Showing posts with label Apologetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apologetics. Show all posts
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
How to Contend for the Faith (Jude 3)
Like Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians, "For necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16, nkjv), Jude felt the necessity—a heavy burden or mandate—to write. Agcho, the root of the noun rendered necessity, means literally "compress." Jude recognized that he was a watchman for the truth (cf. Ezek. 3:16--21) who could not simply watch in silence as his readers slipped into error. His fervent passion for sound doctrine, especially regarding the gospel, made even the thought of false teaching a heavy burden on his heart (cf. 2 Cor. 11:28). And he and his readers would not be able to share a common salvation if they lost the gospel.
Jude also had a deep love for his readers—meaning that he was dedicated to their spiritual well-being. Accordingly his tone conveyed a genuine care similar to that of Paul, who wrote to the Ephesian elders: "Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears" (Acts 20:31; cf. Col. 1:29)...
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
What Investigative Principle Does Every Christian Need?
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Friday, February 08, 2013
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
RC Sproul : Necessary Being - Defending Your Faith Part 21
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
General revelation and special revelation are both true. That which we can learn through a telescope is no less true than that which we learn from St. Paul. But while special revelation is settled in the Scriptures, general revelation is like a stream, forever changing as we scrape the surface of God's glory in creation. R.C. reports that current secular theories of surrounding creation are still woefully inadequate and suspiciously silent about the cause of their "Big Bang."
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To be able to show the necessity of God's existence outside the universe, contra the immanentistic view.
2. To understand that philosophy and science have argued for the existence of a necessary power that has many qualities of the Christian God.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem Abuse or Personal Attack. An argument that substitutes abusive remarks instead of evidence to prove their conclusion. An example would be, "Kim thinks homosexuals are going to hell, but she's just a know-it-all judgmental Jesus-freak. You can't believe her."
World Soul: A phrase used by pantheistic or New Age philosophers to explain that since the world creates and sustains life, it must have life itself, and a soul as other creatures. Also called panpsychism.
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Explaining Reality
a) Illusion: Not an option
b) Self-created: Irrational
c) Self-existence: Something is self-existent, but is it the universe?
d) Created by self-existent being
II. The State of Nature
a) The Big Bang theory (not accepted as recently as the 1940s) affirms that 15-18 billion years ago, something existed. A singularity, a compaction of all matter, existed. It grew unstable and exploded, creating the universe as we know it, a movement from organization to chaos.
b) How did nature become organized in the first place?
c) The law of inertia says that things in motion (or not in motion) tend to remain as they are unless acted on by an outside force. How did the universe move from rest to activity?
d) Illustration: Golf in Motion
e) What cause the Bang? It is necessary to answer this question, and highly unusual that science would plead that this is an unimportant question. Since when did causality become unimportant?
f) Matter is mutable. It manifests contingency. Materialists will respond that the things we see are not immutable. They claim that the entity that makes matter is not transcendent, but immanent.
g) Materialists say that whatever causes matter is part of the universe or is the sum total of the universe. Some force pulsates through all things that forms a self-existent core, and this accounts for the causality of the beginning of the universe.
h) Thus: They argue that there is no need for a transcendent God. A self existent eternal power, yes. But not outside the universe.
III. The Answer to the Materialist Challenge
a) If you mean by "universe" all that is (and God is), then it is true that God is inside the universe.
c) But transcendence is not a geographical description. It is an ontological distinction. It says that God is a higher order of being, not that He is located elsewhere.
d) If there is some unknown, immeasurable, eternal being that transcends everything that is derived from it, then our argument is mere semantics. The materialist has won, but won for which side?
IV. The Unmoved Mover and the God of the Bible: What is the connection? The next two lectures will demonstrate this.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
RC Sproul : Self Existence - Defending Your Faith Part 20
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
As we look at various options to explain reality, this one has a bit of truth to it. Something indeed is self-existent; it's just not the universe. The best arguments for the self-existent universe are often too strong—they end up suggesting that the universe is more than self-existent, that it is also self-aware. At that point, we chuckle and welcome them to our side. That's what Christians have believed all along.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
1. To review and critique the argument for the self-existence of the universe.
2. To be able to show how the Bible assumes God's self-existence.
3. To be introduced to key phrases and words in this ancient discussion.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
Philosophy is saying what everyone knows in language no one can understand. (J.F. Taviner)
Good philosophy must exist, for bad philosophy needs to be answered. (C.S. Lewis)
Aseitas: Latin. Aseity, self-existence, or autotheos (Greek).
