Apologetics to the Glory of God

Choosing Hats

  • Bahnsen and Bare Possibility

    Historically, when David Hume and Immanuel Kant exposed the invalidity of the theistic proofs, apologists generally balked at returning to revelation as the basis for their certainty of God’s existence. They elected, rather, to maintain status in the the blinded eyes of the “worldly wise” by attempting to prove Christianity’s credibility by means of arguments that hopefully pointed toward the probability of God’s existence and Scripture’s truth. They settled for a mere presumption (plus pragmatic assurance) in favor of a few salvaged items (i.e., “fundamentals”) from the Christian system. Refusing to presuppose the sovereign God revealed in the Bible

  • Regretfully…

    Mitch and I have been extremely busy as of late so that we have been prevented from even setting a decent time for debating one another as we had planned to do some time ago. Since I felt like this was unfinished business I approached Mitch about it in private and we discussed several ways we might be able to do the debate despite school and other responsibilities. Mitch has formal education in the same areas as me and took an interest in presuppositional apologetics which resulted in some familiarity with the method and its arguments that most other potential

  • Putting Frist On A Diet

    One of the weaknesses of Fristianity is also one of its strengths. The many different versions of Fristianity can make it difficult to grasp and answer. Fristianity proponents might exclaim that this difficulty is the whole point. There are a number of problems with this response. If Fristianity is no different from general objections concerning the impossibility of the contrary then it is superfluous. Similarly, if Fristianity is no different from various other objections concerning presuppositionalism in general and TAG in particular then it is superfluous. Finally, the different versions of Fristianity are often essentially different from each other rather …

  • That Ol' Time Atheist Religion

    Atheist fundamentalism is a sad phenomenon. Examples of it are provided below from comments made on this post.

    Agreus

    “Yes it’s a poor argument. The argument is deductively valid, as is the following:

    If large green peas, then Jolly Green Giant. Large green peas. Jolly Green Giant.

    Obviously, this isn’t a good argument for the existence of the Jolly Green Giant. Yet Chris, who supposedly is a huge proponent of TAG, seems to think these types of arguments are pretty convincing arguments for the existence of God.”

    Agreus is referring to TAG here and is asserting that it is …

  • Agreus Attempts to Tackle TAG

    The following is from the post,  “Two Initial Objections to TAG”.  It has been edited down to include only the attempts on the part of Agreus to interact with the initial post and my responses to him.

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    Two of the most common objections to the Transcendental Argument for God from both inside and outside of Christianity appear to be inconsistent with each other.

    Consider:

    1. TAG is circular.

    2. TAG is unstated.

    Perhaps the two can be reconciled, but I believe it would take more than the typical surface level treatment of TAG to do so. One notable …

  • Choosing Hats Summer Reading List

    While I am not very well read I am often asked about books I would recommend. Below is a list of introductory level books which are not too difficult to read and go by pretty quickly even if you are a slow reader like I am. The prices are reasonable as well, but make sure to look on more than just Amazon.

    Biblical Theology

    According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy

    Goldsworthy does an excellent job of introducing a massive subject which is far too often neglected.

    Systematic Theology

    Charles Hodge Systematic Theology by Charles Hodge

    The regular price on this

  • Glenn Beck – Mormon Historian?

    I was listening to Glenn Beck’s show yesterday morning, and heard this discussion:

    (Note: This may be a first, me linking to Media Matters – but they have the relevant clip – for some reason, it won’t let me post the video directly. If you’d prefer not to visit, my blog has it embedded.)

    Here’s a transcript:
    22:40: Glenn: “…the Dead Sea Scrolls, you know what they are? Stu, do you know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are?
    Stu: Well, of course I do…
    Glenn: Now, c’mon, most people don’t.
    Stu: Well, I heard of them, I don’t really …

  • Jesus and the Paralytic (Part 1)

    Passage

    And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the …

  • Initial Comments on the Reiter Article

    Adam Omelianchuk has done everyone a great service by summarizing David Reiter’s recent article on the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG) which recently appeared in Philosophia Christi. I left a comment there with my initial response to the article. (I was working from memory and do not have a copy of the article in front of me even now so I cannot get very specific.)

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    I have read the article in question and it appears to me as though a traditional argument form is being assumed in the case of TAG in order to argue that it is …

  • Was Van Til A Philosopher?

    In response to a recent post on this site, our good friend Mitch from Urban Philosophy made the following comment:

    One can grant that Van Til was a philosopher, but they need not grant that he was a competent philosopher. 😉

    A few comments later, Pierre-Simon Laplace shared with us his own perspective on Van Til’s Presuppositional approach to apologetics. After sharing this, he then posted a rather interesting follow-up comment (in response to Mitch, as far as I can tell).

    “Oh, and Van Til was NOT a Philosopher.”

    At first blush, one might see this merely as a knee-jerk …