Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: certainty

  • Admitting the Possibility

    (4:50) “Please pray for us? It seems to me as though Joshua’s prayer leading up to this debate, and my prayer, are a bit different. I’ll let you follow his posts so that you can check that out. My prayer for the upcoming debate is not that what I think is the truth will in fact be made out to be true. Because I quite frankly admit the possibility that I might be wrong about this; I don’t think that I am, and I think that the Scripture is clearly in support of the position that I’ll be advancing. But

    …

  • “How do you know that for certain?”

    A quick qualm…

    I’ve noticed a slew of presuppositional apologists on the Internet basing the entirety of their apologetic around the issue of certainty in knowledge.

    That has its place. Richard Pratt does something similar here – http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thought-Captive-Defense-Christian/dp/0875523528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337572150&sr=8-2

    But not all knowledge claims are claims to certainty.

    And not all knowledge is certain.

    Enough about certainty itself though; that is not the subject of this post.

    Rather, when the apologist is engaged with an unbeliever it needs to be pointed out not merely that the unbeliever cannot know anything for certain, but that the unbeliever cannot know anything at …

  • Mr. White, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Black VII

    “But how can anyone know anything about the ‘Beyond’?” asks Mr. Black.
    “Well, of course,” replies Mr. Grey, “if you want absolute certainty, such as one gets in geometry, Christianity does not offer it. We offer you only ‘rational probability.’ ‘Christianity,’ as I said in effect a moment ago when I spoke of the death of Christ, ‘is founded on historical facts, which, by their very nature, cannot be demonstrated with geometric certainty. All judgments of historical particulars are at the mercy of the complexity of the time-space universe. . . . If the scientist cannot rise above rational probability

    …

  • Doubt, Unbelief and Antithesis

    For some reason, doubt is seen by many to be a positive thing.  There is not a single hint of any such principle in Scripture, of course, but it remains the case that there is some idea in popular thinking that God encourages doubt.  I was informed the other day that “doubt leads to questions, questions lead to truth.”  I’m sorry, but that is absurd.  What is another name for doubt?  Unbelief.  Please feel free to stop by the channel if you choose to energetically disagree with that assessment, incidentally. I’d be more than happy to discuss it. Believe me. …

  • Doubt

    Then, Christian men, behave like men! It is childish to doubt; it is manhood’s glory to trust. Plant your foot upon the immoveable Rock of Ages; lift your eye to heaven; scorn the world; never play craven; bend your fist in the world’s face, and bid defiance to it and hell, and you are a man, and noble. But crouch and cringe, and dread, and doubt, and you have lost your Christian dignity, and are no longer what you should be. You do not honor God. – Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Fear Not!”, 1857

    In our day, as in many days …

  • Full Assurance, Epistemic Certainty, and Christ

    Much to my dismay, there have been those who would consider themselves  in the camp of Presuppositional/Covenantal  apologetics that have moved away from the idea that we can be epistemically (having to do with knowledge) certain of our faith. Contrary to their claims, the Apostles knew nothing of an uncertain apologetic. This has been argued many times by Presuppositionalist/Covenantal apologists such as Dr. Greg Bahnsen.

    I appreciated how Dr. Lane Tipton defined the distinctive of The Westminster approach to apologetics (i.e. The reformed, biblical, covenantal approach) in a Youtube video entitled “Christ-Centered Apologetics”

    Where I think our distinctive

    …