Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: Authors

  • The Recent Rise of Covenantal Apologetics (1 of 10)

    Years ago (oh how time flies!) I read a series of posts by Mark Dever called, “Where’d All These Calvinists Come From?” You may read the series here. Dever provides observations pertaining to the apparent recent growth of Calvinist(ic) theology amongst younger generations as famously pointed out by Collin Hansen here. Some believe these claims erroneous. Others consider them truthful, good news. Others true, but harmful. Whatever your opinion on the matter, I suspect that the “New Calvinism” just has to be an improvement upon “Ancient Pelagianism.” And who wouldn’t agree that it is better to be “Young, …

  • Kinism – Essentially Human After All (not a Daft Punk song)

    There is an aberration in Presbyterianism that seems to rear its head now and again by a few individuals that jump into our chat channel. This aberration is called Kinism. It is not a view held by many within Presbyterianism and those that do hold it seem to follow from the Rushdoony line of thought. This post and those in this series will be asking questions for clarification and or addressing issues delineated at the so-called Christian Kinism blog.

    Accessed 06/24/2012 01:00 UTC:

    2. That all people are essentially humans, created by the hands of Almighty God and therefore they

    …

  • More on the recent annihilationism debate…

    Today Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries discussed the recent annihilationism debate between Chris Date and Joshua Whipps –  http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5124

    See also TurretinFan’s continued response to Chris Date here – http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/supplement-response-to-chris-date-on.html…

  • Just a Quick Update

    A bunch of folks have liked the Facebook page recently, so welcome! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to use the contact form.

    Thanks to my fellow contributors and our readers for putting up with me over the past couple months! It’s been a bit of a wild ride, and I appreciate their forbearance. I really don’t have any debate commentary as yet, and probably won’t for a bit. I’m sure you all are as tired of the subject as I am by now! Now that that debate is finally over, I’m getting back to some other projects …

  • Initial Thoughts On the Recent Annihilationism Debate and Some Serious Concerns About Chris Date

    Here are my initial and probably only comments on the recent debate between Chris Date and Joshua “RazorsKiss” Whipps.

    Chris Date struck me as someone who knew well what he was doing in terms of argumentative style and debate strategy. He was well prepared. His opening statement focused upon biblical texts that addressed the topic of the debate. He frequently utilized sources that his opponent held in high esteem. He spoke quickly but clearly and exhibited a smooth presentation throughout the course of the debate.

    Joshua Whipps came out of the gate strong as well, using Van Tilian catch phrases …

  • Debate: Annihilationism – Chris Date vs. Joshua Whipps

    Resolution: “The final punishment of the risen wicked will be annihilation, the permanent end to the conscious existence of the entire person.”

    The debate took place June 16th, and lasted just over 3 hours.

    Chris Date is the host of the Theopologetics podcast. Joshua is one of the contributors here at ChoosingHats. The debate was moderated by Dee Dee Warren, the hostess of the Preterist Podcast.…

  • Debate Audio Update

    I will not have the audio ready this evening, unfortunately. I actually have the audio finished… however, I had a technical problem with the recording. There is an approximately 50 second gap in Mr. Date’s closing argument, where my recording software went haywire. Mr. Date was gracious enough to promise to send me the relevant section – however, there will be a short, but unavoidable delay until I receive it. I may make a limited version available to people who frequent our chat channel, but I’m going to hold off on releasing an official version until I have that section …

  • One correction I want to make:

    Before any audio goes up, or anything else, I want to correct something I said in the second-to-last Q&A section – I stated that “Christ died the first and second death at once. Think about that.” – I said it, but did not intend to say it. What I meant to say was that “Christ died the second death in place of the first, and did so all at once. Think about that.” I got garbled, and said it as I stated above, and didn’t realize I had said it until Chris responded to it. It was not intentional, and …

  • Theistic Arguments and the Necessity of God

    There are many different types of necessity.

    Logical Necessity and the Ontological Argument

    A logically necessary entity exists in every possible world. (A “possible world” is just a logically possible state of affairs.) That is, there is no logically possible state of affairs in which a logically necessary entity does not exist.

    The ontological argument seeks to demonstrate, among other things, that God is a logically necessary entity. Since God is the greatest possible being, there is no logically possible state of affairs in which God does not exist. It is greater for God to exist in every possible …

  • The Arrogance of the “Impossibility of the Contrary”

    A lot of people have problems with the “impossibility of the contrary” claim often made as part and parcel of the covenantal or presuppositional apologetic method. A lot of people. And they have problems with it for very different reasons. I will address only two of them here.

    The first is exclusivity. To say that anything contrary to some given position is impossible is to make a very bold claim to exclusivity. I am not going to enter into the various senses in which the covenantal apologist might be using the term “impossibility” here. But it will suffice to …