Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: Frequently Asked Questions

  • Mr. White, Mr. Grey and Mr. Black VIII

    It’s been quite a while since there’s been a post in this series, hasn’t it? I apologize for the delay! This post will continue the discussion we left off in the last post, and pick up on the same page.

    Of course, what Mr. Black is doing appears very reasonable to himself. “Surely,” he says, if questioned at all on the subject, “a rational man must have a systematic coherence in his experience. Therefore he cannot accept as true anything that is not in accord with the law of noncontradiction. So long as you leave your God in the realm

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  • When Contra Munda isn’t All About You

    Back in the third century of the church, as I’m sure some of our readers are aware, there was a bishop named Athanasius – his tenacious defense of the doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition to the swiftly growing heresy of Arianism gave rise to the statement “Athanasius contra mundum” – Athanasius against the world. In a sense, this wasn’t quite true – there were other defenders of the Trinity around, but none so prolific, and none who were targeted nearly so heavily as Athanasius, who was ejected from his church five times, and was only vindicated after his death. …

  • Peripatetic 3 – Is Covenantal Apologetics Extreme

    I address this common conception, and the underlying issues…

  • On Being All Things to All Men

    1 Cor. 9:19-22: For though I am free from all [men], I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without

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  • 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

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  • The Creator/Creature Distinction and Objections

    In our last post we looked at the centrality of the Creator/creature distinction to Christian theology, and to our apologetic. With this post, I’d like to look at the importance of it in regards to objections offered and our response to them. These objections can come in a variety of forms – the so-called problem of evil, the supposed “evil god” objections, objections to Scriptural tenets, or what have you. At bottom, however, I’d advance the theory that they all boil down to a denial of God’s transcendence. Why do I say this?

    At bottom, every objection that is offered …

  • On Balance

    Think about what happens when several people are tugging on some object from different directions – the relative movement of the object, given more or less equal force being exerted from the various directions, will be close to zero.

    Now think about what happens when one person is tugging harder than all the rest – what is the result for the object then? Imagine the object as your set of theological commitments – and the people tugging as various viewpoints that all demand an answer from you. If you, as an apologist, aren’t careful – that over-focus on one particular …

  • 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

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  • Lutherans, and Muslims, and TAG! Oh My!

    On yesterday’s Dividing Line (September 11, 2012) a caller (37 minute mark) asks Dr. White some questions about “apologetic frameworks.” You may find the program here – http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5229. As usual I recommend listening to the program in its entirety, but I want to mention two links related to the aforementioned discussion.

    The first link is to a post where I tried to squeeze Martin Luther into a presuppositionalist framework. I don’t actually think he fits into that category, but it was worth a shot. You may find the post here –  https://choosinghats.org/2010/10/happy-reformation-day-from-choosing-hats-2.

    The second is the article I …

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

    I began this series with the claim that covenantal (or more popularly, “presuppositional”) apologetics are on the rise. I noted that I don’t have hard evidence that there are any more people now who know what presuppositional apologetics are than there were people who knew what they were ten years ago. However, I have spent a fair amount of time familiarizing myself with the method and its practitioners and feel confident in asserting that there are. My stated goal in writing this series was to provide an explanation of the aforementioned phenomenon. The series consists of my observations regarding why …