Over at the Gospel Coalition, there is some debate over an old argument about the claims of Jesus made by C.S Lewis. The argument presents a trilemma: Jesus Christ’s claims to be God are believable (or not) depending on whether Christ is Lord, a lunatic who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about or he is masterful con artist. Apparently, William Lane Craig argues that there is another possibility: Christ’s non-existence. If Christ didn’t exist then no one really claimed anything. Justin Taylor claims that this makes the argument unsound. I disagree. Tell me what you think (any Lewis experts should chime in either here or over at Justin Taylor’s…
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Why Physicalism Fails
Laws of logic are necessary truths. The least debated law is the law of non-contradiction: statements that are contradictory cannot both be true in the same way at the same time. To say that it is a necessary truth is to say that there is no possibility that it could be false. Or, in possible world parlance, there is no possible world in which the law of non-contradiction is false. Physicalism is the view that there is no entity that is non-physical or that is not reducible to a physical entity. All physical states of affairs are contingent upon other physical states of affairs. It is possible, therefore, that everything…
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Reasoning About Marriage
There are points in debates when arguments get left behind and emotions take over. Perhaps the national debate over marriage has reached that stage. It is not good when debate descends into a slagging match. There are arguments to be made and we should keep our heads. If we do this perhaps we can reason better with each other. Much has been written in the defense of traditional marriage. And I, because I agree with traditional marriage, think those arguments are good arguments. However, it is not as if those who disagree with me don’t have any arguments. They do. So, why legalize same sex marriage? As far as I…
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Head and Heart
Head and Heart A commonly held belief is that there is an essential distinction to be made between a person’s head and heart. The head refers to what is propositionally held. The heart commonly refers to a more emotional component of human processing. If one holds to this kind of distinction one might come to the conclusion that the head and the heart could in some way conflict with each other. I have heard the distinction between head and heart in a multitude of contexts – “Don’t let your heart rule your head!”… “I know it is right in my head, but my heart says…” … “Just follow your heart!” etc. I hear it as…
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An Elegant Argument
I have been following the work of James Anderson from Reformed Theological Seminary, partly because we share an interest in the writings of Cornelius Van Til. He and Greg Welty have composed a particularly elegant argument for the existence of God entitled “The Lord of Non-Contradiction.” The argument runs as follows: The laws of logic are necessary truths about truths; they are necessarily true propositions. Propositions are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts. So the laws of logic are necessarily true thoughts. Since they are true in every possible world, they must exist in every possible world. But if there are necessarily existent thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind;…