Posted in Apologetic Links, Apologetics, Bill Nye, christian apologetics, Christianity, Theology on August 31, 2012| 9 Comments »
Thought I write a response concerning Bill Nye’s comment but why reinvent the wheels?
1.) Bill and his Pie in the Sky over at Choosing Hats.
2.) Bil Nye the Anti-Science Guy by Dr. Jay Wile.
3.) Bill Nye the Intolerant Science Guy by Casey Luskin.
4.) Bill Nye’s Crusade for Your Kids by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell.
5.) Bill Nye the Scie…Foolish Guy by Tony Miano.
Posted in Apologetics, apologetics illustrations, christian apologetics, Christianity, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Van Til on August 30, 2012| 11 Comments »
Note: This illustration presupposes the framework of the dental analogy established previously in #9, and to set up the framework some of the contents there are repeated here.
Point: Sometimes people give excuses for rejecting Christianity and the Church on faulty grounds. Sometimes people can bring in news story of abuses and bad practices, leaders as the ground for rejecting Christianity as a whole. A parable of dental care might expose some of the common excuses and it’s folly.
Parable: A trip to the dentists got me thinking. This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I have bad teeth. Its been years since I’ve been to the dentist. I finally went to have my teeth checked out. Going to the dentist, they told me of all my problems–of what I have been doing wrong all these years. They said I will lose several teeth and finally I asked, “Is there anyway to still save the rest of my teeth?” The dentist said that he cannot save the rest of my teeth himself–but he would like to introduce to me an Oral Surgeon that can really get the job done. Showing me the X-ray pictures, the dentist explained that it was not enough to save my teeth at this point by just brushing and flossing. I need dental surgery. The dentist also emphasized that even after oral surgery, I should make it a regular habit of regular dental care and going to the dentist to ensure that the great work the Oral Surgeon will be in vain. I thought to myself, wow, what an illustration of the Gospel truth (our works is not enough to save us, the need for the work of THE Oral Surgeon like Christ to save us, works following what the Oral Surgeon has done, etc). One can see the Oral Surgeon as Jesus, Christianity/”religion” as dental care, going to the dentist as church and dentist as Pastors, etc. In that light, when the dentist finally asked me why I delayed all these years to finally go to the dentist, I realized I had no good excuse–and the folly of it if I were to try.
Question for the listener: But let’s say I suddenly thought of an excuse why I did not wanted anything to do with dental care. What would you think, and how would you respond to the following excuses if I or someone else were to use a recent news article reproduced below as the grounds for rejecting the Oral Surgeon, dental care at large, etc?
Man sues orthodontist for leaving braces on 11 years
A 22-year-old Oregon man has sued an orthodontist for leaving his braces on for 11 years, resulting in straight but rotten teeth, The Oregonian newspaper reports.
Devin Bost, of Portland, claims he suffered serious tooth decay and periodontal disease from having worn braces from ages 7 to 18 while he lived in Eugene, Ore. Two to three years is normal for braces.
Some of Bost’s teeth will need to be replaced with implants, but others cannot be because they have rotted to the jaw, said his attorney, David Hollander.
The lawsuit states that Bost, whose mother is a medical doctor, “received an urgent phone call” in June 2008 from orthodontist Brad Chvatal’s office “that he needed to have the braces removed immediately.”
The paper writes, “As for how Bost could spend most of elementary school and all of middle school and high school years with braces, Hollander is still trying to sort the details out.”
“We aren’t really sure what happened,” he said.
Bost is seeking $185,000 — $35,ooo for dental bills and $15,000 for pain and suffering.
Chvatal told The Oregonian he could not have treated Bost until 2002, when he was licensed as an orthodontist. He has been licensed with the Oregon Board of Dentistry since 1997. He declined to comment on the case, citing patient privacy laws.
The president of the American Association of Orthodontiststold ABC News that it was “extremely unusual” for somebody to wear braces for 11 years and that he “could not think of an instance where that would be the case.”
In the same matter, what are we think of the same train of thought that rule out Christianity on the basis of bad religious or Christian leaders in the news?
