Apologetics to the Glory of God

Search results for: “"transcendental argument"”

  • Doppelganger theism

    Ben Askins commented on a podcast done by RazorsKiss about Fristianity styled counters. I’m going to post my own responses here, and work out some of the ways we think about these kinds of objections.

    “The Fristianity objection is calculated to consider the assertion of the Trinity as the resolution of the “one-and-many problem,” in consideration of the strong modal claim in Greg Bahnsen’s formulation of a transcendental argument (i.e. “God is the *necessary* precondition for X” where X is some moral, metaphysical or epistemic given.).

    So step [1] with respect to Fristianity would require presenting reasons why a trinitarian …

  • The Same Tired Assertions

    Jeff Downs posted in regard to J. Warner Wallace’s comments in response to a review found on The Gospel Coalition, authored by Gustav Pritchard. He doesn’t supply the link to the review in his post, but it was easily found by a text search. Once I read the response, I went to the “Cold Case Christianity” facebook page and asked a question of Mr. Wallace. First, let’s take his comments in.

    I authored a book, Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels, which takes an evidential approach to Christian Case Making (apologetics). That shouldn’t come

    …

  • The Centrality of the Creator/creature distinction

    As we spoke about in the last post, there seems to be a strangely persistent notion that emphasizing an actual distinction between the thought of God and man is a mistake. I’d like to add that there is a similar notion, despite lip-service to the concept, that emphasizing the transcendence of God in any sense is likewise considered to be a mistake of some kind. In my experience, this often stems from the fact that men are simply uncomfortable with God being absolutely other – and as such, not to be confused with anything they would be familiar with. While …

  • Presuppositionalists Are Too Negative

    Transcendental arguments are traditionally used in response to skepticism. See Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Strawson, Grayling, and Stern.

    Transcendental argument in Van Til and Bahnsen is likewise a response to skepticism. They were not arguing for skepticism, they were arguing against it. It just so happens that the only answer to skepticism is the Christian worldview.

    Presuppositional apologists often appear to argue for skepticism because their opponents attempt to respond to it through rationalist, empiricist, and pragmatic schools of thought. But it is unreasonable to assume, given the evidence, that any of these three general responses to skepticism really works.

    Thus …

  • The Consistently Inconsistent Worldview Objection

    Suppose someone posits that his or her worldview is consistently inconsistent. He or she admits that there are many inconsistencies within the worldview. In this case, inconsistency is not something to be shunned. Inconsistency is to be affirmed. Embraced. Granted approval. Are there such worldviews? Yes. There are worldviews that come close to rejecting the need for consistency. Buddhism and postmodernism are two examples. How might the covenantal apologist respond?

    First, an inconsistency-affirming worldview is also consistency-affirming. There is nothing more inconsistent with inconsistency than consistency. To be consistent, an inconsistency-affirming worldview must also be a consistency-affirming worldview. …

  • A Christian Epistemology of Testimony

    Epistemology of Testimony

    In the Word of God we have the testimony of God. We accept this testimony on faith. We are warranted in doing so. One might say that we have a testimonial epistemology.

    Doubting Scripture

    Unbelievers often call the aforementioned testimonial epistemology into question. They question our accepting the Word of God on faith. They question the notion that we have the Word of God.

    Frequently the aforementioned doubts stem from other testimony. So for example, a young person reads that naturalistic, macro-evolutionary biology is true and that he would be stupid or wicked for not accepting …

  • A Response to Jeremiah Bannister (paleocrat)

    I will be responding to this post  – http://jeremiahbannister.com/?p=154 – which is written in response to my post here – https://choosinghats.org/2012/11/canon-and-roman-catholicism.

    Justin Scheiber of Reasonable Doubts recently linked to one of my posts on the canon of Scripture. I do not really have a way of following Justin, although I did notice an announcement that he is available for speaking engagements and debates. Perhaps one day he will debate me, but I am not holding my breath. In any event, Justin linked to me, and Jeremiah Bannister followed that link. Bannister is better known as “paleocrat.”

    Some of you …

  • It’s Circular Because It’s Consistent

    I just wrote a piece arguing that presuppositionalism is not circular. For the sake of clarity, I will now argue that it is.

    “Virtuous Circularity”

    There is, of course, a sense in which presuppositionalism is circular. But upon hearing the term “circular” most opponents of the Christian faith, and even many of those who are counted among its friends, immediately start off into lengthy diatribes describing their disgust with Christians and methodologies that rely upon logically fallacious argumentation.

    The Logic of Logic

    Now the charge of logically fallacious argumentation, it seems to me, rests in some way upon logic. …

  • It’s Circular Because It’s Circular

    The charge that presuppositionalism is “circular” must be one of the dumbest objections I have ever heard.

    No really. Think about it for just a moment.

    You hear the accusation again and again that presuppositional apologetics are “circular.” The implication is that the charge of circularity in view here constitutes an objection against presuppositional apologetics. A fatal objection, even. So a logical point is being made. A fallacy is in view.

    Presuppositional Apologetics Can’t Be Circular

    But it should be noted right away that “presuppositional apologetics” can never be circular. Neither the label “presuppositional apologetics” nor the discipline the label …

  • The Recent Rise of Covenantal Apologetics (6 of 10)

    One of the largest contributing factors to the recent rise of covenantal apologetics is, oddly enough, the response of its anti-Christian critics.

    Just in the last year or two, podcast after atheistic podcast has trumpeted everything from mere disdain for to the utter defeat of presuppositional apologetics. Podcasts that come to mind are Fundamentally Flawed, Skepticule Record, and Reasonable Doubts. There are others. Militant atheists are also mouthy atheists. On the one hand, they want to dismissively scoff at covenantal apologetics, making up some of the worst puns on “presuppositionalism” you have ever heard. On the other …