Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 (I conclude my critique of Bell's book and also provide further resources) What Are The Implications of the Doctrine of Hell? First, what are the implications of Bell’s view? One issue is a modified view of God as his love has been redefined so that he is no longer holy. The view seems concerned with rescuing the … [Read more...]
Can the Gospels be trusted?
By Dan Barkman. Many questions are often raised regarding the reliability of the four Gospels of the Christian Scriptures. Who were their authors and how can we be sure that they were in a position to know what really happened in the life of Jesus? Did they witness every event they narrate? Who were their sources of information and how did they know the details of specific … [Read more...]
How to Use Pop Culture as a Community Apologist
I’ve been contributing to a series at the Christian Apologetics Alliance with the goal of encouraging people to become “community apologists.” The purpose of the series is to help the local church develop an intellectual defense of Christianity by raising up, in every community, “someone with an interest in apologetics who will make themselves available to teach apologetics in … [Read more...]
The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is for many people a significant intellectual and emotional obstacle to faith. The logical problem of evil attempts to show that the existence of evil in the world is incompatible with the existence of God. It then concludes God does not exist. This is one way of formulating it. The Problem of Evil: Premise 1: People suffer. Premise 2: Suffering is … [Read more...]
Reason and Intuition – Chicken and Egg
I’ve been wrestling a lot, lately, with the proper relationship between reason and emotion. Part of the motivation for this conflict in my own mind is because I know people who gravitate to one or the other of these, and they often look down upon whichever of the two they do not gravitate toward. But I find myself drawn to aspects of both, and repulsed by the overemphasis of … [Read more...]
On an idiosyncratic faith
Bear with me as I offer some thoughts on why I think so many criticisms of Christianity – along with so many versions of Christianity – miss the mark. Consider this list: God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) exists God is uniquely revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead By having a relationship with God though Jesus, who is … [Read more...]
The War of the Worldviews (Pt.1)
What is meant by a "worldview", and how many are there? How does the Christian Worldview compare to them? (pt.1 of 3) This is Lesson 2 (Lesson 1) in our video class on foundational Christian Apologetics, entitled "The War of the Worldviews". Here I begin to cover what a worldview is, what the seven major worldviews are, and how each of them compares to Christian Theism in … [Read more...]
Becoming a Community Apologist: The Apologetic of Not Knowing
For any lover of British humor Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a classic movie. The unique comedy of the film follows King Arthur and his knights as they search for the Holy Grail. As Arthur and his men draw closer to the end of their quest, they come across an old and dangerous footbridge guarded by an old man. In order to cross the bridge the brave knights have to answer … [Read more...]
Much Undead Ado About Nothing
The debate about what it means to be human has taken an interesting direction following the recent fixation with zombies. The Walking Dead and Philosophy opened with two essays arguing that the consideration of philosophical zombies (P-Zombies) - theoretical beings identical to humans but lacking consciousness, qualia, or sentience - mitigates against a purely materialistic … [Read more...]
Apologetics and evangelism: Bridge the divide at your Church
If there's one focus a Church should have, it's on evangelism and missions. It's almost a little redundant to separate those since missions, properly understood, is evangelism. If we're truly doing the will of the Lord and making disciples of all nations, we can't do that by giving people clean water without giving them the water of eternal life. We can't give them bread to … [Read more...]