POSSIBLE PRACTICAL EMPLOYMENT OF THIS ILLUSTRATION
Christian (C): So what led you to reject Christianity?
Non-Christian (NC): Well, many things. I find that religion in general is evil. For instance, did you hear on the news about the latest atrocity by religious leaders?
C: I’m listening.
NC: Where there’s _________ and then there’s also ________. Don’t forget about the history of the church. Think the crusades, inquisitions, etc.
C: If I may respond, I think this is rather problematic in rejecting the message of the Bible itself. Or the Christian gospel, which I hope I get to explain in a little bit. Have you ever had dental care before or seen an orthodontists?
NC: Yes.
C: What if I told you that you should not go to any orthodontists at all, or forget about the whole dental care business altogether because I saw this really bad news of an orthodontist that messed people’s teeth up instead? <Show news story> Or did you hear about the oral surgeonthat was a rapist? I could go on and on but I think you get my point. Do you think it’s still rational to go to the dentist or see an oral surgeon in general?
NC: Yes.
C: Why? I believe the same argument you give will be the same I give as well in defense of Christianity. The excuse is not good enough.
Posted in Apologetic Links, christian apologetics, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Reformed, Van Til on August 29, 2012| 1 Comment »
Thought these links would be of interests to those who are interested in Presuppositional apologetics.
1.) Initial Thoughts on the Virtues of External Critique by Chris Bolt.
2.) Transcendental Meditation by Scott Oliphint over at Reformation 21.
3.) The Recent Rise of Covenantal Apologetics: Focusing on James White by Chris Bolt.
4.) Truth Requires God by Mike Robinson.
5.) Contextual Theology by Steve Hays. Very good piece responding to Contextualization.
6.) My Concerns with the Neo-Apologists by Fred Butler.
7.) What Kind of Evidence Should We Expect From a Transcendent God? By Matt Slick
8.) A Christian Examination of Buddhism by Mike Robinson
Posted in Apologetic Links, Christianity, Cornelius Van Til, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Theology, Van Til on August 28, 2012| 5 Comments »
Since yesterday’s blog entry was a book review on C.S. Lewis’ Argument from Reason, and the review was done from a Presuppositional/Van Tillian standpoint, I thought it would be appropriate to be aware of what Cornelius Van Til thoughts were on C.S. Lewis. I want to bring to the readers attention that both apologists were contemporary with one another. And they knew of each other.
Several years ago, while reading a biography on Van Til, I found an interesting excerpt that recorded how Van Til and Lewis had a mutual friend, and that mutual friend tried to get Lewis into reading Van Til. Sadly, Lewis was too busy to read Van Til’s work.
Cornelius Van Til apparently had some things to say about C.S. Lewis’ theology that is behind his apologetics. Over at his blog, Calvinist4Life has a recent entry on the Theology of C.S. Lewis by Cornelius Van Til which you can access by clicking HERE. The concerns that Van Til raises include how Lewis approach the Psalms, the issue of freewill in Mere Christianity and Lewis’ position on the depravity on man.
Once again, you can read Van Til’s thoughts in his own words on C.S. Lewis’ theology by clicking HERE.
Posted in Book Review, C.S. Lewis, christian apologetics, Christianity, Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Van Til on August 27, 2012| 2 Comments »
Purchase: Amazon
The author Victor Reppert has spend a significant amount of time defending the argument from reasoning for the existence of God in various setting before this book was written (2003) and after this book was published as well. As the title reveal, the author is a fan of C.S. Lewis’ particular formulation of the argument from reason, though the author wishes also to improve it and develop nuances. Although my theological and apologetics biases is Calvinistic and Presuppositional, I would have to say that the discerning and Scripturally grounded reader can profit from this work, though of course there will be disagreements (For the record, the author is neither Reformed or Presuppositional). There is something to be gained here especially with some of the parallels with the Presuppositionalist’s Transcendental Argument in general and in particular as that form of argument is applied to the issue of Logic/reasoning. The work only mention Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen once, and in the footnote in discussing about the author’s evaluation of a debate that Doug Wilson engaged in. The first chapter of the book discusses about how some biographies of Lewis has been inaccurate about certain facts concerning Lewis’ life and apologetics. This chapter alone was worth the time and money of reading this book! Very fascinating. The author also discuss about Lewis’ argument from reason in the context of Lewis’ challenger, Elizabeth Anscombe. The author notes Lewis’ improvement of his argument as a result of this interaction and then the author goes on to provide some further improvements to the argument from reason against Naturalism and responses to some rebuttals. The following were quotes that I thought were beneficial, whether insights or illustration that would be useful for future conversation:
Four kinds of explanation: (1) naturalistic causal explanations [physical laws], (2) logical explanation [relationship between premises and conclusions], (3) Psychological explanation and (4) personal history explanations [how someone came to a conclusion over time].
