Category: Objections and Misconceptions
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The central verses for the doctrine of Hell.
Under the systematic heading of eschatology, there are topics more controversial, but none more hated than the doctrine of Hell. The doctrine of Hell is more repulsive to the natural man than any other doctrine save that of the holiness and sovereignty of God. In fact, the two are tied together with unbreakable bonds. All of Theology proper is bound up with the doctrines of Eschatology, as are all of the doctrines of Christology, Soteriology, Anthropology, and even Ecclesiology similarly bound. What affects one, affects the others unalterably. Christianity is a cohesive, coherent unit, therefore the modification of one doctrine …
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Against Heresies
All too often, it is asserted that it is somehow “mean”, or “hasty” to denote a particular position as heresy. This, however, is not the historical position of the church – by any means. One need only to look at the Ante-Nicene or Nicene Fathers to get a different picture. Irenaeus’ most famous work is, in fact, titled Against Heresies. Tertullian has a famous work with the title of The Prescription Against Heretics. An amazing number of the early fathers wrote against the doctrines of Marcion – and to a man, called his position heresy. In fact, …
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Conversion Stories
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
(Ephesians 2.1-3)
Conversion stories are all the rage in our “postmodern” context. Unbelievers thus pride themselves on claiming to have once been …
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Initial Thoughts on the Upcoming Debate
I’m finding lots of commentary by folks who want to somehow separate the doctrine of the soul’s immortality from the doctrine of eternal punishment. Since, after all, we believe in Sola Scriptura, that necessarily includes “Tota Scriptura”, and the necessary relation of every doctrine to the others. This is a fundamental point of Reformed theology. No doctrine exists in isolation. The denial, or modification of one doctrine will quite necessarily have an effect on a host of others, due to the nature of Scripture, and the theology we affirm from it. In the introduction to Van Til’s Christian Theistic Evidences…
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Debate: Annihilationism, with Chris Date
Chris Date is the host of the Theopologetics podcast, and says that he has been convinced over the past year of the truth of annihilationism, sought out the best arguments he could find, and found them lacking. He will be defending the following:
Resolution: “The final punishment of the risen wicked will be annihilation, the permanent end to the conscious existence of the entire person.”
The debate is tentatively scheduled for June, with a fairly standard debate format, to include Q&A from questions submitted beforehand.
Format:
…- 20-minute opening affirmative
- 20-minute opening negative
- 10-minute rebuttal affirmative
- 10-minute rebuttal negative
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Why we shouldn’t be afraid of the enemy
Earlier today, I encountered someone linking Justin Taylor, who noted that Ehrman’s new book was out, and included a long excerpt from his introduction, along with a link + graphic for the book. The commentary with that link basically said that this was something bad, that Justin shouldn’t be promoting Ehrman’s book, and that doing so was “shameful”. Further, he offered the following comments: “It undermines Christian apologetic work that has shown that Erhman is anti-Christian and deeply prejudice (sic) in his writing. Not to mention that he is promoting Ehrman’s errant method of doing history. Taylor is in the …
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Opening Statement from my debate with Michael Long
My debate with Michael Long may be found here – https://choosinghats.org/2011/08/is-there-good-reason-to-believe-that-the-christian-god-exists
See some of my debate preparation here – https://choosinghats.org/2012/03/behind-the-scenes-notes-from-my-debate-with-michael-long
Debate Opening Statement
I. Introduction
Thank you Mr. Knapp, Mr. Long, my wife Kerri. Most of all I thank the Triune God of Scripture who chose, redeemed, and sealed me concerning the Gospel through which I am being saved by grace through faith; that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) I have personally experienced the reality of forgiveness of my sins …
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Point of Contact and Human Reason
It’s quite common to find the following objections made – just check out who is answering them as well as giving them for consideration.
…What has been said up to this point may seem to be discouraging in the extreme. It would seem that the argument up to this point has driven us to a denial of any point of contact whatsoever with the unbeliever. Is it not true that men must have some contact with the truth if they are to receive further knowledge of it? If men are totally ignorant of the truth, how can they even become
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A Fantastic Insight into Redaction Criticism and the Islamic use of it
Two brief excerpts:
…I can tell you, without hesitation, that the vast majority of those who embrace form and redaction criticism in all of its flavors and kinds do so out of tradition, not out of having examined the case set forth in defense of these methods. In fact, very, very few of those who glibly repeat the party line have ever even given thought to any other viewpoint. Anyone who thinks there is a fair, open dialogue in “the academy” over these topics is simply misinformed. To “get ahead” in Christian scholarship you must—not should, MUST—toe the line when
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Two New Apologetics Books
First, Jamin Hubner has released the Second Edition of his The Portable Presuppositionalist.
Second, Clifford B. McManis has published Biblical Apologetics: Advancing and Defending the Gospel of Christ. Several people have let me know about this book prior to its release, so I excitedly read everything I could in its online preview. I have some initial concerns with respect to the rhetoric and tone of the work.
McManis makes rather large implicit promises about putting a different spin on apologetics, but the portion of the book that I read contains very little, if anything, “new.” Of course McManis …