Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: The Knowledge of God

  • Van Til and starting with the self

    I’m posting this here because the blogger I’m responding to has a character limit on his blog comments. The original post can be found here, and my initial comment can be found here. Here is my response.

    “Yes, Van Til distinguishes between “mystery” of modernism and the “mystery” of Christianity.”

    Then perhaps you should have made the separation clear in your conclusion. It didn’t seem to be clear – it seemed to be confusing “mystery in general”, and/or conflating them.

    “Yes, to Van Til, the “mystery of modernism” is irrational, while the “mystery of Christianity” is rational.

    So

    …

  • Questioning Copan

    The Gospel Coalition is running a series on apologetics, and today’s entry was by Paul Copan, entitled “Questioning Presuppositionalism”. What struck me, while reading his take on the subject, was how superficial and inaccurate it was. He introduces Van Til, and then says that Gordon Clark supposedly “generally followed” his methodology, along with Bahnsen and Frame, and then called it “variegated”. Well, given that he’s simply wrong concerning Clark, and that Frame consciously departed from Van Til as well, I’d supposed that’s an assumption guaranteed to result in a certain conclusion, wouldn’t you? It is not the case that …

  • We’ve Got Mail: The Glory of God and Grounding Objections

    Pat Mefford writes:

    Recently, I’ve been fascinated by this concept of doing things for the glory of God. It’s an interesting answer to the question, “Why does the Creator bother to create?” but glory is an extrinsic property, one that God cannot ground by himself (one needs an ontologically separate thing to properly glorify that which deserves glory). How does the Presuppositionalist account for a property that God cannot ground but yet, seems dependent on?

    While the question is interesting, the assumptions inherent in the question interest me more. First is the odd idea that seems to express that God …

  • Praxis Presup: Episode 19

    Chris begins his critique of the counter-apologetics podcast Reasonable Doubts as it addresses presuppositional apologetics.

    The counter-apologetics podcast may be found here – http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2012/02/09/episode-97-presuppositional-apologetics-part-1

    An initial comment on the podcast may be found here – https://choosinghats.org/2012/02/reasonable-doubts-about-presuppositional-apologetics…

  • Brian Knapp of Choosing Hats to appear with atheist Matt Oxley on Praxis Presup this weekend for informal debate

    Brian Knapp, Founder and Administrator of Choosing Hats and atheist Matt Oxley of RagingRev.com plan to participate in an informal debate consisting of interview, cross-examination, and discussion hosted and moderated by Chris Bolt of the Praxis Presup podcast this weekend. The event will not be live streamed, however the recording of it will be made available on the next episode of Praxis Presup right here on Choosing Hats around the beginning of next week, Lord willing. You won’t want to miss it!…

  • Adventures in Missing the Antithesis

    Paul Baird recently addressed what he seems to think is the “philosophy that underpins the Christian Presuppositional Apologetics.” He’s wrong, of course, but let us show him why, shall we? He cites Chris’ citation of an argument tucked away in the appendix of PA:S&D as that supposed “underpinning.” Interestingly, he goes on to ask why “do Presuppositional Apologists not start with this explanation that PA is about establishing the need for a unique self sufficient knower and identifying that self sufficient knower exclusively as the Christian god?” Well, that is readily apparent – because we don’t believe that to be …

  • So, You Think You're a Presuppositionalist?

    There are a significant number of newly “converted” (to presup, at least) folks that are quite zealous for the defense of the faith. This, I consider good. On the other hand, Scripture warns us against “zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge”, in Rom 10:2. This is especially important for us to consider. All too often, we have a tendency to “jump right in,” whether we are prepared to do so, or not. Zealousness leads us, with inadequate preparation, all too often to imbalance, and from or along with imbalance, to a sub-Biblical defense. Additionally, there is the …

  • Debate: Is there good reason to believe that the Christian God exists?

    Resolved: There is good reason to believe that the Christian God exists.

    Moderator: Brian Knapp

    Affirmative: Chris Bolt

    Chris Bolt holds a B.A. Philosophy (High Honors) and B.A. Religion from Lynchburg College (Magna Cum Laude) as well as an M.Div. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (School of Theology) where he is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian Philosophy. Bolt is the recipient of a number of awards for his work in philosophy and religion and a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He has participated in debates on the existence of God and on ethics and wrote a chapter of …

  • Knowledge, Attenuated VanTillianism, and a False Dilemma

    Yesterday, I did some commenting on a post by Paul Manata entitled “Do All Men Know that God Exists?“.

    In this post, he offers a couple possible responses he would consider Van Tillians to potentially offer, tells us he’s an “attenuated” Van Tillian (which is unsurprising, at best); we interacted in the comments for a bit, (complete with his typical ad hominem) and he returns today with a bit of screed, venting about Van Tillians. His problem, apparently, seems to be my “certainty”. Far be it from me to point out that he acts anything but uncertain, but …