“But if wind blown leaves were to spell out the premises and conclusion of an argument of the form modus ponens, would we continue to regard it as even an argument at all if we truly came to believe that the leaves got to be in that formation because they have randomly blown that way?” (61)
“Instead he [C.S. Lewis] argues that there are two types of connection, connection by cause and effect and connection by ground and consequent. Both types of connection use the word because, but these represent two different types of relationship. If we say, ‘Grandfather is ill because he ate lobster yesterday,’ we are giving a cause of Grandfather’s illness. If we are told, ‘Grandfather is ill because he hasn’t gotten up yet,’ we are not talking about the cause of his illness (which antedates his failure to rise early); what we are talking about is the evidence that Grandfather is ill. The former is an example of cause and effect, the latter an example of the ground and consequent relationship. While every event in nature must be related to one another by cause and effect, the premises in a rational inference must be related to the conclusion by the ground and consequent relationship” (63).
“If you were to meet a person, call him Steve, who could argue with great cogency for every position he held, you might on that account be inclined to consider him a very rational person. But suppose it turned out that on all disputed question Steve rolled dice to fix his position permanently and then used his reasoning abilities only to generate the best available arguments for those beliefs selected in the above-mentioned random method. I think that such a discovery would prompt you to withdraw from him the honorific title of ‘rational.’ Clearly the question of whether a person is rational cannot be answered in a manner that leaves entirely out of account the question of how his or her beliefs are produced and sustained” (64-65).
“Any adequate account of the relation between reason and causes must provide an account of the role that convincing plays in our cognitive economy. The idea of being convinced by something seems to imply that reasons are playing a causal role. Anscombe is attempting not merely to distinguish, but to divorce reasons-explanations from causal exaplanations, considering the former to be noncausal explanations. And insofar as she is divorcing these types of explanations, here critiques of Lewis is faulty” (65).
“Rational inference involves the employment of the laws of logic. These laws are not physical laws. Indeed they pertain across possible worlds, including worlds with no physical objects whasoever. So while the laws of physics denote the powers and liabilities of things in the physical world, the laws of logic tell us what must be true in any universe whatsoever. Even in possible worlds with no law of gravity, the law of noncontradiction still holds. If one accepts the laws of logic, as one must if one claims to have rationally inferred one belief from another belief, then one must accept some nonphysical, nonspatial and nontemporal reality—at least something along the lines of the Platonic forms” (81).
“It is often supposed that the laws of logic are true by convention. But this is clearly not a coherent idea. Before conventions can be established, logic must already be supposed. If logical laws are human conventions, then presumably it is at least possible for us to have different conventions. But the laws of logic are conditions of intelligibility; without them we could not say anything. Part of what it means to say anything is to imply that the contradictory is false. Otherwise, language simply does not function in a declarative way. So the reality of logical laws cannot be denied without self-refutation, nor can their psychological relevance be denied without self-refutation” (82).
“If the chief enemy of a creature is a foot-long snake, perhaps some inner programming to attack everything a foot long would be more effective from the point of view of surval than the complicated ability to distinguish reptiles from mammals or amphibians” (101).
Posted in Christianity, Gospel According to Jesus, John MacArthur, Lam pen ohne Ö, Lordship, Reformed, Salvation & Justification, Theology on August 26, 2012| 6 Comments »
Posted in Christian conservative, Christian voter's guide, Christianity, Election Forum, evangelical voters, Evangelicals, November 6th 2012 election on August 25, 2012| 9 Comments »
Personal Note: Finally have internet restored to our home so regular updating should be coming soon!
