Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: classical

  • Brian Knapp Interviewed on "Goodness Over God" Podcast

    Brian Knapp of Choosing Hats was a guest on the counter-apologetics podcast “Goodness Over God” with Michael Long and Ben Wallis to discuss several topics related to whether or not there is good reason to believe in God. You can find the interview here.…

  • 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

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  • How about a little offense? by defectivebit (Guest Post)

    In the thirteenth chapter of Always Ready Dr. Greg Bahnsen states

    “The Christian cannot forever be defensively constructing atomistic answers to the endless variety of unbelieving criticisms; he must take the offensive and show the unbeliever that he has no intelligible place to stand, no consistent epistemology, no justification for meaningful discourse, predication, or argumentation.”[1]

    I have often wondered why it is that in most debates I watch between a Christian and a non-Christian that the Christian spends very little time on the offensive side of the battle. This affinity to a defensive posture was also made clear to …

  • Dear Eldnar

    The following comment and response may be found on this post.

    Hi there,

    Some would take a leap and state that “this cause is God”, but such a leap is unwarranted.

    *GASP* I’ve only heard two people *ever* try to say that the uncaused cause is not God, and you are the second of the two. Here’s what happened to the first person:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCUE10dY3Rc

    There is nothing in the premises of the argument that necessarily leads to the conclusion that the cause of the universe is God.

    True. But it points to God “beyond reasonable doubt”. A person can

    …

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

    In our last post, we examined the Romanist, “evangelical,” and putatively “Reformed” apologetic methods, as advanced by Jacques Maritain, Dr. Carnell and Charles Pinnock, and Dr. Sproul, and applied them to our discussion. In this section, we address Mr. Black, and begin to examine in greater detail the difference in approach that Mr. White and Mr. Grey have in their apologetic. This section comes from pgs 317-319 of Defense of the Faith.

    So also with Mr. Black. He daily changes the truth of God into a lie. He daily worships and serves the creature more than the Creator. He

    …

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

    In our previous post, we saw the beginnings of the typical evidential/classical method, as posed by Dr. Carnell. We will continue our journey through Van Til’s dialogue, on pages 316-317 of Defense of the Faith.

    Of course, Mr. Black will be greatly impressed with such an argument as Mr. Grey has presented to him for the truth of Christianity. In fact, if Christianity is thus shown to be in accord with the moral nature of man, as Mr. Black himself sees that moral nature, then Mr. Black does not need to be converted at all to accept Christianity. He

    …

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

    In the previous post, we saw Cornelius Van Til examining the apologetic method of the Reformed, vs the Evangelical varieties. By Evangelical, he means the Arminian or Roman Catholic schools of theology and/or apologetic. As our friend Dr. White is wont to say, “theology determines apologetic”. We’ll continue this series in this post, the second of the series, and pick up where we left off.

    An excerpt from Defense of The Faith, by Cornelius Van Til – Chap. 12, Sec. 3, pg. 313-315, 4th Ed.

    The Believer Meets the Unbeliever – Part II

    Let us first look briefly at

    …

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

    An excerpt from Defense of The Faith, by Cornelius Van Til – Chap. 12, Sec. 3, pg. 312-313, 4th Ed.

    The Believer Meets the Unbeliever

    To see clearly what is meant, think of a dentist. You go to him with a “bad tooth”. Does he take care of your tooth in two operations? To be sure, you may have to come back to have him finish the job. But it is one job he is doing. He takes all the decayed matter out before he fills the cavity. Well, Mr. Black is the man with the toothache, and you,

    …

  • Positive Covenantal Apologetics

    A popular objection to the covenantal apologetic is the claim that it  lacks positive arguments or otherwise falls short of providing a positive apologetic. There are at least three responses to this criticism.

    1. The distinction between a negative and positive apologetic and how the distinction is made is largely attached to apologetic method. Assuming definitions and a distinction that covenantal apologetics by their very nature do not share and then raising an objection to covenantal apologetics based upon the unshared categories of an alternative method is roughly equivalent to critiquing covenantal apologetics because they are covenantal apologetics and not …

  • Some resources to pass the time…

    Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics by Ian Clary.

    Debate between Sye TenBrugencatte and Paul Baird on the existence of God.

    Papers by one of my “favorite” apologists Colin D. Smith.

    Panel Discussion at SBTS on Apologetic Method.

    Debate between James White and David Silverman on, “Is the New Testament Evil?” (costs)

    Brilliant!…