At school I was taught to anneal copper. This process entailed heating the copper to an exact temperature before working on it. There were no temperature gauges involved – one could tell what temperature the copper had reached by its color – cherry red. The color of the copper changed as the temperature changed. I remember thinking that God was both an artist and an engineer. He designed copper to include its own temperature gauge and made it beautiful at the same time. To a Christian, or any theist for that matter, the world appears to be designed by someone. It is not usually the whole world that appears designed,…
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The Apologetic Task
The task of apologetics is not mainly the task of trained lawyers, theologians or philosophers. It is the task of ordinary Christians living an ordinary Christian life. The clearest reference in the Bible to apologetics is in the first letter of Peter to Christians who were attempting to live in towns that were—to varying degrees—hostile to the Christian beliefs. Peter tells them to expect suffering along the way and he teaches them how to conduct themselves in a godly way. Peter is especially concerned with ordinary Christian life. He writes: For who is going to harm you if you are devoted to what is good? But in fact, if you…
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Apologetics and Arguments
The core of apologetic studies is the consideration of arguments. I don’t mean fights, the kind that break out over lunch between siblings. I mean sets of statements one of which is the conclusion or main point. The other statements somehow support or lead to the conclusion. We use arguments all the time. We even use them when we don’t mean to. They are the warp and woof of human discourse. The crucial thing to notice about arguments is that they can be good or bad. Here is a good argument: (1) If you listened carefully to Ben, then you understand apologetics(2) You don’t understand apologetics (3) Therefore, you did…
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If Materialism is True, Then Everything Stinks
There is a difference between being materialistic and being a materialist. If you are materialistic, you value material things above non-material things. By materialism I don’t mean the valuing of material things. What I mean is the view that there is nothing that exists that is immaterial. A material thing is some entity which is possible to experience. Some material things are so small you can’t see them, but it would be possible to experience them if one’s senses were adequate or if the thing in question was bigger. Of course, if you are a materialist, then you will very likely be materialistic. That’s all there is, after all. What…
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Defense of Calvinism: A Response to Spencer Toy
Spencer Toy has written a critique about the presuppositional method of apologetics. His main critique seems to be that, given the Calvinistic underpinnings of the method there would be no way to sure that God has not revealed some error to the Calvinist to further his own glory. The problem, as Toy sees it, is the relationship between human reasoning and Calvinism. This, Toy argues, produces a problem for presuppositionalists. There are two ‘presuppositions’ Toy thinks produce the problem: TD: Total Depravity, the view that “human reasoning is so totally depraved that any effort to understand or believe the Gospel is futile. Unless and until the Holy Spirit regenerates the…
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A Humean Dillema for Analogies and Artifacts
William Paley “I knew Paley’s argument from design, knew about the watch and the watchmaker, and I knew now that these people—these Jesus freaks—were trundling out the same old argument dressed in new clothes. Intricacy requires design, that was what they said. And design requires a designer. That was as far as they could see, that was it, case closed: God exists. And the earth is ten thousand years old, just like the Bible says” (Dave, a character in a T.C Boyle story).[1] William Paley’s analogical argument from design is simultaneously the best known and most derided argument for the existence of God. Ironically, the derision started before Paley wrote…
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Analogies and Inverse Probabilities
The classic argument from design is as follows: The universe is ordered. Unless there is a God, it is unlikely that the universe would be ordered. So, given the orderliness of the universe, God is likely to exist. The argument has intuitive force. Designed things have designers. Order is a result of design so our observation of order leads naturally to the conclusion that the universe has been designed by a designer. Here is a good criticism from inverted probability. Simply put, to invert probability is to take an argument such as the design argument and switch it around. So, A. “given the existence of God, the universe is likely…
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If There Is No God, Then There Is No Sense
When two people talk about something they assume there is something to talk about and that they have the necessary means (reason, language, shared experience etc) to talk about it. It does not strike us as odd that this is possible; we take it for granted. Friedrich Nietzsche, on the other hand, did not. Nietzsche famously describes a scene in which a madman proclaims the death of God. And if God is dead, says Nietzsche, we can no longer assume that what we are talking about makes any sense at all. Why? because if there is no ultimate explanation for everything, there is no explanation for anything. And if there is no explanation, talk cannot get anywhere.If…