In light of the millennia of the history of philosophy that we have behind us, it was only recently – setting the last few decades aside – that the moral argument slipped out of the mainstream. In the first half of the twentieth century C. S. Lewis could refer to the moral argument with some confidence, and it may well have been the most common of the major arguments for God’s … [Read more...]
Craig's Moral Argument Refuted?
Recently, it was brought to my attention that a YouTube video claims to have debunked William Lane Craig’s first premise in his moral argument. For a refresher, that premise claims “If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.” The objector claims that if even one of the Euthyphro dilemma’s horns are even possible, then the first premise is false. This is … [Read more...]
The Problem of Good
Recently I found myself in the midst of a very difficult situation where evil appeared to triumph over good. I found myself asking the same questions many of us ask. How can a good God, the God I believe in, allow suffering and evil? Is He really good? Is He really there? Every fiber in my being cried out against the wrongness of my personal suffering and was heightened by … [Read more...]
Edgar Andrews: I wasn’t brought up in a Christian family…
I was converted to Christ as a 19 year old by reading the New Testament. No one told me I had to believe its authenticity. No one even told me I should read it. I wasn’t brought up in a Christian family nor did I attend church as a child. In grade school ‘Religious Instruction’ was my worst subject … I couldn’t get my head around it at all. I didn’t even own a Bible. Yet a day … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Reason for God by Tim Keller
The Reason for God, by Tim Keller, is an outstanding response to the biggest questions of our day. Tim Keller is the highly regarded pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, a church with weekly attendance around 5,000. Redeemer has planted dozens of other churches and is generally considered to be one of the most influential churches in America. From the first … [Read more...]
The Contingency of Divine Commands
The ethical realist objector divine command theory (DCT) claims that it is possible for God to command rape or some other morally wrong act (at least we would understand it to be wrong in this world) in some possible world, or in an impossible world close to the actual world, making it obligatory for all moral agents, whereas rape is still morally bad in that same world, thus, … [Read more...]
Divine Invention
The idea of the divine or God is, if you think clearly about it, a very strange concept. To many contemporary scientifically minded people it is childish and even laughable to believe in God. They contend that the physical material world is all there is. So why invent ghost stories? For example, the prominent atheist polemicist Christopher Hitchens contends that as a child it … [Read more...]
Are New Atheists Nietzsche’s English Flat Heads?
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) described “New Atheists” as early twenty-first century atheist authors promoting atheism. The “New Atheist” label for these critics [that include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens] of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books. A … [Read more...]
Is Christianity Just Wishful Thinking?
One of the most honest and heart-wrenching objections to Christianity that I've ever heard goes like this: "I would absolutely love to believe that Christianity is true. The idea that I am unconditionally loved, that I will live forever in paradise after death, that an all-powerful God will hear my prayers, that someone good is looking after me, and all the rest... I would love … [Read more...]
Does grounding moral truth in God’s nature violate Hume’s is-ought?
The short answer is, no, only if you try to justify that truth by referring back to God’s nature. Here is the long answer. It is possible to blend Hume’s is-ought distinction in Ethics with Plato’s justified-true-belief theory of knowledge. A catchy name for it is the Ought-Is-Belief theory of knowledge, moral or otherwise. … [Read more...]