Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

Validity of Gospel Accounts

Bradley Bowen of Secular Outpost, argues William Lane Craig can't prove that Jesus died on the cross. His ultimate goal is to negate Craig's proofs of the resurrection, he does that by arguing that there is no proof that Jesus died on the cross. No death = no resurrection. There's a secondary issue of interpreting a Bible scholar whose works we used at Perkins (Luke Timothy Johnson), I'll deal with that in part 2. My point here is to argue that Jesus' death on the cross is well warranted for belief. That is the only point with which I will concern myself. Moreover, I will not defend Craig but come at it from my own perspective. Bowen points out that Craig assumes that scholarly acceptance (of Jesus' death) proves the evidence for it is strong. He then argues that this is not proof that the evidence is strong, he then argues that Funk and Johnson doubt it. He uses them to leverage the idea that there are a lot more doubters of that point than

My Review of The Trace of God by Joe Hinman

Image
     [My recent review of our own Joe Hinman's book at  Amazon , slightly edited here.]   The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief Joseph Hinman 2014, Grand Viaduct 418 pages   In The Trace of God , author Joe Hinman has presented a sophisticated argument for rationally warranted belief in God, on the basis of religious and mystical experience. As an avid reader of all things theological, apologetic and scientific, I found The Trace of God both illuminating and compelling. It quickly became evident to me, as it should to any reader, that Hinman has done his homework (and then some) in order to lay out a fresh and powerful presentation of the old argument from religious experience to the existence of God for a twenty-first century readership.   Hinman constructs his case like a high rise, meticulously laying his foundation and building on it layer by layer. He thus begins with a very useful and interesting explanation of “Preliminary Conce

Do God's Omniscience ,Omnipotance, and free will Contradict?

Image
An atheist guest comes knocking at the door of the comment section with a string of canned arguments we've answered a million times, hurled lake a gauntlet as though we have never see it before: God is asserted to be all good, all loving, all knowing, all powerful, in possession of free will and having imparted free will to human beings as well as being eternal and uncaused as well as outside of space and time while acting in a time sequence of events within space and time. Sorry, one simply cannot make rational sense to reconcile all these asserted properties. They contradict each other in various ways making the whole package incoherent by it's own theistic definitions. Here is an old answer I put up on Metacropck's blog in 2011, again in 2013: Atheists think it is. I've seen many a knock down drag-out fight, multiple threads, lasing for days, accomplishing nothing. I wrote that dilemma off years ago before I was an internet apologist,

An Important Factor In Understanding Anti-theism's Trust Issues

As Christian apologists we naturally get annoyed at various leaps of anti-logic thrown around by our opponents. But there's an important psychological factor frequently involved here, which we should keep in mind -- and I'm not talking about a factor worthy of derision either. To make a potentially long article much shorter (a relevant concern when I'm the author {wry g}), and to also give credit where it's due, let me first link to this July 26 commentary article at The Federalist , written by Denise C. McAllister, on why Sansa Stark -- a fictional character of G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels (better known nowadays by its TV series title Game of Thrones ) -- can't bring herself to trust one of the only clearly good characters in the whole story, her half-brother Jon Snow. http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/26/why-sansa-stark-cant-trust-jon-snow-and-many-people-are-like-her/ McAllister's thesis, which I think is sound, is that this isn'

Bi-Weekly Report: The Problem of Evil

This week, my report is about the POE (Problem of Evil). On Bernardo Kastrup’s blog, there was an interesting discussion recently about the POE in the comments section of this entry: Bernardo Kastrup: Realities of Academic publishing A commenter by the name of Steve Turnbull seems to believe strongly in the POE: I certainly understand the appeal of idealism - you (username tjssailor) make a very good case. But I have yet to be persuaded on the problem of evil. Like you and countless others I have suffered a lot in life. My parents divorced. My brother committed suicide. My marriage broke up (happily I’m with a new partner). And lots more besides So there’s certainly more than enough there not to believe in God;) But there’s also more than enough in nature/the universe to keep me searching for answers. And I’m open to any avenue that might provide them - both scientific and spiritual/religious. Let me ask you then - how do you know the ‘judicial thugs’ will transition to another

Transcending Proof: In Defense of Christian Theism

Image
My new book, available at Amazon .     Contents: Foreword by Stephen J. Bedard                                               Preface                                                                                                                                                    1. A Theodicy of Incompleteness                                                                                              2. Why I Am Not a Metaphysical Naturalist   (and Why I Am a Christian Theist) 3. Extraordinary Claims, Ordinary Fallacies, and Evolution 4. Transcending Proof: A Reply to Richard Carrier                                   5. A Brief Critique of Theological Fatalism                                                          6. The Presumption of Naturalism and the Probability of Miracles: A Reply to Keith Parsons 7. History, Archaeology, and the Veracity of Scripture                                        8. The Dusty Web of Gnosticism