CADRE Comments

I'm a bit of a fan of J. Warner Wallace, the cold-case detective (occasionally featured on the Dateline NBC news series) who converted to Christianity and then, when he retired from policework, became a full-time apologist. I'm enough of a fan to be on his mailing list, and so when he posted an article last month (May 4) titled "The Trinity is Not A Problem, It's A Solution", I was particularly curious since the importance of the Trinity as a solution to certain problems has been a main thrust of my own apologetic work for more than 15 years. Not that I think the Trinity isn't also "a problem". I think it's fair to say that any complex theory is inherently more difficult, and so more problematic in that sense, than a relatively simpler theory, and I don't know of a theistic doctrinal set more complex than trinitarian theism. It isn't easy to arrive at metaphysically; and no less easy to arrive at by working out the implications of Chr...

Ralph Hood Jr. The University  of Tennessee at Chattanooga Empirical Supernature The M scale is very important in my book The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman   please click here, go to my book trailer and watch it so it will move higher up the ladder on You tube, so it will  be seen by more people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tGmDnyI7Aw   Order The Trace of God, by Joseph Hinman on Amazon              Why should we assume that such experiences are experiences of the divine? The first reason is because the content of the experience is largely that of the divine. Even when the experience is interpreted by the receiver not be about God the receiver has been known to act in way consistently with belief in God, and the experience described is the same experience as those described by those who say ‘this was God.’ Ergo it’s just a matter of interpretation. The vast majority of ...

The problem – intellectual and emotional – of why what we call 'evil' exists is age-old, and an issue that every human being, whether atheist or Christian, ultimately is confronted with. Philosophically and intellectually, it seems to be fairly easily overcome (as I will hopefully try to explain below) in a Christian worldview, but pastorally and emotionally, it is terrible and devastating upon us all, from atheist to devout Christian. My argument would then be that the Christian worldview, in fact, provides both a much more hopeful answer and decent solution  to the pastoral issue, as well as coping intellectually with the problem.  We can start with the intellectual response, where we can split the 'problem' into three forms: logical, evidential and emotional/pastoral. See more >>

The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 57, can be found here. If the reader arriving at the site for Easter Day wants a quick overview of why all the things I've been talking about for +700 pages matter, please see my Easter Sermon from last year 2010 ( "Why It All Matters" -- don't panic, it's only five minutes' reading tops. {g}) This book has been my testimony, for why I believe what I do. Despite its length, and its frequent complexity, it comes down to this: why am I a Christian? The thrust of my argument throughout my book, has pointed toward the conclusion that I should expect God to act in our history in certain ways. I have tried to allow for a potentially wide range of variables in how those actions will someday be (or have already been) carried out. I have even tried not to hang the story entirely on the timeframe in which I think the story actually was carried out. But I do think the story has been carri...

[Update: the full 870 page 3rd Edition text can now be found as a pdf file for free on this page (and the other four related topical overview pages) at the EU forum . I would have attached it here, too, but I don't know how to do that for Blogger posts.] Back in late 99/early 2000, I wrote a very large book for my own critical exercise, analyzing various metaphysical claims for the purpose of seeing if I could synthesize together a progressing argument for purposes of deciding what I should believe to be true about reality. I went much further than I expected I would be able to go--which is why it's a very large book!--and the results, with occasional correction and refinement, have served me well in the ten years since then. I called it Sword to the Heart : partly because I enjoy fencing (and teaching fencing); partly because 'to decide' is based on an old word for cutting, as with a sword; partly because (paradoxical though this will sound) I was trying to be fair to ...