Apologetics to the Glory of God

Choosing Hats

  • The Substance of Success in Apologetics

    The call to be an Apologist, or a defender of the faith, is not something reserved for seminarians or pastors, or even in general, the smartest among us. Rather, everyone who is called by the name of Christ possesses the responsibility, the burden, and the privilege of defending the truth of God against any contradiction to it. Indeed, we are each called to “Be diligent to present [ourselves] approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

    Apart from pragmatic considerations with regard to Apologetics which are …

  • Acts 17 and Covenantal Apologetics

    Re-posted from here – http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/13/answering-objections-to-presuppositionalism.

     

    J.R.

    March 14, 2012 at 12:51 PM

    taco,
    Non-presuppositionalists argue that Acts 17 is clearly a classical (specifically Greek) apologetic used by Paul. You’ll need to find another example to make your case. “So Paul, standing in the midst of Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religiou. For as I passed and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

    Reply
    •  taco
      March 14, 2012
    …

  • Debate: Covenantal Apologetics is the only Biblical apologetic methodology

    Date: March 25th
    Time: 2pm EST (Watch for updates)
    Location: IRC, #chdebate channel – fuller detail will be given the day of the debate.

    I’ll be debating Scotty Bowers, aka “Ransom” on this topic. I will, of course, be taking the affirmative in this debate. Anyone is invited to attend the debate.…

  • Copan’s Folly

    Dr. Paul Copan’s “critique” of presuppositionalism has started a minor furor over at TGC, with my response as only the first of many.

    Steve Hays
    Copan on Presuppositionalism
    Does Presuppositionalism Begs the Question
    Paul Copan on Common Ground

    James Anderson
    Does Presuppositionalism engage in question-begging?

    James White

    K. Scott Oliphint
    Answering Objections to Presuppositionalism…

  • 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 …

  • Modified Common Consent Argument

    One of my favorite, fun little arguments for the existence of God is formulated by Roman Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft and is called, “The Common Consent Argument.” You may read the argument here – http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#19. Kreeft states the argument as follows:

    1. Belief in God—that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due—is common to almost all people of every era.
    2. Either the vast majority of people have been wrong about this most profound element of their lives or they have not.
    3. It is most plausible to believe that they have not.
    4. Therefore it is most plausible to believe
    …

  • Paul Jenkins, Naughty Children, and Hell

    Introduction

    Somewhat understandably, our friend Paul Jenkins categorizes the discussion of, “whether Hell is ‘eternal conscious punishment’ on the one hand, or ‘annihilation’ on the other” as, “Not just piffle, but risible piffle.”

    The alternative that occurs most obviously to me is, “Hell doesn’t exist — it’s a horror story told to children to stop them being naughty.”

    One might question how Paul is so dogmatically certain that hell doesn’t exist. Of course it does not matter how certain Paul feels he is with regard to the alleged non-existence of hell if hell does in fact exist. It does …

  • William Edgar – What is Presuppositionalism?

    Good, basic intro post.

    Can be found at TGC, here.…

  • Atheist Justin Scheiber on Bible Translation

    After highlighting a difference between the way the NRSV, ESV, NASB, KJB, and WEB translate a particular text of Scripture versus the way the NIV, NLT, and God’s Word “translate” it (This is according to the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, but note that the second list of versions provided are not all translations. Some are paraphrases, and it can make a difference to this particular objection, but for the sake of brevity I will move on.) Justin Scheiber of Reasonable Doubts writes:

    

I should perhaps presume that the ‘real’ Christians have their ducks all in a row – that

    …

  • Atheist Andrew’s Misreading of Exodus 21:20-21 On Beating Slaves

    A visiting atheist fanboy of Richard Dawkins named Andrew wrote:

    Oh dear – have you not actually read the bible? It clearly says you can beat your slave to death as long as they take longer than three days to die.

    Rather than addressing some difficult questions posed to him by Rhology, Andrew jumps immediately into a passage that is typically touted by Internet atheists who want to pretend as though they know the Bible better than most believers by virtue of their having read, say, the Skeptics Bible or visited Evil Bible. Now let’s address Andrew’s misreading of …