Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: method

Christ the Center review of the Oliphint/Jaros discussion.

Christ the Center reviewed the Dr. Oliphint/Jaros discussion that they had “Unbelievable?” Check it out here: http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc288…

July 6, 2013
Dr Scott Oliphint Fields Questions on Unbelievable?

That’s right, it was an inquisition! Ok, not quite that bad. Dr. Oliphint was on Unbelievable? to talk about Presuppositional/Covenantal Apologetics. He ended up having to spend the entire time defending it from Kurt Jaros who clearly doesn’t understand the Theological underpinnings of the method, or their implications. However, because of this, there are some very good explanations that Dr. Oliphint gives that I think are very helpful. One that stands out in my mind is confusion between the fact that non believers are irrational yet we can also reason with them. Listen carefully for these great answers Dr. Oliphint …

June 22, 2013
Problems With Authority in Classical and Evidentialist Apologetics

To the extent that attempts are made in order to distinguish between the “evidentialist” and “classical” schools of apologetics, in an effort to salvage the “classical” method, these distinctions nevertheless fail to dodge the criticisms leveled at evidentialism by Van Tilian presuppositionalists. It shouldn’t strike us as very coincidental that the problem presuppositionalists have with the classical/evidentialist methods primarily concerns the presuppositions of these methods. Furthermore, that practitioners of either the classical or evidentialist methods borrow aspects from presuppositionalism (which I would argue is inevitable as long as the practitioner is at least to some extent devoted to sola scriptura…

March 5, 2013
When Contra Munda isn’t All About You

Back in the third century of the church, as I’m sure some of our readers are aware, there was a bishop named Athanasius – his tenacious defense of the doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition to the swiftly growing heresy of Arianism gave rise to the statement “Athanasius contra mundum” – Athanasius against the world. In a sense, this wasn’t quite true – there were other defenders of the Trinity around, but none so prolific, and none who were targeted nearly so heavily as Athanasius, who was ejected from his church five times, and was only vindicated after his death. …

February 13, 2013
Addressing a Common Evidentialist Retort

My brother-in-law went to school with an atheist who excelled in virtually every subject he studied. This particular atheist was a sharp thinker. He was also firm in his atheistic convictions. But he liked to drink. A lot. One night he had a bit too much. By the end of the night he was weeping and crying out about how there has to be a God. Plenty of his friends witnessed the event. They brought it up later. His response was to grumpily tell them not to talk about it.

My old Sunday School teacher had a friend who came …

January 19, 2013
The Creator/Creature Distinction and Objections

In our last post we looked at the centrality of the Creator/creature distinction to Christian theology, and to our apologetic. With this post, I’d like to look at the importance of it in regards to objections offered and our response to them. These objections can come in a variety of forms – the so-called problem of evil, the supposed “evil god” objections, objections to Scriptural tenets, or what have you. At bottom, however, I’d advance the theory that they all boil down to a denial of God’s transcendence. Why do I say this?

At bottom, every objection that is offered …

January 17, 2013
The Centrality of the Creator/creature distinction

As we spoke about in the last post, there seems to be a strangely persistent notion that emphasizing an actual distinction between the thought of God and man is a mistake. I’d like to add that there is a similar notion, despite lip-service to the concept, that emphasizing the transcendence of God in any sense is likewise considered to be a mistake of some kind. In my experience, this often stems from the fact that men are simply uncomfortable with God being absolutely other – and as such, not to be confused with anything they would be familiar with. While …

January 16, 2013
“The Liar Paradox and Presuppositional Apologetics 4”

http://bcaskins.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/the-liar-paradox-and-presuppositional-apologetics-4-defending-classical-logic

…

January 5, 2013
The Creator Creature Distinction

There seems to be a strangely persistent notion that the insistence on an actual distinction between the thought of God and man is a mistake of some sort. That emphasizing that “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts” is somehow a bad thing, when it comes to not only the scope of those thoughts, but the nature of those thoughts. If God is, indeed, infinite, timeless, immutable and omniscient, along with all of the rest of who and what He is, it seems to be readily apparent that there is something, well… distinct… about the very nature of God’s thinking. …

January 2, 2013
Pat Mefford on Liar Paradox and Titus 1.12-13a (Again)

Here’s a history of the exchange with atheist Pat Mefford regarding, most notably, the Liar Paradox:

http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/can-presuppositional-apologists-account-for-logic-.html

https://choosinghats.org/2012/12/pat-mefford-on-three-valued-logic-as-an-objection-to-the-impossibility-of-the-contrary/

http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/offering-a-response-to-chris-bolt.html

http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/offering-a-response-to-chris-bolt-1.html

https://choosinghats.org/2012/12/pat-mefford-on-titus-1-12-13a/

http://bcaskins.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/the-liar-paradox-and-presuppositional-apologetics/

http://bcaskins.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/the-liar-paradox-and-presuppositional-apologetics-2-a-critique/

http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/more-thoughts-on-chris-bolt.html

Valuable points were made in the comments by David Byron and B.C. Askins. I will limit my response to addressing Pat’s most recent post http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/more-thoughts-on-chris-bolt.html.

My previous reply to Pat on Titus 1.12-13a was not merely “a brief comment” but a refutation of the point Pat has most recently attempted to proffer regarding our exchange. Pat reiterates his earlier claims in his most recent post. He notes, “All we have is the text.” Of …

December 30, 2012