Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: Common Objections

  • 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 …

  • Some Questions for Matt Oxley

    Matt Oxley describes himself as a “former Christian helping others work through the battle of a lost faith.” One aspect of his mission is “to promote intelligent discussion.” So he won’t mind my probing a bit concerning his claim, “I’m a former Christian.”

    Recall Scripture states, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2.19) Recently a professing Christian cited this verse for Matt. The implication …

  • 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

  • Why I Believe

    I was in an conversation in our chat room the other day with an atheist – one that I thought was a total waste of time, until a friend of mine suggested I review my side of the conversation and encouraged me to post it as a synopsis of why I am a Christian, and what our method of apologetics “looks like” to the outside world.
    The result is the attached PDF. Hopefully it will be of some benefit to you as you think about why it is that you believe, and how to best share that with others.

    Why

  • Theology Still Matters

    Even in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, such as the Aurora shootings (Alan’s comments about whether comments on it should still be going on aside), there are common themes in responses to tragedy, and what answers you have to give concerning it. As Dr. White is fond of saying – and I’m fond of repeating – theology matters, and your theology determines your apologetic. I had this story linked to me, earlier this evening. It sounds truly remarkable, and I appreciate that he related this story. What I didn’t appreciate, however, was the answer he had to give …

  • Christian Books on Homosexuality

    A few people asked me about books on homosexuality. Here are three that I recommend:

    The classic work on this topic is The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert A.J. Gagnon.

    James R. White & Jeffrey D. Niell wrote what is probably my favorite treatment of it, The Same Sex Controversy.

    Finally, Homosexuality: A Biblical View by Greg L. Bahnsen is available online for free.…

  • Trueman on Papal Authority

    [T]he rise, consolidation and definition of papal power is an historically very complex issue; and, indeed, as scholarship advances, the story becomes more, not less, convoluted and subversive of papal claims. For some converts to Roman Catholicism, papal authority is somehow seen as an obvious riposte to problems with the perspicuity of scripture. In other words, it is the answer to an epistemological/authority problem. For those of us who have spent the best part of our lives reading late medieval and early modern history, however, papal authority is not an epistemological solution to much of anything at all; rather, it

  • One Less God?

    With the recent controversy over McFormtist’s recent post, I figured this video might be a good reminder that this subject is nothing new, nor does it lack a prior context. Ignoring this context does nothing to advance the discussion, nor does a simple mention of Roman references to Christians as “atheists” get to the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is that the claim being expressed is, at base, an appeal to neutrality which we both do not and cannot accept – an insistence on the equal footing of all “gods” where the atheist is rejecting …

  • Dear Atheists: Please Get Better Objections

    Joe is an atheist who takes issue with my asking another commenter about supporting evidence for his claims. When I asked the other visitor, “what’s your evidence that only evidence matters?” Joe responded, “Sir, you may not be stupid, but this phrase is nonsense. YOU use evidence to support everything.”

    Apparently Joe buys into the idea that only evidence matters, that everyone uses evidence to support everything, and even that every claim must be supported with evidence. But if every claim must be supported by evidence, then the claim, “every claim must be supported with evidence” must also be supported …