Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: bad arguments

  • A Hypothetical Apologetic?

    In taking Scripture as an absolute presupposition and standard for thought, the Christian apologist ought to maintain that there are no possibilities outside of what God is and decrees to be. It is never possible for God to be other than the type of being He is portrayed to be in His self-revelation. Because he does not presuppose the certain truth of the Bible at the very start of his apologetic (de facto and in principium) Clark (a self-professed Calvinist) is willing to reduce the whole system of Christian truth revealed by God therein to a possible accident

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  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • Two Initial Objections to TAG

    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 exception might be when a bare assertion is offered as the proof itself. However it would be odd to describe a mere assertion as “circular”.…

  • Are choices arbitrary?

    Those who wish to defend libertarian free will over against a position like Calvinism often attempt to do so upon the basis of a strictly philosophical rather than exegetical basis. It is often asserted that determinism of any kind (which for the sake of argument includes Calvinism) precludes free will such that if we possess free will then indeterminism must be the case. Since there is libertarian free will indeterminism is true (and Calvinism is false).

    Note that the inconsistency between libertarian free will and determinism is assumed. The assumption may be granted as definitional. Note also that libertarian free …

  • “Hat Tricks – Episode 1” Is Fixed!

    If you downloaded the new Hat Tricks podcast earlier today then you may have gotten a bad copy. Corrections have been made to the audio and the podcast is still available at the original place here. Sorry for the inconvenience!…

  • Hat Tricks – Episode 1

    Hat Tricks is our new podcast, featuring brigand and RazorsKiss; focusing on instruction, definition, discussion, and identification of apologetic arguments and objections. Episode 1 is entitled “Bad Arguments”. It can be found here. Hat Tricks 1

    Note: I realized that I messed up some of the audio mixing. The fixed audio is now linked. Thanks!

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  • The things you find while not looking for them…

    “NB that choosing hats errantly supposes that by rational Bahnsen means deductive. But anyone with even a modicum of familiarity with Bahnsen and Van Til would know that both of them considered induction rational.” – Mark

    Someone taking shots at me and my understanding of Bahnsen from afar as it were recently made the claim quoted above. I responded to his entire argument here.

    Tonight as I was scanning Bahnsen for something completely unrelated I happened across the context of the passage from Bahnsen that was the focus of the discussion Mark was responding to.

    But we realize even

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  • “Silly” Arguments

    The attempts of liberals to interpret Scripture according to their own would-be autonomous categories have always struck me as exercises in futility due to the admission that they have already rejected Scripture anyway. The lengths to which people will go in an attempt to justify sin in themselves and in others are rather incredible. One can know this by taking a look at how one attempts to justify one’s own sin. [Edit: Payton Alexander has expressed to me that he does not wish to be labeled a liberal. I cannot find any place where I have given him that label.]…