Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: Scripture

  • Initial Thoughts on the Upcoming Debate

    I’m finding lots of commentary by folks who want to somehow separate the doctrine of the soul’s immortality from the doctrine of eternal punishment. Since, after all, we believe in Sola Scriptura, that necessarily includes “Tota Scriptura”, and the necessary relation of every doctrine to the others. This is a fundamental point of Reformed theology. No doctrine exists in isolation. The denial, or modification of one doctrine will quite necessarily have an effect on a host of others, due to the nature of Scripture, and the theology we affirm from it. In the introduction to Van Til’s Christian Theistic Evidences…

  • Debate: Annihilationism, with Chris Date

    Chris Date is the host of the Theopologetics podcast, and says that he has been convinced over the past year of the truth of annihilationism, sought out the best arguments he could find, and found them lacking. He will be defending the following:

    Resolution: “The final punishment of the risen wicked will be annihilation, the permanent end to the conscious existence of the entire person.”

    The debate is tentatively scheduled for June, with a fairly standard debate format, to include Q&A from questions submitted beforehand.

    Format:

  • 20-minute opening affirmative
  • 20-minute opening negative
  • 10-minute rebuttal affirmative
  • 10-minute rebuttal negative
    • …

  • Opening Statement from my debate with Michael Long

    My debate with Michael Long may be found here – https://choosinghats.org/2011/08/is-there-good-reason-to-believe-that-the-christian-god-exists

    See some of my debate preparation here – https://choosinghats.org/2012/03/behind-the-scenes-notes-from-my-debate-with-michael-long

    Debate Opening Statement

    I. Introduction

    Thank you Mr. Knapp, Mr. Long, my wife Kerri. Most of all I thank the Triune God of Scripture who chose, redeemed, and sealed me concerning the Gospel through which I am being saved by grace through faith; that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) I have personally experienced the reality of forgiveness of my sins …

  • Point of Contact and Human Reason

    It’s quite common to find the following objections made – just check out who is answering them as well as giving them for consideration.

    What has been said up to this point may seem to be discouraging in the extreme. It would seem that the argument up to this point has driven us to a denial of any point of contact whatsoever with the unbeliever. Is it not true that men must have some contact with the truth if they are to receive further knowledge of it? If men are totally ignorant of the truth, how can they even become

    …

  • A Fantastic Insight into Redaction Criticism and the Islamic use of it

    Two brief excerpts:

    I can tell you, without hesitation, that the vast majority of those who embrace form and redaction criticism in all of its flavors and kinds do so out of tradition, not out of having examined the case set forth in defense of these methods. In fact, very, very few of those who glibly repeat the party line have ever even given thought to any other viewpoint. Anyone who thinks there is a fair, open dialogue in “the academy” over these topics is simply misinformed. To “get ahead” in Christian scholarship you must—not should, MUST—toe the line when

    …

  • Two New Apologetics Books

    First, Jamin Hubner has released the Second Edition of his The Portable Presuppositionalist.

    Second, Clifford B. McManis has published Biblical Apologetics: Advancing and Defending the Gospel of Christ. Several people have let me know about this book prior to its release, so I excitedly read everything I could in its online preview. I have some initial concerns with respect to the rhetoric and tone of the work.

    McManis makes rather large implicit promises about putting a different spin on apologetics, but the portion of the book that I read contains very little, if anything, “new.” Of course McManis …

  • New Atheism, Intentional Ignorance, and Apathy

    Over at erstwhile atheist blogger Paul Jenkins’ site, he posted the following:

    At Choosing Hats, contributor McFormtist considers what constitutes successful apologetics. As the type of apologetic usually in question at Choosing Hats is “covenantal” or “presuppositional” apologetics, and my own limited encounters with presuppositionalists have led me to the conclusion that presuppositonal apologetics is spectacularly unsuccessful in the declared purpose of apologetics in general, naturally my interest was piqued.

    Early on in the piece comes this:

    Our theology dictates to us that it is God who changes men’s hearts. As Reformed Christians, we understand that God in

    …

  • Some thoughts on the upcoming debate

    In my preparations for the debate on Sunday, and in dealing with the quite providential example Paul Copan gave us last week of the importance of the subject, I felt it might be valuable to give a few impressions I’ve had along the way. My opening statement has been written for a week or so now – prior to Dr. Copan’s comments, in fact – and my first thought after reading it was this. I wouldn’t change anything I had to say. First, because Dr. Copan’s comments weren’t anything we hadn’t seen before. Second, because I’m giving a positive presentation …

  • The Substance of Success in Apologetics

    The call to be an Apologist, or a defender of the faith, is not something reserved for seminarians or pastors, or even in general, the smartest among us. Rather, everyone who is called by the name of Christ possesses the responsibility, the burden, and the privilege of defending the truth of God against any contradiction to it. Indeed, we are each called to “Be diligent to present [ourselves] approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

    Apart from pragmatic considerations with regard to Apologetics which are …

  • Acts 17 and Covenantal Apologetics

    Re-posted from here – http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/13/answering-objections-to-presuppositionalism.

     

    J.R.

    March 14, 2012 at 12:51 PM

    taco,
    Non-presuppositionalists argue that Acts 17 is clearly a classical (specifically Greek) apologetic used by Paul. You’ll need to find another example to make your case. “So Paul, standing in the midst of Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religiou. For as I passed and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

    Reply
    •  taco
      March 14, 2012
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