading »

24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Matthew 24:35 RSV

Each synoptic gospel contains this exact statement by Jesus Christ, despite the surrounding parable being of different wording (Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). Jesus clearly meant what he preached, and the authors took this to heart. But such is not the only mention of Jesus’ support of scripture.

7:26 And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand;
Matthew 7:26 RSV

Continue reading »

The basis of this post is a discussion I recently had at a message board.  The subject was 2 Peter 3:9 and different exegetical looks at it.  The discussion turned to whether Irresistible Grace (a Reformed doctrine) is true or false considering that passage.

A specific part of that discussion was devoted to the relationship between faith and regeneration, specifically their sequential relation.  I held (hold), thanks to insights from R.C. Sproul, that regeneration (being born-again) precedes faith.  Here are some of the posts in that thread. Continue reading »

This section of Ehrman’s book focuses on the timeline and background of the NT writings.  Here is a summary of Ehrman’s summary of the origins of the Gospels: 

The Gospels go back to oral traditions, mainly from people who had not been there.  “Moreover, it [this chapter] will maintain that stories like this tend to change in the process of retelling over time, with some stories actually being made up. [...] Most historians think that Mark was the first of our Gospels to be written, sometime between the mid-60s to early 70s.  Matthew and Luke were probably produced some ten or fifteen years later, perhaps around 80 or 85.  John was written perhaps ten years after that, in 90 or 95.”

The oral traditions about Jesus spread from small beginnings, “say a total of fifteen or twenty people altogether.” Continue reading »

Just wanted to let you all know that the Ek Pyros Forums are now officially open!  Several of you already joined while we were building them, but the rest of you are free to join and start posting as of tonight.  We hope to see you there!

Here’s the link: Ek Pyros Forums

You can also access them via the homepage.

Alright fine, so it’s actually almost a month after Christmas, and by now the trees have all been tossed on the street or are currently shedding all over the living room, like mine is.  But with the season of Christ’s birth came my introduction to a wave of attacks against the Gospels through Jesus’ infancy narratives.  Steve Mason has written one of these (which my arguments focus on refuting specifically) Here.  I suggest that his article be read before continuing.

Steve Mason begins his article on the birthplace of Christ with a short disclaimer.  He states that historians must be careful when testing the veracity of the New Testament, and that these people generally fall into two categories: “Interpreters tend either to overlook ordinary historical questions when reading them or, in some cases, to overcompensate by an unusually aggressive dismissal of their claims.”  His own lack of knowledge pertaining to scripture, assertion of facts without pointing out any objections to his logic and the facetious manner in which he presents the material clearly points to this article falling into the latter category.  A note must first be made, that Mason’s skepticism is not based on a good historian’s attitude of approaching texts, but instead upon an a priori against the inerrancy of scripture.

Continue reading »