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Explaining Reality
a) Illusion: Not an option
b) Self-created: Irrational
c) Self-existence: Something is self-existent, but not the universe
d) Created by self-existent being: True
II. Self-Existent and Eternal: Rational or Not?
a) Some philosophers have argued that if anything can be conceived of rationally, it must be real. This is rationality gone wild.
b) Illustration: Unicorns and Ducks and Deer
c) A self-existent being is not irrational. It is not contradictory to the law of causality, because a being is not an effect.
d) But just because we can conceive of such a being does not mean that it exists. It is also rationally conceivable that nothing exists now or ever—obviously, that is not true.
e) If something exists, the idea of the self-existent being becomes more than possible: it becomes necessary.
III. Self-Existence as Necessary (Aseity)
a) Self-existent beings do not grow from anything.
b) Ens Necessarium: That being whose being is necessary.
c) If there was a time when there was absolutely nothing, then there would still be nothing because ex nihilo, nihil fit. We are arguing that there must be something that has the power of being and always has been, or nothing else (or nothing at all) could exist.
d) Ontological Necessity: Ontology is the science of being. God exists by the necessity of His own being—by His very nature, He must exist, or else He is not God.
e) Moses: "Who are you?" God: "I AM."
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Monday, February 04, 2013
RC Sproul : Self-Creation (Part 2) - Defending Your Faith Part 19
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
Have you ever thought about an idea so much that it made your head hurt? Concepts like eternity and the way the Trinity works and how God is thinking about you and sustaining you this very moment . . . these are ideas so large, they leave us mentally breathless before too long.
Some ideas leave us breathless because they are so fundamentally wrong. The self-creation of the universe is one of those. Like a thousand-pound weight on the shoulders, not everything that strains human capacity is good exercise.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To critically consider the idea that the universe is self-created.
2. To analyze the common use of the word "chance."
3. To be able to show through illustration the irrationality of self-creation if ascribed to the universe.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
When we think of anything that has origin, we are not thinking of God. God is self-existent, while all created things necessarily originate somewhere at some time.
(A.W. Tozer)
The wisdom of the flesh is always exclaiming against the mysteries of God. (John Calvin)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Creation by Chance: Not a Chance
a) Caveat: I am not a physicist. But the inferences that they draw from their data are often stated irrationally.
b) Arthur Koestler: "As long as chance rules, God is an anachronism." But it is necessary for chance only to exist for God to be destroyed; chance does not need to rule, only to exist, to eliminate God from our equations.
II. Physics by Illustration
a) Illustration: A Quarter and a Harvard Professor
b) Illustration: R.C., Al, and a Train
III. What is chance?
a) Modern jargon has elevated the term "chance" beyond the definition of mathematical odds. It has been colloquially given some kind of power and ontology.
b) Ontology is the study of being. Chance has no being. It is only conceptual.
c) Chance is no-thing.
d) Niels Bohr: Contraria un Complementaria or "Contrary Complementarity."
Contradictions are complementary.
e) Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty: We can't explain the behavior of some subatomic particles. But to move from this lack of explanation to inferring that nothing is producing the effect is irrational.
f) Nonsense and bad science are the result of self-existence theories.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Friday, February 01, 2013
RC Sproul : Self-Creation (Part 1) - Defending Your Faith Part 18
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
As we understand how to defend the Christian faith, we are often caught off guard by the incredible faith displayed by our opponents in very bad ideas. It takes a tremendous exercise of faith to believe in self-creation theories, and as R.C. will point out in this lecture, the faith of the true believer is not enough to save a very bad idea from destroying itself.
This idea's time has come and gone.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To review the possible alternatives to reality.
2. To critically review the alternative of self-creation.
3. To understand how important this idea is to many agnostic systems of thought.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
Dear me, the Lord got on very well before I was born, and I'm sure He will when I am
dead. (C.H. Spurgeon)
God is not in need of anything, but all things are in need of God. (Marcianus Aristides)
God is the cause of all causes, the soul of all souls. (A.H. Strong)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. What possible alternatives are there to explain reality?
a) Illusion
b) Self-creation
c) Self-existence
d) Creation via self-existent being
II. Self-creation is the most frequent alternative offered to theists
a) This is a generic principle that subsumes many generic principles and arguments.
b) Self-creation is analytically false; it is false by definition. For something to be its own cause, it would have to preexist itself. It would be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
III. Past and Current Theories of Self-Creation
a) French encyclopedists such as Denis Diderot (1713-1784) were determined anti-theists, and suggested spontaneous generation as the means of creation.
b) The counter argument to this teaching is ex nihilo, nihil fit—out of nothing, nothing comes.
c. In 1953, a Nobel Prize winner said that we should replace the idea of spontaneous generation with the concept of gradual spontaneous generation.
d) The Hubble Telescope was launched on April 25, 1990. A famed physicist explained on that day that the beginnings of the universe occurred 15-20 billion years ago, when it exploded into "being." But this is more a philosophical statement than astrophysical one.
e) "Creation by chance" is the most popular way we hear this taught today. Space+ time + chance = stuff is the overly hopeful way in which this is formulated.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Thursday, January 31, 2013
RC Sproul : The Illusion Of Descartes - Defending Your Faith Part 17
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
Rene' Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician, born in La Haye,
France. In Bavaria, in the winter of 1619, he took on the mission to re-create the philosophical world by doubting every assumption and building a philosophy based on math. It may seem as though he was a wild-eyed mystic, but he was actually very quiet and careful, keeping many of his books from publication because Roman Catholicism was in the very act of condemning Galileo's work. But after his works were released, they caused a storm in philosophy and apologetics that still troubles and amazes us.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To begin a critique of the four explanations of reality.
