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...]
An Atheist's Reading of True Reason
Mike D, the "A-Unicornist," is reading True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism. I say, more power to him. We could all stand to spend time reading authors we disagree with. He's taking it a chapter at a time and giving it a respectful reading, which I also appreciate. His first evaluative comment came in response to my introductory chapter to the book. I … [Read more...]
Come to the Mission America Coalition’s Annual Conference! October 29-31 in Denver!
What do Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and The Reason for God by Tim Keller have in common? Certainly, each of these books have been incredible bestsellers, inspiring millions to know and follow Jesus. But they are also books on apologetics. That is, they provide logical reasons and documented evidence that Christianity is really, … [Read more...]
Fallacy Friday: What Is an Argument?
When I was doing my PhD at the University of Otago, Madeleine and I would try to save up for a “date night” once a fortnight. Often we would go to the movies. On more than one occasion we would stand in the theatre and look at various options. Madeleine would suggest we see one movie and give some reasons, I would suggest another. After a few minutes we would settle on a movie … [Read more...]
Review of David McAfee's Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings – A Sample
In anticipation of the forthcoming publication of David McAfee's 2nd Edition of Disproving God and Other Secular Writings coupled with my full book length review of it, I thought I would here post the preface to the second edition of my review. Something to whet the appetite I hope: What follows is a revision of my original review of David’s first edition of Disproving … [Read more...]
Why the Resurrection of Jesus is the Best Explanation For What Happened To Paul
Over the years, I have had my share of discussions about what we can know about Jesus. I think a good starting place about historical discussions about Jesus is seen in the book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by New Testament historian Mike Licona.[1] In the book Licona discusses what is called “The Historical Bedrock.” These three facts about the … [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...]
"The Road": Morality and the Secular Apocalypse
The apocalypse as described in various religious traditions tends to reassert the sovereignty of the gods over the realm of morality. In the Christian tradition, for example, the second coming of Christ, in a final disambiguation of who is good and who is evil, will bring perfect justice to a fallen humanity. And in the Oresteia, a long string of violence and death results in … [Read more...]
Making Effable, the Ineffable
In college I attended a town hall meeting with the president of New York University awhile back and I remember him saying, “God is ineffable! We can’t possibly hope to know anything about God!” He said this to try to poke holes in the arguments for knowing God personally and wanted to provide a basis for Religious Pluralism. He argued that, essentially, we’re all in the dark, … [Read more...]
Mentoring a mathethes
Nothing beats the feeling of fulfillment in seeing a mathethes (disciple in greek) performing beyond his own expectations. I have the rare privilege of mentoring a college sophomore son of a very good friend. Part of his subject requirement for his engineering degree are subjects in Religious Education, or Re Ed. Nothing to be alarmed about, except that the setting is a … [Read more...]