The election is coming soon and Christians ought to be informed about candidates that best reflect their values. Here’s the recommendation as provided by the Election Forum:
Posted in Apologetic Links, christian apologetics, Christianity, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Reformed, Theology, Van Til, tagged Cornelius Van Til on August 20, 2012| 5 Comments »
A lesser known work by Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til, one that he saw was important enough to be declared by him as the first work readers ought to read if one plan to read the corpus of his work is a book titled, “The Protestant’s Doctrine of Scripture.”. If Van Til list this first in his order of how to read him, readers should probably take him seriously! It’s not an easy book to find (Ifound it once in a used bookstore but it was over priced for a young man to buy) so readers should be happy to know that it is available online for free on PDF! Click HERE!
Posted in Apologetic Links, christian apologetics, Christianity, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Van Til on August 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
Here are some links that would be of interests to those who are into Presuppositional apologetics:
1.) Atheists at Prayer by Steve Hays.
2.) Refuting Islam: Philosophyical Analysis by Mike Robinson.
3.) Do you have Gift of Discernment? by James Swan.
4.) The Futility of All Non-Christian Approaches to the philosophy of Mathematics.
Posted in contemporary theology, David Smith on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Purchase: Amazon
The beginning of this book makes the observation that as soon as one makes a contemporary theology book, its bound not to be contemporary soon, because of the development in the religious landscape. I think the fact that it was written before the Soviet Union fell (as his discussion about the persecuted Charismatic church in the Soviet Union) or his chapter on some theology being a big risk that never materializes does not help. Still, I do manage to find it still interesting to note how someone at a certain time in the past thought about things. My chief criticism of this book is not that it’s been written over twenty plus years ago as it is theological: There are times I find it amazing that he will not find a problem with a certain theology, or what I find as a serious problem he sees as a plus! While I don’t dispute the author is an Evangelical, I think at times he’s not as discerning. Sometimes his evaluation seems left field as in the instance of his criticism of Word of Faith theology suffering from a bad dualism where the spiritual is only non-worldly and the physical is unspiritual (seriously, that’s the problem with Word of Faith prosperity preaching???). Based on his evaluation of other theology, he is probably not Reformed. I was disappointed that sometimes the resources for a controversial claim of what a particular theology believes in is not based on primary sources, but secondary critical sources. I don’t think if I did that for my theological seminar in Seminary that it would fly, and I find it amazing that the author can do that while be a teacher of theology in post-graduate setting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against engaging with important secondary sources, but if it’s a controversial statement about what proponents believed, it should be handle with care. I see this being most problematic with David Smith’s treatment of Christian Reconstructionism (though we see it in other theologies that he surveyed as well). For instance, he asserts that Rushdoony has a low view of Calvin, but he does not explain what he means and in what sense, and the footnote he gives as his proof was to an anti-theonomy source that has been seriously discredited and problematic. I would prefer that the author lets Rushdoony speaks for himself rather than from a second hand, that now becomes a third hand source (and if quoted by someone for a paper, now passes down fourth hand, etc). I suppose it’s good is still that it reveals what other theology are out there in our contemporary landscape though he might not always have the best evaluation of it.
Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Ray Comfort on August 17, 2012| 9 Comments »
Purchase: Amazon
I started this late at night till three in the morning and then the next morning woke up to finish it. For those of you who know the evangelist Ray Comfort, this autobiography is quite encouraging and will stir the readers to be more zealous to evangelize with the model that Ray Comfort is. He tells about his childhood love for surfing, being “successful” at an early age and finally find Jesus in his native country of New Zealand. His stories of his early days of serving God was enjoyable for me to read, as it reminds that just because someone begin originally serving the LORD in one ministry capacity does not necessarily always mean that person’s ministry will still be the same in the future. From drug rehab ministry to being the assistant to a pastor, the Lord eventually moved him to the direction of open air preaching. Eventually he would make his way to Southern California with a greater ministry. The majority of the first half of the book seem to focus on his ministry at MacArthur park back in the wild heydays before LAPD cleaned it up and open a substation there. I did not even know until I was half way through the books that he had some pictures from MacArthur Park and it was so sad reading the tragedy of people’s sin with drugs, violence, etc. I’ve enjoyed reading about Ray Comfort’s meeting with Kirk Cameron and all his other adventures. Good biography to read before you go out with your church to evangelize!