2. To discuss the philosophy of Descartes and its impact on apologetics.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
I can only trace the lines that flow from God. (Albert Einstein)
Sin has gotten man into more trouble than science can get him out of. (Vance Havner)
The scientific way of looking at the world is not wrong any more than the glassmaker's way of looking at the window. This way of looking at things has its very important uses.
Nevertheless the window was placed there not to be looked at, but to be looked through; and the world has failed of its purpose unless it too is looked through and the eye rests not on it, but on its God. (B.B. Warfield)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. We start with four possibilities to explain reality.
a. Illusion: Reality is not real.
b. Self-Created: Reality came into existence through itself.
c. Self-Existent: Reality exists by its very nature.
d. Created: Reality is created by a self-existent being.
II. Descartes' Critique of Reality as Illusion
a) Rene' Descartes (1596-1650), a mathematician, was confronted by a wave of irrationality, an epistemological breakdown.
b) The controversies of Copernicus and the Reformation and Galileo created a crisis of authority.
c) Descartes attempted to restore certitude. "Clear and distinct ideas" were his goal, ideas that could reconstruct man's search for knowledge.
d) Illustration: What are ten things that I know for sure?
e) Descartes doubted everything that he could conceivably doubt, and whatever was left, that is where he would begin. Perhaps everything was just the dream of a demon, he offered.
f) He found that the one thing he could not doubt was that he was doubting. There is no way to escape the reality of doubt and the underlying reality that there is a doubter.
III. Assumptions of Self-Consciousness: Cogito, Ergo Sum
a) If Descartes is right, then whatever else is in doubt, our existence is not in doubt.
b) Going a bit further, if a piece of chalk actually exists, then a self-existent Creator must exist.
c) The two major assumptions of Descartes in this formula are the law of non-contradiction and the law of causality.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
RC Sproul : Four Possibilities - Defending Your Faith Part 16
Four Possibilities Of Reality
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
Many believe that what someone thinks about religion is his or her personal opinion, nothing more. Today, ideas about God are viewed as ultimately subjective, with no evidence supporting them, only bare feelings, intuition, or experience. In this study, Dr. Sproul makes it clear that not only are there reasons for God's existence, but if put together in a Biblical and logical fashion, there is proof for God's existence.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To be introduced to a means of proving the existence of God.
2. To gain confidence in doing apologetics.
3. To review the four possibilities that may explain reality.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
Logic is the study of argument. As used in this sense, the word "argument" means not a quarrel (as when we "get into an argument"), but a piece of reasoning in which one or more statements are offered as support for some other statement. The statement being supported is the conclusion of the argument. The reasons given in support of the conclusion are called premises. We may say, "This is so and so (premises), therefore that is so (conclusion)." Premises are generally preceded by such words as because, for, since, on the ground that, and the like. Conclusions, on the other hand, are generally preceded by such words as therefore, hence, consequently, and it follows that. (S. Morris Engel)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. There are several methods of establishing the existence of God.
II. Classical Apologetics: The First Steps
a) This method is influenced greatly by St. Augustine, who tried to establish a sufficient reason for the existence of God. This is done through a process of logical elimination.
b) We start with four possibilities to explain reality.
i. Illusion: Reality is not real.
ii. Self-Created: Reality came into existence through itself.
iii. Self-Existent: Reality exists by its very nature.
iv. Created: Reality is created by a self-existent being.
c) The simplest argument for the existence of God is, "If anything exists, God exists." That is, if something anywhere exists, then somewhere, there must be a self-existent being to make that so.
d) Illustration: Is the chalk here or not? How do we give sufficient evidence for this?
e) The first option is rarely held. The second option is the most popular option.
The third option is rarely held, but more so than the first.
f) Reason demands the existence of some kind of self-existence.
g) The classical argument attempts to go beyond mere probability to proof.
This will be a rational proof that compels a rational person to surrender to a rational proof.
III. Proof versus Persuasion
a) Proof is objective.
b) Persuasion is subjective.
c) Illustration: Charlie is dead.
