Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: revelation

  • Van Til taught that nonbelievers cannot know anything

    A common objection or typical misrepresentation of what Van Til taught in respect to presuppositional apologetics is that nonbelievers cannot or do not know anything. This usually stems from a misunderstanding of how the Christian view of epistemology works in practice and in principle regarding the nonbeliever as espoused by people who adhere to presuppositionalism. But first, let us allow Dr. Van Til speak for himself on this point as this objection will often be raised in the form “I heard Van Til wrote that nonbelievers don’t know anything.”

    Still further, it is when we presuppose with Calvin that all

    …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • 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). …

  • 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

    …

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

    In our last post, we examined the Romanist, “evangelical,” and putatively “Reformed” apologetic methods, as advanced by Jacques Maritain, Dr. Carnell and Charles Pinnock, and Dr. Sproul, and applied them to our discussion. In this section, we address Mr. Black, and begin to examine in greater detail the difference in approach that Mr. White and Mr. Grey have in their apologetic. This section comes from pgs 317-319 of Defense of the Faith.

    So also with Mr. Black. He daily changes the truth of God into a lie. He daily worships and serves the creature more than the Creator. He

    …

  • On Using Logic In Apologetics

    As I have noted before, every once in a while it is necessary to make plain one’s disagreement with even those closest to oneself in terms of thought for the sake of clarity and development of a topic. I have received a number of questions and comments concerning a recent post by Jamin Hubner called Lessons in Logic and Argumentation: Propositional and Symbolic Logic and Their Place in Apologetics. Since there are some points in the post that pertain to future posts I’d like to write on TAG and since the post essentially would lump me together with skeptics …

  • Is Fristianity Actual? (Updated with response from David Byron)

    UPDATE: David Byron has offered clarification in a comment, but I did not want to risk people missing it. Please see his response now included at the bottom of the body of the post.

    _______________________________

    One of the greatest worries with the Fristianity objection is that it is often defined in conflicting ways. For example Sean Choi writes, “Of course, Fristianity is not an actual worldview or religion, as is, for example, Islam. But no one – certainly not I – is claiming this.” Yet in a footnote Choi cites David Byron of the Van Til List as popularizing Fristianity. …

  • 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 + …

  • Is Fristianity Sufficient?

    Michael Butler as quoted by Sean Choi contends, “If Fristianity is otherwise identical to Christianity, the only way for us to know [that its god is a quadrinity] would be for the Fristian god to reveal this to us.” Choi takes this proposition to be false and explains why.

    That the Fristian God is a quadrinity is something we know to be true in virtue of stipulation… (Indeed, that is how Butler himself introduced the concept of Fristianity.) Butler is suggesting that there is mystery here when there is none. “Fristianity” has come to mean what it does precisely because

    …