“Why? If God exists, why is there suffering? Why doesn’t He snap his fingers and fix everything in an instant? If we had the power to fix everything, we would. Is He not good? Why does it take the Creator so long if He created the whole universe in six days? Does He lack the [...]
IV. The Total Picture A. My problems with the “traditional method.” 1. This method compromises God himself by maintaining that his existence is only “possible” albeit “highly probable,” rather than ontologically and “rationally” necessary. 2. It compromises the counsel of God by not understanding it as the only all-inclusive, ultimate “cause” of whatsoever comes to [...]
III. Toward a Christ-Centered Apologetic Deciding, therefore, to follow the Reformers in theology, it was natural that I attempt also to do so in apologetics. I turned to such Reformed apologists as Warfield, Greene, and others. What did I find? I found the theologians of the “self- attesting Christ,” defending their faith with a method [...]
II. Christ Writes Me a Letter I have never met Christ in the flesh. No matter, he has written me a letter. Not he, himself. He chose helpers. By his Spirit, the Spirit of truth, these helpers wrote what he wanted me to know. From heaven my Lord then sent his Holy Spirit on Pentecost [...]
[Cornelus Van Til, perhaps the founder of presuppositional apologetics, defines his beliefs in "My Credo". I will copy the paper in four separate posts.] My Credo By: Cornelius Van Til The following essay was taken from the book, Jerusalem and Athens which was written as a Festschrift for Dr. Van Til on his birthday. This [...]
Literally. What exactly are apologetics? Why should we use them? When should we? What’s their purpose? The answers, of course, are to be found in scripture. This series will study the nature of apologetics by examining the questions above, along with others, and referencing a great deal of biblical examples. This topic has become increasing [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]