Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: human dignity

  • Evil as an Illusion

    To the average Westerner, the religious texts and teachings of the East often read like drug induced nonsense. At the same time, Eastern religions contain some insight in virtue of their very different approach to familiar topics.

    Take, for example, the problem of evil. As far as most atheists are concerned, this is the best weapon available against theism, and especially Christian theism. Of course, the problem of evil fails as an objection to the Christian faith due to the unbeliever’s inability to fashion an argument against the premise that ‘God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil He …

  • Covenantal Apologetics and Other Religions

    Introduction

    Nick Norelli recently wrote:

    “I think the thing is that plenty of presuppositionalists debate (look at James White who debates like every other day) and I’m sure they employ their method, but I think it lends itself to certain subjects better than others. For example, when I reviewed Gary Demar’s book on Bahnsen’s apologetic I noted how devastating I think PA is against atheism but I struggle to see it as being as strong against other forms of theism which can make the same claims (i.e., they all have their gods and their scriptures to appeal to).”

    The …

  • Are choices arbitrary?

    Those who wish to defend libertarian free will over against a position like Calvinism often attempt to do so upon the basis of a strictly philosophical rather than exegetical basis. It is often asserted that determinism of any kind (which for the sake of argument includes Calvinism) precludes free will such that if we possess free will then indeterminism must be the case. Since there is libertarian free will indeterminism is true (and Calvinism is false).

    Note that the inconsistency between libertarian free will and determinism is assumed. The assumption may be granted as definitional. Note also that libertarian free …

  • Nature Grace Dualism

    Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

    Genesis 1:26 (ESV)

    Even this portion of a verse of Scripture has serious ramifications for apologetic methodology.

    When “image” and “likeness” are taken not to be synonymous but rather to refer to two different concepts a false anthropological dichotomization is created which either extends to or finds inductive support from other doctrines similarly understood. Thus the ‘image’ of God might incorrectly be thought of as being natural to humans while the ‘likeness’ of God is thought of as supernatural so that an instance of a fabricated distinction …

  • The Asparagus And The Ape – Part 2

    One of the wonderful things about presuppositionalism is that one need look no farther than the very basic teachings of the Bible in order to get one’s answers about philosophical issues which worry and weary the unbeliever. One such problem before the unbeliever is how the essential assumption of human dignity is accounted for in a non-Christian worldview. Our society is ruminated with the implications of human dignity, and yet we saw in Part 1 of the treatment of this subject that there are fatal flaws in attempting to consistently adhere to both a non-Christian view of the world and …

  • The Asparagus And The Ape – Part 1

    “It was nothing to brag about, just a sort of squishy blob…”

    The mysterious squishy blob described above is a character in the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The blob lives “half a billion years ago”. Ishmael, a story telling gorilla, relates the details of the blob’s environment.

    Nothing at all stirred on the land, except the wind and the dust. Not a single
    blade of grass waved in the wind, not a single cricket chirped, not a
    single bird soared in the sky…Even the seas were eerily still and silent, for
    the vertebrates too were tens of millions of

    …