Tag: Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 40 – Deism.
By C.L. Bolt
The covenantal apologist should highlight the many fundamental differences between the Christian and deistic positions, for they are not so similar as many would presume in the context of covenantal apologetics. A deist god may of course be posited as solving many of the same problems that the Christian God does insofar as this clock-making god provides an immaterial absolute to ground such things as logic and morality in, but this objection to covenantal apologetics comes mostly as the result of having been trained to think like a classical apologist. Once we take a closer look at …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 39 – Impossibility of history.
By C.L. Bolt
Once theology and history are separated there are insurmountable problems with the discipline. History cannot speak concerning God once this happens in an epistemology, since God as a supernatural being is not a historical fact in this false system of thought. God is no longer the kind of God who can act in history in any way that we are able to know it. Such a god is not the God of Christian Scripture. The God described in the Christian Scripture has spoken as an authority concerning His great acts in history brought about to finally accomplish …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 38 – Impossibility of science.
By C.L. Bolt
The presuppositional, transcendental, and skeptical considerations brought out in this introduction are easily applied to particular manifestations of the non-Christian worldview. They can be similarly applied to tools that are heavily relied upon by these particular manifestations of the non-Christian worldview. For example, science rests upon many of the principles brought forth so far in this series, including especially the senses, induction, and the uniformity of nature. When the nonbeliever desires to use an argument against Christianity from the disciplines of science or history (etc.) the Christian apologist can point out that these disciplines require the Christian …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 37 – Communication, personhood, meaning, purpose, and other human experience.
By C.L. Bolt
There are many other features of human experience which are possible only because of the truth of the Christian worldview and the existence of the God of Scripture. Communication, personhood, meaning, and purpose are some examples. The inductive and deductive characteristics of language in addition to the common ground shared by all believers and non-believers in God’s world make communication possible. Having been created in the image of God, we as human beings reflect in our communication that communication which exists between the persons of the tri-une God of Scripture. We are likewise persons who exist in …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 36 – Aesthetics.
By C.L. Bolt
We make qualitative judgments about art and beauty. Some works of art are considered better in some way(s) than other works of art, and some things are considered more beautiful than others. There is a large amount of subjectivity involved in determining whether or not something is beautiful, not to mention a large amount of expertise which is needed to make a better judgment on such issues.
An old cliché claims that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but few, if any, consider this to be true. Such an account is wholly subjective, meaning that …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 35 – Normative justification and warrant.
By C.L. Bolt
Something that is widely agreed upon across different views concerning the world is that there is an element of knowledge called “justification” or “warrant.” Broadly conceived, it is that element of knowledge pertaining to the basis, reason, evidence, etc. that we have for believing that something is true. There is also widespread disagreement as to what exactly constitutes justification or warrant, but most do agree that there is something like this necessary for knowledge. If there are those who do not believe that this is an element of knowledge then they have a radically different understanding of …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 34 – Problem of evil.
By C.L. Bolt
It follows from what has been written regarding morality that a consistent unbeliever is unable to account for evil. Yet the existence of evil is one of the most used objections to the existence of the good and powerful Christian God. The consistent unbeliever is unable to account for the problem of evil when it comes to moral evil, but cannot raise the problem of evil through natural evil either. In this sense evil becomes a real problem for the non-Christian worldview, not the Christian worldview. The non-Christian cannot account for evil within his or her own …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 33 – Ethics and morality.
By C.L. Bolt
Moral values, rules, laws, principles, standards, etc. cannot be seen, smelt, touched, heard, or tasted. They are not empirically verifiable entities. They are not part of the material or physical realm, or so most would hold. Still, people will believe that morality exists and will believe this even more strongly than they do that other empirically verifiable entities exist. Even those who deny that morality of any kind exists tend to behave in ways that contradict this claim, if they do not outright reject the claim through other claims and assumptions found elsewhere in their thought. Good …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 32 – Human dignity.
By C.L. Bolt
Ethics and morality are tied up in an understanding of human dignity, worth, or value. Unbelievers have difficulties making sense of human dignity and hence lose their ability to appeal to morality in the context of debate or everyday life. A consistent non-Christian worldview will posit that humans are not superior in value to any non-human animal. Lest we think that superiority in terms of value is due to the potential and actual higher reasoning capabilities that humans possess we should remember that even some of the lowest animals are better suited to find their way about …
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An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 31 – Is and ought.
By C.L. Bolt
In terms of ethics and morality, people are obligated to persons, not to impersonal objects. It is problematic to try and get moral principles from impersonal objects. Some have even called this attempt a violation of logic. According to the Christian worldview God is personal, and moral principles are derived from the revelation of His nature to us. In the non-Christian worldview there is no such personal and absolute source of morality to appeal to, but only the impersonal and non-absolute or relative. Forced accounts of ethics in an ultimately impersonal universe run into a serious …