Tag: presup
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Rhology Responds to Reasonable Doubts (part 2)
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The Unbeliever’s Problem
A former classmate who serves as a professor at the college level sometimes has students who come to his office expressing doubt about the existence of God. Before engaging them in any sort of intellectual conversation, he wisely asks such students, “What sin are you currently struggling with?”
The problem of unbelief is first spiritual, then moral, and only then intellectual. While a Reformed anthropology should take the human as a whole, analytic abstractions require an emphasis upon the spiritual aspect of doubt. The unbridled irrationality of spiritual waywardness ruins the moral uprightness and intellectual acuity of the individual. All …
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“If the existence of God is so obvious, then why do we debate it?”
Atheists sometimes make the rhetorical point that if the existence of God were so obvious as many Christians hold it to be, then we would not have to hold debates about His existence. We don’t go around having debates about the existence of particular people, or certain types of animals, or various aspects of the world that are immediately present to our sensory experience, so why do we have them about something or someone who is supposed to so obviously exist? Is God just incapable of revealing Himself clearly enough that we might believe in Him the way we believe …
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“How do you know that for certain?”
A quick qualm…
I’ve noticed a slew of presuppositional apologists on the Internet basing the entirety of their apologetic around the issue of certainty in knowledge.
That has its place. Richard Pratt does something similar here – http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thought-Captive-Defense-Christian/dp/0875523528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337572150&sr=8-2
But not all knowledge claims are claims to certainty.
And not all knowledge is certain.
Enough about certainty itself though; that is not the subject of this post.
Rather, when the apologist is engaged with an unbeliever it needs to be pointed out not merely that the unbeliever cannot know anything for certain, but that the unbeliever cannot know anything at …
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The Problem With Saying “Goddidit”
Covenantal apologists are often mocked in virtue of their alleged recourse to repeatedly claiming “Goddidit” as an answer to all challenges in the apologetic context.
The mockers are mostly wrong, but partially right.
Complaints about “Goddidit” usually stem primarily from the rejection of the frank acceptance of authority inherent to the apologist’s presuppositional program. In this the mockers are wrong.
Meanwhile, complaints which focus not upon the authority involved in “Goddidit” but its content are valid objections, for the Christian worldview consists of much more than a trite, reductionistic, sound byte solution to some problem that faces another worldview.
Just …
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Why Christians Are Stupid and Atheists Are Not
If you were to buy into atheist propaganda on the Internet you would have no choice but to conclude that Christians are some of the most ignorant, irrational, dishonest, deluded idiots on the planet. In short if you are a Christian, then you are stupid. You can substitute whatever other derogatory term you would like in the place of stupid. The point is that something is seriously wrong with the idiots who believe these nonsensical fairy tales, etc. etc. You have heard it all before. You get the point.
Of course I do not really need the atheists to tell …
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Why Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers in Genesis Does Not Understand Presuppositional Apologetics
In a recent post I mentioned that, “I have heard a fair amount about a book by a Dr. Lisle but have not had the opportunity to read it” while referring to presuppositionalist strains in Answers in Genesis material. Someone commented here to affirm that, “Dr. Jason Lisle (astrophycisist) does indeed hold to a Van Tillian, ‘presuppositional’ apologetic method.”
Today I read a post by Lisle wherein he addresses a reader’s questions about presuppositional apologetics. Unfortunately I find his answer to be completely out of line with the method. I quote the relevant portion of his post below and then …
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Islam: Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai on the Knowledge of Allah (2)
In my previous post on Islam I began to address the attempt that Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (ASMHT) makes to argue for the necessity of his god Allah through natural theology (123). ASMHT offers a rational argument that takes the subject of knowledge as its most basic assumption and speaks of three objects of knowledge in the very first sentence of his argument for Allah which are human beings, god, and the world. In order for him to make a successful argument, ASMHT must connect the subject of knowledge with these objects of knowledge.
I asked …
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Islam: Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai on the Knowledge of Allah (1)
In Shi’ite Islam, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (hereafter ASMHT) attempts an argument for “The Necessity of God” through natural theology (123). There are many different understandings of what exactly natural theology is and what it actually accomplishes, but in this particular passage ASMHT attempts to prove the existence of the Muslim god Allah through a simple, straightforward natural theological proof (123). This attempt is made at the very beginning of a chapter on the knowledge of ASMHT’s god, so it is clear that the argument he presents is pre-dogmatic in nature and possesses even an apologetic function. Since …