Posted in Evangelicals, family research council on August 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »
This is developing news, but less than two hours ago there was a shooting at the Washington office of the Family Research Council. This group has been on the forefront with a lot of the issues of family and traditional marriage in the political arena. I don’t agree with everything about the group, and found it ironic that the media often identify it as Evangelical though from my understanding Catholics are found in the leadership. There is a danger here of muddling the gospel in my opinion when Catholics and Evangelicals mix.
However, I do have to say that this shooting is wrong. Details are not clear yet, but it seems that the shooter has made some statements against the policy that FRC embrace before shooting. If it turns out that this is the case, this is yet another example of some of the criminal activities of pro-homosexual advocates against those whom they disagree that I have documented earlier this month against those disagree with them. I thought this news bit from Fox News is ironic:
Sources told Fox New that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”
We will have to wait for further confirmation of the facts of the case. If it’s true, what I find ironic is that the suspect could say “Don’t shoot me, it’s not about you” after he already shot the guy.
Typical of extreme liberalism: appeal to pity when the situation is not to your advantage but when you gain the advantage, well…
I think this last month, America needs to learn that extremists are not only of Conservative stripes.
Posted in biblical worldview, Christian voter's guide, Christianity, Election, Election Forum, Evangelicals on August 14, 2012| 10 Comments »
From Election Forum. The following below is a voter’s guide for Los Angeles County concerning Federal, State and some of the County officials to vote for; the rest of the state can be accessed from their website.
Since I am a candidate in this particular race, Election Forum will abstain from posting ratings or recommendations. Instead of that tradition, we will provide thoroughly prepared research on each one of the other candidates in the race, which will be viewable on the website.—Craig Huey
Posted in 2012 olympics, Christianity, medal count 2012 olympics, Olympics on August 11, 2012| 3 Comments »
I’m not necessarily attacking the Olympics itself, but searching up the medal count for this summer’s 2012 Olympics had me thinking about Eternity and God.
In one sense, the Olympics had me thinking a bit about how our Christian walk can be compared to a race and the work of athletics as 1 Timothy 4:7-8 states:
7 But [c]have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
Discipline here is the verb where we get our modern word “gym.”
Yet, in another sense, the Olympics is also a story of tragedy of those who spend all their lives searching for meaning, purpose and significance in a moment’s attempt to make a claim to fame. It seems that pursuit is one that is really short lived and sad.
The last time I checked, the US lead in terms of medal counts with a total of a hundred, with China coming in second place with 85. Yet, four years from now who will remember the medal counts? Or try seeing how people remember the 2008 Olympics medal count and descriptions. Those who are familiar with the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes (if not, you ought to read it!) should remember the echoes of Solomon’s “Vanities! Vanities!”
The Domain for Truth 
Review: A Translators Handbook on the Book of Jonah by Eugene A. Nida
Posted in Bible, Bible Commentary, bible translation, Book Review, Eugene A. Nida, Jonah on August 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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I’ve seen translator handbook on the Bible for different books of the Bible, and always thought about it employing it so this was my first time using it for exegetical studies. I was expecting it to be a handbook summarizing exegetical problems and decisions, but this was not what it really was. The work was more of a recommendation of possible risks and suggestions in translating into English or various languages, especially with difficulties in the language the text is being translated into. The book was more dynamic equivalence driven than formal equivalence in terms of translation philosophy. Not much syntactical/grammatical/lexical insight, and the few offered can be gleamed from most commentaries. This particular edition did have a good summary of the structure of the book of Jonah in the beginning of the book. I think the best thing an expositor might get out of it is that it allows the readers to be aware of how various Bible version went about with their translation decisions, or phrasing things.
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