Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: clbolt

  • New from Wipf and Stock: “The World in His Hands” by Chris Bolt

    From the moment we wake until the time we go to sleep, we are bombarded by the benefits of science in the practical elements of everyday life. Electricity, lights, hot showers, breakfast cereals, clothing, cars, cell phones, roads, security systems, computers, communications, traffic lights, climate control, and entertainment are just a sampling of the many benefits of science. In addition to technological advances, medicine and agriculture progress with science as well. Even educational, political, and marketing strategists invoke science to substantiate their claims. Science dominates the collective Western mindset, and we regard it with the utmost respect. Yet society remains

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  • Questions about the Form of TAG

    I saw the following questions left for me elsewhere on the Internet so I will take a moment to briefly respond.

    1. “Van Til and Bahnsen claim that TAG is neither inductive nor deductive. Do the other things they say about TAG also imply this, and if so, how?”

    To my knowledge, Van Til and Bahnsen never use the acronym ‘TAG,’ although Bahnsen repeats the phrase ‘Transcendental Argument for God.’ Searching this site reveals a fair amount of rather heated discussion and evidence regarding Van Til and Bahnsen’s claims to the effect that transcendental argument is neither inductive nor deductive.…

  • Are You Tired of the Word?: Sermon Introduction from “The Little Scroll” (Revelation 10:1-11)

    Are you tired of the Word?

    Perhaps the greatest trouble facing the Church today is our tendency to grow tired of the Word, and lose interest in the gospel, so that we seek out theologies and programs and excitement that, while not necessarily bad in and of themselves, are often based more on the world than they are on the Word. And so I ask you this morning, are you tired of the Word? Have you lost interest in the gospel?

    Toward the end of the last century, American evangelicals became fascinated by end times particulars, hosting prophecy conferences and …

  • John Frame on Natural Law and Abortion

    On page 243 of John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Christian Life, Frame writes, “Roman Catholics have argued that the case against abortion is not religious at all, but based only on scientific judgments about the nature of the unborn. So they oppose abortion by appealing to natural law.”…

  • The Urgency of Apologetics

    Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 3-4, ESV)

    Jude addresses his audience as the “beloved,” both of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit, and of Jude. Jude expresses his eagerness to write …

  • Al Mohler’s Definitive Response to Nate Collins and Revoice

    After listening to an interview of Nate Collins at Sheologians, and reading another at Christianity Today, I intended to write a response to the overall program set forth by Collins. However, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. responded to the CT  interview with Collins and the Revoice Conference in a rather decisive fashion today with his article, “Torn Between Two Cultures? Revoice, LGBT Identity, and Biblical Christianity.”…

  • A Christian Theology for Defense: Introduction

    Theology is thinking about God and everything else in relation to God. Apart from the existence of God and his knowledge, we could not think of God at all. Apart from the existence of God and his knowledge, we could not think of anything else at all either, whether the creation around us, the world, or ourselves. See An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics.

    God exists as a self-revealing God. God reveals himself to us in many ways. The ways in which God reveals himself to us will be discussed later in this work. At this point in the …

  • Religionless Christianity and the Myth of Neutrality

    I will write in generalities here, not because I am afraid to enter the fray, and not because there are not a plethora of examples of the sort of thing I am referring to, but because those who have entered the fray tend to lose sight of the generalities here expressed, and because there are a plethora of examples of the sort of thing I am referring to. There is some fear that the grid I am supplying here may be misused and abused, but I hope rather to clarify those areas where it is being misused and abused through …

  • Other Arguments

    Now the only argument for an absolute God that holds water is a transcendental argument. A deductive argument as such leads only from one spot in the universe to another spot in the universe. So also an inductive argument as such can never lead beyond the universe. In either case there is no more than an infinite regression. In both cases it is possible for the smart little girl to ask, “If God made the universe, who made God?” and no answer is forthcoming. This answer is, for instance, a favorite reply of the atheist debater, Clarence Darrow. But if

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  • Modest is Hottest: A Brief Response to Bálint Békefi’s “Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?”

    Stroud’s Objection Restated

    Bálint Békefi proposes the following transcendental argument (Békefi, B. Van Til versus Stroud: “Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?” TheoLogica. Published Online First: September 26, 2017):

    (S1) If the negation of p is self-defeating, then p is true.
    (S2) The negation of p is self-defeating.
    (S3) Therefore, p is true.     (Békefi 9)…