IV. Not a Neutral Question
a. Unbelievers have an enormous vested interest to deny, deny, deny.
b. We are not called to persuade people, but to give good reasons for God's
existence.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
RC Sproul: The Case For God - Defending Your Faith Part 15
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
What is the best way to explain the existence of God to a non-Christian? Is there one "best" way? The philosophical rubble from Kant's Pyrrhic victory over Aquinas has left Christians split over how apologetics should proceed. In this lecture, R.C. discusses the various options and identifies himself as a classical apologeticist.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To demonstrate the impact of Kantianism on modern apologetics.
2. To discuss the differences between evidentialist, classical, and presuppositional apologetics.
3. To demonstrate that logically, one must start with oneself in the quest to understand God's existence.
QUOTATIONS & THOUGHTS
God is more truly imagined than expressed, and He exists more truly than is imagined.
(Augustine)
We trust not because "a" god exists, but because "this" God exists. (C.S. Lewis)
Men and women who refuse to acknowledge God's existence do so, in the final analysis, because it is contrary to their manner of living. (R.C. Sproul)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. The results of Kant's critique of the arguments for the existence of God were:
a. The church was confused.
b. Individuals were fideistic.
c. Illustration: Is there anyone else up there who can help me?
d. "I believe Christianity because it is absurd."
e. Empirical appeals to history and moral certitude (evidentialists). Note:
R.C. is not an evidentialist, but is classical. This view holds that there is not merely a high degree of likelihood that God exists, but compelling proof.
II. Presuppositionalism: Another Reformed view of apologetics
a) The book Classical Apologetics contains a critique of this viewpoint
b) Dr. Cornelius VanTil, who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary, was native Dutch, and this is one reason why there are so many interpretations of his work.
c) Presuppositionalism: In order to arrive at the conclusion that God exists, one must start with the premise that God exists. Without a foundation for reason, there can be no reason.
i. Objection: This is a classic fallacy of circular reasoning. The conclusion appears in the premise.
ii. Response: All reasoning moves in a circular fashion. Its start, middle and end relate to each other in a sense.
iii. Objection: This is the fallacy of equivocation. Circular reasoning has been redefined in midstream.
iv. Response: Greg Bahsen clarifies by saying that VanTil was saying that to assume rationality is in fact irrational without God's existence. You must assume the ground of reasoning before you affirm reason itself.
v. Second main objection: Nobody starts with God unless you are God.
Self-consciousness is where we start, not God-awareness.
vi. Response: You are capitulating to secular ideas, specifically Enlightenment ideas.
vii. Objection: This is not a deification of self, but self-consciousness.
Augustine said that as soon as one knows that one exists, then you can know that you are not God. This ends in humility, not autonomy.
viii. Presuppositionalists and classicists think the other is giving too much away to the world. Both agree that the construction of the idea of God is critical to the Christian life.
*I do not own this presentation. Used only for education purposes
All rights to Ligonier Ministries. (C) Ligonier Ministries
See the following links to purchase a High Quality Version of the presentation. Please support the ministry!
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-dvd/
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
RC Sproul: Analogical Language Part 2 - Defending Your Faith Part 9
http://www.ligonier.org/store/defending-your-faith-paperback/
MESSAGE INTRODUCTION
God is holy. But He is not wholly other. There are similarities between us and God: those initiated as we were created with the "image of God" internally imprinted on us, and highlighted in the Incarnation, as God proved that He was not completely different from us by becoming a man. And when we reach heaven, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the dangers of Karl Barth's idea of God as "wholly other."
2. To realize that the problems of communication can be overcome.
3. To understand the three kinds of language.
QUOTATIONS AND THOUGHTS
The incarnation of Christ is the clearest affirmation of the truth that man is created in the image of God. (Lawrence Adams)
Christ voluntarily took on himself everything that is inseparable from human nature. (John Calvin)
With the exception of being sinful, everything that can be said about a man can be said about Jesus Christ. (James Boice)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. The Crisis of God-Talk and Karl Barth
a) Barth introduced the idea that God was wholly other to guard Him from being discussed rationally.
b) Illustration: R.C. in Canada
c) Illustration: Cool Hand Luke and a failure to communicate
II. Why do we fail to communicate?
a) Illustration: I say "chair" and you hear "chair", and example of communication working.
b) Illustration: I say "imminence" and you hear "M&M's."
c) If you cannot understand language, you cannot know much. If language cannot communicate, then we can know nothing about God.
III. Aquinas and Three Kinds of Language
a) Univocal: In a dialogue, when two parties understand a thing in exactly the same way. In this language, words retain their definitions.
b) Equivocal: When, within a dialogue, the definitions of portion of the language changes meaning. When one person communicates something to the other, the meaning changes.
c) Analogical: In communication, the definitions of words change proportionately to the difference in the beings dialoguing.
Illustration: Good dog vs. Good guy
d) We have a measured likeness to God; therefore, we have a corresponding ability to communicate with Him.
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