Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: pragmatism

  • Modest is Hottest: A Brief Response to Bálint Békefi’s “Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?”

    Stroud’s Objection Restated

    Bálint Békefi proposes the following transcendental argument (Békefi, B. Van Til versus Stroud: “Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?” TheoLogica. Published Online First: September 26, 2017):

    (S1) If the negation of p is self-defeating, then p is true.
    (S2) The negation of p is self-defeating.
    (S3) Therefore, p is true.
    (Békefi 9)…

  • A Conservative Evangelical Response to Molly Worthen’s “The Evangelical Roots of our Post-Truth Society”

    A Conservative Evangelical Response to Molly Worthen’s “The Evangelical Roots of our Post-Truth Society”

    by C.L. Bolt…

  • False If It Helps?

    Many people come to believe and embrace Christianity by means of some tragedy or crisis. They’re driven in desperation to look for something that will help them rationalize and file away their grief, and many times, they find Christianity. Many other times, they grab hold of other things, such as drugs, alcohol, other religions, or even a perceived freedom achieved from relinquishing religion. In any case, tragedy has a way of forcing people into a spiral of desperation while their flailing arms are reaching for something outside themselves hoping that thing can withstand the force, and grant stability once again. …

  • [F]utilitarianism

    There is a school of thought to which many ethicists subscribe, whose students never seem willing to move on from the lambda-omega-lambdas, and whose parties are always unusually loud and long even after the music has been stopped for years and all the drink has dried up. This troupe of tautological idealogues loves to insist upon its own opinions and swears so should you. In doing so they both establish and undercut their point. These are the Utilitarians.

    Utilitarianism is a philosophy of ethics that is summarily defined to say, “the morally right action is the action that produces …

  • Application and Practicality

    There seems to be, at least in my experience, a common objection to Covenantal apologetics that goes something like this. Emphasizing all of these arcane and/or obscure concepts, focusing on theology proper; it just doesn’t address the real world practically. There is no application to be made – it’s all theoretical. There are a few variants, and I’ll bring up a couple. First, the objection is made that we are being “obscure” – Bahnsen, as you may know, addresses this in “Always Ready,” along with an admonishment against “obscurantist arrogance.” Here’s an excerpt.

    “In the last study we heard three