Tag: bad arguments
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Stop Answering Us!
It’s the strangest thing…
Podcast after podcast has been devoted to the alleged refutation of Van Tilian covenantal apologetic arguments over the last year or so. Since I am a contributor here, and since the site is “dedicated to the explanation and demonstration of presuppositional apologetics in defense of the Christian faith to the glory of God,” I have tried to respond to such podcasts when I am able to do so. The same holds true with respect to blog posts. Scripture teaches that non-Christians have no apologetic, or defense, of their position. I believe that, and hence when I …
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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 …
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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 GroundJames 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 …
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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 …
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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
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Ben Wallis on Van Tilian Presuppositionalism (Updated)
UPDATE: Ben Wallis has edited his post to reflect his take on my concerns. See here – http://benwallis.blogspot.com/2012/02/reasonable-doubtcasters-on-van-tilian.html?showComment=1330427431782#c5897980217578008803
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I like Ben Wallis, and he takes some really interesting angles in philosophical discussions, but I fear we often talk past one another.
Perhaps I am missing something in Ben’s most recent post, but his comments there appear less than fair. You may read the post in its entirety here – http://benwallis.blogspot.com/2012/02/reasonable-doubtcasters-on-van-tilian.html.
In that post, Wallis praises the recent work of the Reasonable Doubts podcast that pertains to presuppositional apologetics. Essentially, the hosts there appealed to Michael Martin’s TANG, Mitch …
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Praxis Presup: Episode 20
Chris makes some initial comments on the second podcast in the series on presuppositional apologetics at Reasonable Doubts.…
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Reasonable Doubts About Devastating Arguments
…Jeremy says:
There are plenty of arguments our listeners mentioned that we didn’t get to in this episode. Some that are just as devastating as the ones we did provide. Which bible are we presupposing the truth of? What about other valid TAG arguments that arrive at different conclusions? How can all other possible sources for logic be eliminated? So many problems with presuppositionalism, so little time. But we will be addressing more of these critiques and talking about our atheistic foundations in a near-future episode. At the moment we are switching gears
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Reasonable Doubts About Non-Christian Excuses
The most recent podcasts, and hence comments, at Reasonable Doubts are focused upon presuppositional apologetics. The gentlemen at the aforementioned site are apparently impressed by the comment of one Andrew EC:
…- Andrew EC says:
It seems to me that the fundamental weaknesses of the presuppositionalist position are as follows:
1. There’s no analysis as to what it means to give “an account” of something. Philosophically, something only counts as an explanation if it is what Kant would call an analytic statement; that is, a proposition whose conclusion is not contained within its predicate.