Tag: philosophy
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A Tale of Two Philosophers
Those of you who are actually good at philosophy spend so much time reading and studying it that you forget what it is you started studying it for in the first place. You are more concerned about the accuracy of your abstract analytic philosophical musings than you are about defending the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. You look down upon those who are not gifted the way that you are and immediately dismiss entire realms of Christian thought in the areas of historical and systematic theology (etc.) because of it. You are more concerned about how the philosophical community …
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Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics by D.S. Smith
These are recordings of a lecture that our new contributor D.S. Smith gave on presuppositional apologetics.
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Christian Kitsch
…Many Christian bookstores stock — and sell — more kitsch than books. Although such work and those who buy it may certainly be sincere, Christians should try to grow in their tastes as well as in the other areas of their lives. The problem with religious kitsch is that its cuteness and self-gratifying nature can domesticate and thereby distort the Biblical faith. Christianity is not a sickly sweet religion, contrary to the saccharine plaques and greeting cards that clutter up the bookstores. The anemic figurines of Jesus Christ are poor testimonies to His deity and His Lordship. The self-congratulatory moralism
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Full Assurance, Epistemic Certainty, and Christ
Much to my dismay, there have been those who would consider themselves in the camp of Presuppositional/Covenantal apologetics that have moved away from the idea that we can be epistemically (having to do with knowledge) certain of our faith. Contrary to their claims, the Apostles knew nothing of an uncertain apologetic. This has been argued many times by Presuppositionalist/Covenantal apologists such as Dr. Greg Bahnsen.
I appreciated how Dr. Lane Tipton defined the distinctive of The Westminster approach to apologetics (i.e. The reformed, biblical, covenantal approach) in a Youtube video entitled “Christ-Centered Apologetics”
…Where I think our distinctive
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Various and Sundry Issues to Recap
Last week, my comment at Aporetic Christianity resulted in a bit of a firestorm – of posts, and sometimes fiery discussion. I’d like to use this opportunity to make a few comments on this exchange, and exchanges in general. In the exchange between Paul, myself, and BK, some might consider the “tone” in places to be overly harsh. While I think Paul may have thought at one point that I was objecting to the tone, I think we’ve come to at least a partial understanding of the other’s goals. That being said, there’s a balance to be had in the …
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Knowledge, Attenuated VanTillianism, and a False Dilemma
Yesterday, I did some commenting on a post by Paul Manata entitled “Do All Men Know that God Exists?“.
In this post, he offers a couple possible responses he would consider Van Tillians to potentially offer, tells us he’s an “attenuated” Van Tillian (which is unsurprising, at best); we interacted in the comments for a bit, (complete with his typical ad hominem) and he returns today with a bit of screed, venting about Van Tillians. His problem, apparently, seems to be my “certainty”. Far be it from me to point out that he acts anything but uncertain, but …
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James Anderson's Response to David Reiter on TAG
Some time ago I linked to a summary of and posted some Initial Comments on the Reiter Article.
Shortly thereafter I heard that two different philosophers who have been influenced by Van Til were working on responses to the Reiter article. However, the response is now complete, and was posted today by James Anderson. If I am not mistaken this is the first positive, “peer reviewed journal entry” on the Transcendental Argument for God. I know, I know, some people will argue that Philosophia Christi is not one of the journals that critics of TAG have had in …
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New Article On Transcendental Arguments
By Robert Stern
Stern, Robert, “Transcendental Arguments”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = < http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/transcendental-arguments/. …
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Apologetic Mirror Objection
David Byron recently commented on this post which concerns TAG and Islam. Rather than letting a rather lengthy comment linger on an old post I have decided to post it here in full. Part of being a good apologist is being aware of common objections to one’s methodology and arguments. This leads to further study and a stronger apologetic. It also equips the apologist to be able to at the very least recognize a particular objection in the context of an apologetic encounter. Byron writes out a helpful description of what has elsewhere been labeled the Apologetic Mirror Problem (AMP). …
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Believing to Understand
…Man was created to see God. Man by sin lost the blessedness for which he was made, and found the misery for which he was not made. He did not keep this good when he could keep it easily. Without God it is ill with us. Our labors and attempts are in vain without God. Man cannot seek God, unless God himself teaches him; nor find him, unless he reveals himself. God created man in his image, that he might be mindful of him, think of him, and love him. The believer does not seek to understand, that he may