Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: possibility

  • When Possibility is Impossible: Answering a Rawlsian Ruse with Radical Retortion

    In 1971 John Rawls wrote his famous A Theory of Justice in which he presented what is known as ‘The Original Position.’ The OP is a hypothetical state of affairs in which an individual operates from behind a ‘Veil of Ignorance’ in order to establish principles of justice for society apart from considerations of ethnicity, class, gender, and the like. This thought experiment stems from the radical autonomy present in Immanuel Kant’s work.

    Enough about Rawls. Cornelius Van Til was a Christian apologist who likewise drew from Kant’s work, taking the transcendental method developed by Kant (and many others before …

  • Admitting the Possibility

    (4:50) “Please pray for us? It seems to me as though Joshua’s prayer leading up to this debate, and my prayer, are a bit different. I’ll let you follow his posts so that you can check that out. My prayer for the upcoming debate is not that what I think is the truth will in fact be made out to be true. Because I quite frankly admit the possibility that I might be wrong about this; I don’t think that I am, and I think that the Scripture is clearly in support of the position that I’ll be advancing. But

    …

  • My Opponent’s Position, as Stated

    (22:14)First, I fully hold to the orthodox essentials of the faith and other important doctrines; I believe in the Trinity, the deity and virgin birth of Christ, the total depravity of man and salvation by grace through faith alone; Sola Scriptura, the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. I’m not a Seventh Day Adventist, a Jehovah’s Witness, or a member of any other questionable denomination.

    Second, I have no emotional or philosophical problem whatsoever with eternal conscious torment; everlasting suffering has never seemed to me to be incompatible with the love and justice of God, nor does it today.

    …

  • 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

    …

  • "Getting to God" – Thomistic Misconceptions of Van Tilian Presuppositionalism (Updated)

    David Gadbois from Green Baggins wrote the following in a comment on Fides, Ratio, et Mysterium:

    I’m definitely in the camp that doesn’t believe that Christianity is transcendentally necessary. I think the VanTilian presuppositionalists overreached in trying to make Christianity, as a package deal, into a transcendental necessity. The various transcendental arguments that have been offered really only get you as far as God’s existence, a personal and just God, not [sic] doubt, but really nothing beyond what is revealed in general revelation. God’s acts of redemption in time and space, as recorded in special revelation, were

    …

  • Mr. White, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Black V

    These posts contain lengthy quotations from Defense of the Faith, by Cornelius Van Til – this post will deal with pages 319-323. In the previous post, Van Til dealt with the unbeliever’s state before God, his self-deception, suppression of the truth, and the proper apologetic methodology to use with the unbeliever. Beginning here, he begins to answer the charge that a covenantal apologetic is “circular reasoning”, or has no “point of contact” with the unbeliever.

    The one main question to which we are addressing ourselves in this series of articles is whether Christians holding to the Reformed Faith should

    …

  • Certainty, Possibility, and You

    I was directed today to a post by C. Michael Patton, posted roughly a month ago, entitled “Why I am not Completely Certain that Christianity is True“.

    In the podcast to follow, he describes today as “an age of scientific, enlightenment discovery, and scientific methodology for inquiry, and discovery.” He goes on through the podcast to explicate his view of certainty and possibility. “From a scientific standpoint, many of us look at knowledge, and see it as something very cut and dry, very black and white; it’s either true or not true, and that’s it. 2 + …

  • Point of Contact – Possibility

    [display_podcast]

    In this second installment of our newest podcast – Joshua Whipps, Sean Burkes, Justin McCurry and Nic Heath discuss possibility.

    Note: The audio quality is not the best, unfortunately. We’re working on steps to rectify that.

    …

  • Apologetics and the Arminian

    The purpose of this post is to address a response to the above presentation, wherein presuppositional apologetics seems to be misunderstood by the author. The author’s response can be found here, but I will address most of the post, if not all, in the following article.

    James White recently argued for presuppositional apologetics and against evidential apologetics. (link) He starts out with an analysis of Colossians 1:16-18, and Colossians 2:2-9, which focus on the Lordship of Christ. James White points out that the gospel is a radical claim, which unbelievers reject.

    If you watched the above video (or heard …

  • Bahnsen and Bare Possibility

    Historically, when David Hume and Immanuel Kant exposed the invalidity of the theistic proofs, apologists generally balked at returning to revelation as the basis for their certainty of God’s existence. They elected, rather, to maintain status in the the blinded eyes of the “worldly wise” by attempting to prove Christianity’s credibility by means of arguments that hopefully pointed toward the probability of God’s existence and Scripture’s truth. They settled for a mere presumption (plus pragmatic assurance) in favor of a few salvaged items (i.e., “fundamentals”) from the Christian system. Refusing to presuppose the sovereign God revealed in the Bible

    …