Apologetics to the Glory of God

Choosing Hats

  • A Brief Word On The Transcendental Argument For The Existence Of God

    Immanuel Kant is known for having coined a term and utilized an argument which is now referred to as transcendental, though it may be traced back even further, having been used in some sense by Aristotle (as one example). Cornelius Van Til, writing from the Continental Tradition in Philosophy, wrote extensively concerning a transcendental argument which is utilized to prove Christianity. Greg L. Bahnsen, a student of Van Til, is best known for having brought the argument, or at least something very much like the argument, into the realm of public debate and for having attempted to clarify it …

  • Lost In A Sea Of Subjectivism

    Mitch LeBlanc has posted the draft for his journal submission on The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. In the Abstract for the article, he writes, “I present a couple of objections formulated by Sean Choi and Michael Martin and develop three of my own”. It has been pointed out already that whatever Mitch is arguing against, it is not Bahnsen’s TAG. Given that even I, though not very well read on TAG, had encountered the objections from Choi and Martin no later than 2007 and given the recent interaction found here and here with some of the …

  • No Place To Stand Part II

    In response to my previous post Mitch has written this post.

    Unfortunately the tendency Mitch has to advance irrelevant arguments continues in this post as well. Presuppositionalism is immune to the criticisms Mitch raises against it because, among other things, the majority position in presuppositionalism which I also adhere to does not involve the claim that logic is contingent as Mitch has stated in several of his arguments but rather that logic is necessary. Thus Mitch has allegedly advanced arguments against presuppositionalism that fall prey to the Straw Man Fallacy and may be submitting an entry to a philosophical …

  • No Place To Stand

    People have repeatedly called my attention to three posts by Mitch LeBlanc at www.urbanphilosophy.net wherein he makes a “case against presuppositionalism”. There are reasons I have put off writing anything about them other than not having a great deal of time. The arguments contained in the posts are in fact not what they claim to be (arguments against presuppositionalism), but are arguments against the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. The arguments presented do not originate with Mitch at all, a fact he readily admits, but are arguments familiar to many presuppositionalists that have been rehashed. Some of the …

  • Answering An Objection To Christian “Worldview”

    There have been concerns about using Christian “worldview” in a loose fashion, or using it at all. Using the term might downplay the importance or significance of the Gospel, or imply that some people are not Christians when they really are. The danger is in taking Y to be the only position on X that is consistent with the “Christian worldview” where it is dubitable that any position on X is either consistent or inconsistent with the Christian worldview because, as one example, Scripture does not address X.

    Yet it is not too difficult to see that the person raising …

  • Pragmatic Point: The Failure of the Cartesian Method of Doubt

    In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes utilizes a method of doubt in order to determine whether or not there is any such thing as certainty. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce later critiques Descartes not necessarily on the basis of what many other philosophers find fault with in Descartes, but rather on the very method of doubt itself. While there appears to be plenty of room for debate about whether or not Peirce is fair to Descartes with respect to parts of Descartes’ method of doubt, Peirce is justified in the main point of his critique which …

  • The Consequences of Evidentialism

    If you were able to go back in a time machine and witness the tomb of Christ only to find that Christ did not raise from the grave, what would that do to your Christian faith?

    (A Quick Question – @Parchment and Pen)

    Note the poll to the side, and the responses.

    What’s wrong with this? My wife nailed it in about 8 seconds. (She gets an A in my apologetics class!)…

  • Attributal Argument for God’s Ordination of Possibility

    This argument is an attempted formalization of the discussion found in my recent post God is Sovereign over Possibility. It’s intent is to demonstrate that the “all possible worlds” framework that is very commonly used is incompatible with Christian doctrine and the Scriptural revelation of the nature of the Triune God. If you have any possible defeaters, please post them in the comment section. Thanks!…

  • Free Seminary Course: History of Philosophy

    “God’s worldview is the only one that matters.” – Ron Nash

    If you have never visited or used www.biblicaltraining.org then I highly recommend you go and take a look now.

    The specific reason for this post is to recommend the class called History of Philosophy and Christian Thought taught by Dr. Ron Nash. While I am not in complete agreement with everything Dr. Nash taught, he was a superb teacher. I listened to this seminary level course on my iPod the summer after I graduated and can still remember most of it with great clarity; no doubt due to the …

  • An Example of a Red Herring

    In the last post at Choosing Hats an example of the fallacy of Begging the Question was presented along with commentary that it is often helpful to have included in an apologetic arsenal a basic understanding of fallacies. Another popularly used fallacy is called a “Red Herring”. It may be summed up in simple terms as diverting attention away from the subject in question. The use of a Red Herring is a deliberate attempt to change the course of a discussion. This is often done when the individual who is guilty of the fallacy is having some difficulty with …