Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: Common Objections

  • PZ Myers on “twisty” philosophy

    Beware! Presuppositionalists

    There are logical/philosophical arguments against presuppositionalism (there are good examples in the comments at Aron’s blog), but I guess I’m not a philosophical thinker in that same vein — they all seem to[sic] twisty and abstract for me, and I don’t really trust those kinds of rebuttals.

    Count the number of assertions from the field of philosophy to follow – not to mention the amazing assertions concerning what presup consists of. Quite intriguing to witness. If you like train wrecks. See how many mistakes you can find in just this short article.…

  • God and Desire

    It was a bit of an eyebrow raiser – mostly due to the nonchalance of the entire affair – (albeit unsurprising, given prior statements he has made) to read Piper simply handing over 1 Tim. 2:4 to Arminianism. What’s also quite interesting is that the handoff is done with practically no exegetical attention paid to the surrounding verses, or seemingly, even an attempt to interact with the historic Reformed commentators on the subject.

    Put two texts together, and see what you see.

    “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (eis

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  • Seen Elsewhere – On Comments

    A comment on this post I’d like to reply to.

    Dave,
    I rarely allow comments from adherents to unorthodox positions on one of my teaching posts – especially those comments with content covered by multiple entries in the FAQ, the site rules, or that have been answered elsewhere on the site. We have quite a different conception of the purpose for the comment section than most blogs do. Further, I prefer there be some apologetic benefit to engaging your comment – I saw none in that instance, as it seemed to be an assertion without argument that Reformed …

  • According to Knowledge

    It is often the case that personal ignorance is mistaken for Biblical mystery. It must be immediately stated that just because you haven’t learned something yet does not mean that it remains a mystery, or veiled. The term “revelation” refers to the disclosure of something formerly secret, or obscure. Often, the objector will assert that there is no fundamental difference between subjects such as women in ministry, election, or millenialism – or that the answer to any (or all) of these is simply mysterious – but this simply isn’t true. The Bible speaks with clarity on all that it speaks. …

  • Admitting the Possibility

    (4:50) “Please pray for us? It seems to me as though Joshua’s prayer leading up to this debate, and my prayer, are a bit different. I’ll let you follow his posts so that you can check that out. My prayer for the upcoming debate is not that what I think is the truth will in fact be made out to be true. Because I quite frankly admit the possibility that I might be wrong about this; I don’t think that I am, and I think that the Scripture is clearly in support of the position that I’ll be advancing. But

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  • Point of Contact – Life, Death and Theology

    Dealt with approximately 25 minutes of audio from three lengthy Theopologetics podcasts on annihilationism, the presuppositional commitments that are brought to the text, and on the basis of that reading, affect the theology they teach. Had Ben, Matthias, and Justin in with me at various points. We didn’t get to all of it, as we had a near catastrophic recording failure toward the end, where you will hear the audio quality/texture change, and I then make some comments specifically to Chris. Thankfully, it was recovered, and all was then right with the world. Take a listen.

    Also, see this post…

  • “If the existence of God is so obvious, then why do we debate it?”

    Atheists sometimes make the rhetorical point that if the existence of God were so obvious as many Christians hold it to be, then we would not have to hold debates about His existence. We don’t go around having debates about the existence of particular people, or certain types of animals, or various aspects of the world that are immediately present to our sensory experience, so why do we have them about something or someone who is supposed to so obviously exist? Is God just incapable of revealing Himself clearly enough that we might believe in Him the way we believe …

  • “How do you know that for certain?”

    A quick qualm…

    I’ve noticed a slew of presuppositional apologists on the Internet basing the entirety of their apologetic around the issue of certainty in knowledge.

    That has its place. Richard Pratt does something similar here – http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thought-Captive-Defense-Christian/dp/0875523528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337572150&sr=8-2

    But not all knowledge claims are claims to certainty.

    And not all knowledge is certain.

    Enough about certainty itself though; that is not the subject of this post.

    Rather, when the apologist is engaged with an unbeliever it needs to be pointed out not merely that the unbeliever cannot know anything for certain, but that the unbeliever cannot know anything at …

  • Why Christians Are Stupid and Atheists Are Not

    If you were to buy into atheist propaganda on the Internet you would have no choice but to conclude that Christians are some of the most ignorant, irrational, dishonest, deluded idiots on the planet. In short if you are a Christian, then you are stupid. You can substitute whatever other derogatory term you would like in the place of stupid. The point is that something is seriously wrong with the idiots who believe these nonsensical fairy tales, etc. etc. You have heard it all before. You get the point.

    Of course I do not really need the atheists to tell …

  • Matthew 25:41, Kolasis, and The Mediator

    (26:19) This phrase eternal fire is used again in Matthew 25:41, where Jesus says he will send those on his left into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So they will be destroyed, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. He calls this eternal punishment a few verses later, but before you assume that this supports torment forever and ever, consider this. The word rendered punishment refers to a penalty of death in the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel 18:30-32, and in 2Maccabees 4:38. The verb form of the word likewise refers to being killed in at least a

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