Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: apologetic method

  • Islam: Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai on the Knowledge of Allah (2)

    In my previous post on Islam I began to address the attempt that Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (ASMHT) makes to argue for the necessity of his god Allah through natural theology (123). ASMHT offers a rational argument that takes the subject of knowledge as its most basic assumption and speaks of three objects of knowledge in the very first sentence of his argument for Allah which are human beings, god, and the world. In order for him to make a successful argument, ASMHT must connect the subject of knowledge with these objects of knowledge.

    I asked …

  • John Starke on Van Til’s Influence on Christian Thought

    John Starke over at The Gospel Coalition takes a quick look at the affect Dr. Cornelius Van Til has had since his work at Westminster Theological Seminary.

    John Starke notes:

    Van Til transformed the discussions around epistemology and apologetics unlike anyone else in modern Christian history—being the main influence behind theologians, pastors, and apologists like John Frame, Tim Keller, David Powlison, Greg Bahnsen and the entire systematic and apologetics departments of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and California, headed by names like Michael Horton, Scott Oliphint, William Edgar, and David VanDrunen.

    Even Dr. Albert Mohler of SBTS has spoken of …

  • Perspicacity and Ignorance

    If I assert that there is a black cat in the closet, and you assert that nobody knows what is in the closet, you have virtually told me that I am wrong in my hypothesis. So when I tell Mr. Black that God exists, and he responds very graciously by saying that perhaps I am right since nobody knows what is in the “Beyond,” he is virtually saying that I am wrong in my hypothesis. He is obviously thinking of such a god as could comfortably live in the realm of chance. But the God of Scripture cannot live in

    …

  • Sermon: The Knowledge of God

    I was given the opportunity by the ever-gracious Eddie Exposito of Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Slidell, to preach in Romans 1 this morning. I appreciate the opportunity. It is, for those who follow the site regularly, an adaptation of my paper on Romans 1 that appeared in the first edition of In Antithesis. It also includes, for more recent followers, a bit of a discussion on the topic of my upcoming debate, and should be interesting in that vein as well. I will have further opportunity to preach again next Sunday. Again, I was most appreciative of the opportunity, and …

  • Initial Thoughts on the Upcoming Debate

    I’m finding lots of commentary by folks who want to somehow separate the doctrine of the soul’s immortality from the doctrine of eternal punishment. Since, after all, we believe in Sola Scriptura, that necessarily includes “Tota Scriptura”, and the necessary relation of every doctrine to the others. This is a fundamental point of Reformed theology. No doctrine exists in isolation. The denial, or modification of one doctrine will quite necessarily have an effect on a host of others, due to the nature of Scripture, and the theology we affirm from it. In the introduction to Van Til’s Christian Theistic Evidences…

  • Debate: Annihilationism, with Chris Date

    Chris Date is the host of the Theopologetics podcast, and says that he has been convinced over the past year of the truth of annihilationism, sought out the best arguments he could find, and found them lacking. He will be defending the following:

    Resolution: “The final punishment of the risen wicked will be annihilation, the permanent end to the conscious existence of the entire person.”

    The debate is tentatively scheduled for June, with a fairly standard debate format, to include Q&A from questions submitted beforehand.

    Format:

  • 20-minute opening affirmative
  • 20-minute opening negative
  • 10-minute rebuttal affirmative
  • 10-minute rebuttal negative
    • …

  • Point of Contact and Human Reason

    It’s quite common to find the following objections made – just check out who is answering them as well as giving them for consideration.

    What has been said up to this point may seem to be discouraging in the extreme. It would seem that the argument up to this point has driven us to a denial of any point of contact whatsoever with the unbeliever. Is it not true that men must have some contact with the truth if they are to receive further knowledge of it? If men are totally ignorant of the truth, how can they even become

    …

  • A Fantastic Insight into Redaction Criticism and the Islamic use of it

    Two brief excerpts:

    I can tell you, without hesitation, that the vast majority of those who embrace form and redaction criticism in all of its flavors and kinds do so out of tradition, not out of having examined the case set forth in defense of these methods. In fact, very, very few of those who glibly repeat the party line have ever even given thought to any other viewpoint. Anyone who thinks there is a fair, open dialogue in “the academy” over these topics is simply misinformed. To “get ahead” in Christian scholarship you must—not should, MUST—toe the line when

    …

  • Two New Apologetics Books

    First, Jamin Hubner has released the Second Edition of his The Portable Presuppositionalist.

    Second, Clifford B. McManis has published Biblical Apologetics: Advancing and Defending the Gospel of Christ. Several people have let me know about this book prior to its release, so I excitedly read everything I could in its online preview. I have some initial concerns with respect to the rhetoric and tone of the work.

    McManis makes rather large implicit promises about putting a different spin on apologetics, but the portion of the book that I read contains very little, if anything, “new.” Of course McManis …

  • Some thoughts on the upcoming debate

    In my preparations for the debate on Sunday, and in dealing with the quite providential example Paul Copan gave us last week of the importance of the subject, I felt it might be valuable to give a few impressions I’ve had along the way. My opening statement has been written for a week or so now – prior to Dr. Copan’s comments, in fact – and my first thought after reading it was this. I wouldn’t change anything I had to say. First, because Dr. Copan’s comments weren’t anything we hadn’t seen before. Second, because I’m giving a positive presentation …