Apologetics to the Glory of God

Choosing Hats

  • Discussion With Nocterro Concerning Three Topics: Opening Statement By C.L. Bolt

    Introduction

    Internet user Nocterro has requested that we discuss the three topics of the reliability of Scripture, the self-deception of atheists, and the presupposition of God in Nocterro’s reasoning. Scripture is reliable and is the source of my claim that Nocterro believes both ‘God exists’ and ‘Nocterro does not believe that God exists’. Scripture is also the source of my claim that Nocterro presupposes God in order to reason at all. Here I will offer a brief defense of each of these three claims with the recognition that each subject is massive enough to deserve much more detailed discussion than …

  • Open Theism and Pacifism?

    Molinism advocate and apologist Wes Widner quoted Open Theist Gregory Boyd earlier today, concerning non-violence. The quote was as follows:

    Any peace achieved by violence is a peace forever threatened by violence, thus ensuring that the bloody game will be perpetuated.

    This is cited (but not in the tweet, for obvious reasons) from Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation, pg 27. (Excerpt of the book linked here) As no context was provided by Wes, I asked him, via Twitter, the same format I saw the quote in.

    In the meantime, while waiting his reply, I performed a cursory …

  • Should we argue for “general theism”?

     

     

    In my experience the presuppositionalist program of setting out to defend specifically Christian theism generally produces scoffing rather than interaction. At the beginning of his debate with Gordon Stein, Greg Bahnsen states his position on this matter. He says, “I want to specify that I’m arguing particularly in favor of Christian theism, and for it as a unit or system of thought and not for anything like theism in general, and there are reasons for that.”

    There are at least two senses in which Bahnsen explains he will not be arguing for or defending theism in general. Bahnsen …

  • A Fristian Strikes Out

    As I was browsing the Internet today I came across the following from a “John Calvin”:

    “All right. So all the Fristian needs to do is to say that ‘Fristianity’ is whatever subset of Christian claims the TAGster thinks we need for preconditions of intelligibility, *except that* the Trinity is a Quadrinity.”

    How does someone disprove a worldview that has the same propositions as Christianity except for the additional proposition that there is a fourth person in God?

    In my view, thinking of the “preconditions of intelligibility” as a “subset of Christian claims” may be a rather substantial error, but …

  • Cultic Presups

    As if often noted by Dr. White on his program, The Dividing Line, there are certain presuppositions that show up again and again in cults. The most obvious one is that of Unitarianism.

    These presuppositions can be illustrated quite clearly in an excerpt from Dr. White’s “The Forgotten Trinity.”

    So we can see that rather than denying the deity of Christ, John 14:28 implies it, for the position into which the Son was going is a position fit only for deity, not for mere creatures. This is brought out plainly in the words of Jesus in John 17 and His

    …

  • The Possibility of Middle Knowledge

    I’m going to include the transcript of a discussion I had (along with several others) with a Middle Knowledge proponent that frequents AOMin’s chat channel. The reason I do so is in order to give an example of how the argument I advanced recently functions in an actual discussion.

    The discussion was fairly wide-ranging, but I think demonstrates the ability of a consistent return to the nature of God as the foundation of a reply to the assertions advanced by proponents of MK and other similar philosophical systems, over against the Biblical conception of God’s nature and the modal collapse …

  • Science Is Not That Simple

    Science is often thought of as involving facts that are directly given to unprejudiced observers through their senses, facts that precede and are independent of theory, and facts that provide a firm basis for scientific knowledge. A.F. Chalmers argues against these widely accepted ideas. 

    It is widely believed that facts concerning the world around us come to us directly through the senses.  This would lead us to believe that observing the world around us and recording what is seen or otherwise experienced through the senses is all there is to observation.  In this way it is thought, what is seen …

  • A Weird “Proof”

    Someone sent me a link to the following argument.

    1.(1) If Calvinism is true, there is no free will
    2.(2) The logical problem of evil is defeated only by Plantinga’s Free Will Defense
    3.(3) Plantinga’s Free Will Defense requires that there exist free will
    4.(4) If Calvinism is true, the logical problem of evil is not defeated
    5.(5) If the logical problem of evil is not defeated, God does not exist
    6.(6) If Calvinism is true, God does not exist
    7.(7) God does exist
    8.(8) Calvinism is false
    9.(9) Human beings have free will

    Lots of problems here.

    1. This …

  • Serving the Creature

    “…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…” Romans 1.25

    Al Mohler comments on the “new religion” of thinking green here.…

  • Proving the Bible

    Jamin Hubner at Real Apologetics has written another very fine article which may be found here.…