Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: morality

  • Introduction to Apologetics Seminary Course

    Lord willing, I will be teaching AP8521 Introduction to Apologetics at the Huntsville, Alabama extension center for Birmingham Theological Seminary on Monday nights from 7:30-9:30pm starting in September. Please find more details at http://birminghamseminary.org/ and pass this information along to anyone you know who is interested and lives in the area!…

  • False If It Helps?

    Many people come to believe and embrace Christianity by means of some tragedy or crisis. They’re driven in desperation to look for something that will help them rationalize and file away their grief, and many times, they find Christianity. Many other times, they grab hold of other things, such as drugs, alcohol, other religions, or even a perceived freedom achieved from relinquishing religion. In any case, tragedy has a way of forcing people into a spiral of desperation while their flailing arms are reaching for something outside themselves hoping that thing can withstand the force, and grant stability once again. …

  • No Tool In The Shed Sharp Enough

    It’s a curious thing, to me, witnessing atheists commenting on moral or ethic issues. Between the popular guys who appear on TV and the regular guys who may or may not appear on YouTube, the tone varies, depending on what the medium allows for or demands. But it’s not even so much the tone that keeps me watching or listening or reading. It’s the very clearly moral language they’re utilizing to disparage the audacity of Christians to allow their freely held ideas to breach the boundaries of their intellects, and, you know, to act in a way that reflects what …

  • The Atheist’s Guide to Reality

    Christian philosophers have been developing and refining arguments for the existence of God since the earliest times, but it’s not often one comes across a convinced atheist making a powerful philosophical case for the existence of God. Yet that’s precisely what we find—quite contrary to the author’s intent—in Alex Rosenberg’s book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality.

    Check out this review of Alex Rosenberg’s book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. Enjoy!…

  • On God’s “Evil” Actions

    Probably one of the most common objections to Christianity that we hear is one that relates to the Problem of Evil. While the problem of evil asks, “How can an Omnipotent, Good God exist with evil in the world,” this particular one asks, “How can God be ‘good’ if he has done all these evil things?” Men will object to Christianity saying that God has done evil things. And from this they conclude God either doesn’t exist, or if he does exist he is not worth believing.

    We answer the former problem by demonstrating from the Bible that the …

  • The Bankruptcy of Skepticism and the Glory of God

    Christianity is a naturally offensive truth. Not that it offends, but it exposes the offense that is part of the human condition and dares to hold humans responsible. The sinful nature of man, such as it is, detests any effort of the person who would dare to point at that nature and speak about it for what it is. The rebellious man has knowledge of his Creator because it is in the Creator’s image that he has been created. What the Creator of everything calls “truth” involves every single minute, meticulous detail of reality as we know it. Indeed it …

  • The Creator/Creature Distinction and Objections

    In our last post we looked at the centrality of the Creator/creature distinction to Christian theology, and to our apologetic. With this post, I’d like to look at the importance of it in regards to objections offered and our response to them. These objections can come in a variety of forms – the so-called problem of evil, the supposed “evil god” objections, objections to Scriptural tenets, or what have you. At bottom, however, I’d advance the theory that they all boil down to a denial of God’s transcendence. Why do I say this?

    At bottom, every objection that is offered …

  • Inconsistent Atheism Better Than Atheism

    The other day I had an exchange with an atheist friend on Facebook. We’ve had a couple exchanges in the past, so there is a context to some of the things being said. He posted a graphic of a Christian ditty-response (in other words, not the best kind) to the recent school shooting up in Connecticut, and expressed outrage at the audacity of Christians to suggest that God did nothing to help because He’s “not allowed in schools anymore.” In any case, I attempted to draw out some inconsistency between what he said he believed, and the outworking of that …

  • Without God and Without Hope: An Atheist on the Connecticut School Shootings

    Atheist Matt Oxley comments on Christian responses to the shooting in Connecticut as follows:

    Despite how angry this makes me, how silly and offensive I find these notions, suddenly I find myself envious of people with some form of a god to comfort them and answer their questions, even if those answers are shallow and ignorant, because I am simply without any answers that can even begin to make sense of this. Answers like this seem almost blissful.

    Note that Matt is angry at the application of Christian tenets to tragic events. As I mentioned in my debate with Matt, …

  • Evil as an Illusion

    To the average Westerner, the religious texts and teachings of the East often read like drug induced nonsense. At the same time, Eastern religions contain some insight in virtue of their very different approach to familiar topics.

    Take, for example, the problem of evil. As far as most atheists are concerned, this is the best weapon available against theism, and especially Christian theism. Of course, the problem of evil fails as an objection to the Christian faith due to the unbeliever’s inability to fashion an argument against the premise that ‘God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil He …