Tag: Theology
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More on the recent annihilationism debate…
Today Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries discussed the recent annihilationism debate between Chris Date and Joshua Whipps – http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5124
See also TurretinFan’s continued response to Chris Date here – http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/supplement-response-to-chris-date-on.html…
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The “Self-Attestation” of Scripture (Part 1)
People (and I mean believers and unbelievers alike) are generally confused about the so-called “self-attestation” of Scripture. Let’s think about the concept of self-attestation outside of the context of Scripture.
To “attest” is to declare that something is the case. For example, “The sky appears to be blue.”
Now consider another example, “This sentence appears on a website.” The sentence declares something to be the case. But its declaration is about itself. The sentence makes the claim that it appears on a website. In this sense it is self-attesting.
Or consider one more example, “This sentence is true.” The …
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Paul Baird On His Informal Discussion With Me
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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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Two Objections to Meticulous Providence
Some people find it strange that God should meticulously provide for His creation in terms of His presence, oversight, and power in every aspect of the creation. Yet Scripture teaches that God is at every moment and in every place both preserving and governing the universe.
Our objections to the providence of God often stem from the fact that – quite unlike God – we are both wicked and finite. We are careless about some aspects of the creation because we are evil, and we neglect others because in our finitude we are incapable of tending to them all …
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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 …