Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: Cornelius Van Til

  • Revelation about God from Nature – Natural Theology

    Coming now to the knowledge that man in Paradise would have of God, we must notice first of all that there man would be able to reason correctly from nature to nature’s God. But the meaning of this fact should be taken in connection with what we have said when discussing the true theistic conception of physics. We may perhaps best bring out what we mean by saying that man could originally reason from nature to nature’s God by contrasting it to what is usually been meant by that statement. In the first place, when men say that we can

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  • 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 …

  • A Conservative Evangelical Response to Molly Worthen’s “The Evangelical Roots of our Post-Truth Society”

    A Conservative Evangelical Response to Molly Worthen’s “The Evangelical Roots of our Post-Truth Society”

    by C.L. Bolt…

  • Oliphint on Understanding Cornelius Van Til

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  • On Proper Analysis – Scott Terry and VanTillianFire

    The author, Aaron Dale, at the blog “Van Tillian Fire,” has written a critique of my much-critiqued “Dear Sye” post.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, he neglected to read the post of the following day, “The Shattered Stained Glass Window”, as well as the post “A Necessary Distinction.”   Why is this important, you ask?  It is important because these were written several months ago – and written specifically to provide specifics about issues I left unstated, or merely referred to in general terms in the initial post.  Why did I leave them unstated? I left them …

  • Van Tilian Turf Wars (Part 2)

    Presuppositionalists are sticklers for sound apologetic methodology. But how is sound apologetic methodology discerned? Presuppositional proclivities preclude the vast majority of classical or evidentialist approaches to apologetics. That much is clear. But how does one determine who is right and who is wrong when presuppositionalists argue about methodology amongst themselves? Perhaps we all agree that presuppositional apologetic methodology is the way to go, but who is to say what presuppositional apologetic method is? Is there some standard of presuppositional orthodoxy?

    Fundamentalist presuppositionalists tend to respond to these questions by citing the Bible as their ultimate authority for apologetics. The …

  • Van Tilian Turf Wars (Part 1)

    At least three types of Van Tilian presuppositionalists have emerged from the recent surge in popularity of presuppositionalism.

    Fundamentalist

    The first group are the fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are not necessarily to be identified with fundamentalism in general, but rather with fundamentalist tendencies when it comes to discerning apologetic methodology. This brand of presuppositionalism takes a more biblicist approach to apologetic questions and disputes. Though arguments may be offered in the context of apologetic discussion, these arguments are typically less philosophically precise and more explicitly biblical or dogmatic. Examples of those in the fundamentalist strain of presuppositionalism include Answers in Genesis, Sye …

  • The Teaching of Christianity as a Challenge to Unbelief

    We have already indicated that the best apologetic defense will invariably be made by him who knows the system of truth of Scripture best. The fight between Christianity and non-Christianity is, in modern times, no piece-meal affair.  It is the life-and-death struggle between two mutually opposed life-and-world views.  The non-Christian attack often comes to us on matters of historical, or other, detail.  It comes to us in the form of objections to certain teachings of Scripture, say, with respect to creation, etc. It may seem to be simply a matter of asking what the facts have been. Back of this …

  • If one is uncertain; one is certainly an evidentialist?

    Someone pointed me to the following quote on facebook yesterday:

    The Baptist is inherently an evidentialist. They must look to subjective always changing evidence to prove covenant membership.

    A Presbyterian assumes an objective, universal standard for membership that can be known with certainty.

    A Baptist cannot claim certainty.

    Granted, this is a non-sequitur in its own right as it stands. It seems to be a post meant to start what those of us who have been around Internet discussions a while call a “flame war” about the subject of baptism in some purported presuppositionalist sub-group. I choose to ignore that …

  • Dr. James White Interviews Dr. Oliphint on the Janet Mefferd Show

    Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries does an excellent job interviewing Dr. K Scott Oliphint about his new book Covenatal Apologetics. Check out the show here or download the mp3 here.…