Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: Cornelius Van Til

  • 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

  • Dustin Segers and Sye Ten Bruggencate on the Fundamentally Flawed Podcast

    Sye TenBruggencate and Dustin Segers were on the Fundamentally Flawed podcast to discuss issues of God’s existence, the Christian Worldview and the Atheist Worldview. Dustin does a great job laying the debate out on the table in the first 20 minutes, but not only that, he leaves the hosts of Fundamentally Flawed without an excuse. Enjoy.

    http://fundamentally-flawed.com/pods/?p=episode&name=2011-10-14_dustinandsye.mp3

  • Why Shouldn’t Paul Baird Choose Hats?

    Paul Baird has given us his opinion in the case of the use of worldviews he does not adhere to.

    This is a common complaint ie why argue a worldview that you do not hold ? The answer is the tallest child in the playground argument ie I do not have to be the tallest child in the playground to point out that you are not the tallest child in the playground – I can point out that individual (in this instance it would be a child of equal size).

    Paul’s understanding here doesn’t really deal with the problem being …

  • Adventures in Missing the Antithesis

    Paul Baird recently addressed what he seems to think is the “philosophy that underpins the Christian Presuppositional Apologetics.” He’s wrong, of course, but let us show him why, shall we? He cites Chris’ citation of an argument tucked away in the appendix of PA:S&D as that supposed “underpinning.” Interestingly, he goes on to ask why “do Presuppositional Apologists not start with this explanation that PA is about establishing the need for a unique self sufficient knower and identifying that self sufficient knower exclusively as the Christian god?” Well, that is readily apparent – because we don’t believe that to be …

  • Cornelius Van Til, Westboro Baptist Church, and Steve Jobs

    I am no Cornelius Van Til, but if Van Til can get away with saying that an atheist is like the little girl he saw slapping her father while sitting on his lap, then I might be able to get away with saying that a non-Christian is like “Westboro Baptist Church” tweeting their characteristic nastiness about Steve Jobs while using an iPhone.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/westboro-baptist-church-uses-iphone-to-announce-steve-jobs-funeral-protest/2011/10/06/gIQAJqBjPL_blog.html

    The iPhone would be like the tools of reasoning, logic, and science. Apple users may get the other part of the analogy too quickly.

    But I wrote this on a Dell.

     

    See Al Mohler’s post on

  • The Unfortunate Case of the Missing Argument

    I’m not going to link all of Paul’s posts in this – they’ve been linked ad nauseum from here, already. His blog is Patient and Persistent – I trust our readers are more than capable of finding these comments of his 🙂

    There are times when I’m engaged in an exchange with someone and I’m not sure if I’ve understood them correctly. That’s how I felt reading Chris Bolt’s stuff. It turns out that I did understand him correctly.

    Note: Paul does not here explain 1) What he understood correctly, or 2) How it is the case that he understood …

  • In Antithesis, Vol 1, No. 1 is now here!

    Included in this issue:

    An Introduction, by Chris Bolt
    The Doctrine of God in Reformed Apologetics, by Joshua Whipps
    Problems with Classic Proofs for the Existence of God, by Chris Bolt
    Autonomy is Hard Work: Human Autonomy as a Rejection of Christian Theism, by Ben Woodring
    Exposition of Romans 1:16-2:16 – The Knowledge of God, by Joshua Whipps

    We hope you enjoy reading it, and are both exhorted and encouraged thereby.

    (A big thanks to Brian Knapp for his yeoman’s work in getting this issue out for you all!)…

  • Sola Scriptura, Van Til, and a Reformed Apologetic

    As the Reformed Baptist pastor, apologist, and author  Dr. James White says so well, “the people most enslaved by their traditions are those who believe they don’t have any.”

    This is simply to say that  we come to the text of Scripture, along with everything else,  with presuppositions about how we should interpret it. We don’t read the Scripture in a vacuum, or in some neutral fashion, because according to Scripture, it’s impossible, as we will see in a quote from Van Til.

    So why is the Reformed tradition superior? Well, it certainly isn’t because of the men who subscribe …

  • Van Til and Systematic Theology

    “Van Til’s apologetics may well be described as a group of original applications of some familiar Reformed doctrines. In Van Til’s view, apologetics and theology (particularly systematic theology) are very closely related: “… defense and positive statement go hand in hand.” There can be no adequate positive statement without defense against error, and vice versa. In fact, “Systematic Theology is more closely related to apologetics than are any of the other disciplines. In it we have the system of truth that we are to defend.” Thus Van Til begins the exposition of his apologetic with an outline of Reformed systematic

  • Dr. Oliphint And The Clark/Van Til Controversy. But Wait, There's More!

    Reformed Forum had Dr. Oliphint on to speak on the Clark/Van Til controversy which I found helpful as an introduction to the issues at hand. This seems like a good discussion to start out your perusal of this controversy if you are so inclined. However the more interesting part of this discussion for me were the following locations:

    • Minute 37 God and Logic – What is the relation? What about paradox?
    • Minute 43 Transcendental Arguments and the Impossibility of the Contrary (as a methodological approach) used in non-Christian Theism.

    In the time after minute 43 the answer Dr. Oliphint gives …