Blog Archive

  • More than sharing the gospel

    So… let’s talk about apologetics. Christians seem to have very different responses to the idea of apologetics. Some think it is indispensable in the Christian’s life while others sincerely think it’s a bad thing (for various reasons, which we’ll consider further down). To be clear, I fall in the former category. What is Apologetics? It might be a good idea to clarify what we mean, exactly, when we talk about apologetics. Roughly speaking, the study of Scripture is understanding what we, as Christians, believe; Evangelism is the act of communicating, articulating or proclaiming what we believe; and Apologetics is the act of defending…

  • Defending the Moral Argument

    The Argument For those who don’t know, the Moral Argument is a class of theistic argument that attempts to argue for God’s existence from the existence of a universal moral law. Here I’m concerned with defending a single moral argument. It’s formulation is similar William Lane Craig’s (however, unlike Dr. Craig, I’m leaving out any mention of values for the sake of space) and is quite simple to follow: If God does not exist, objective moral duties do not exist. Objective moral duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. This argument is clearly valid so if someone wants to deny the…

  • A Read to Remember: An Exhortation to Christians

    I can’t help but get the overwhelming impression that many Christians aren’t taking the time to think/read/learn about Christian doctrine or apologetics. Now I’m not expecting everyone to go out and get PhDs in theology or something, but rather to take an interest in learning both what we as Christians believe and how to communicate those beliefs (doctrine) and how to defend those beliefs (apologetics). Before we continue, consider this quote from CS. Lewis: God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.  If you are thinking of being a Christian, I warn you: you are embarking…

  • A Case for Chronons

    Chronons are the discrete quantum of time. In other words they are the smallest (or indivisible) length of time. Naturally, if we think chronons exist, then we must hold that time is discrete. Admittedly, if we say chronons exist we have the following weird result: Two balls, each with a 10cm diameter, are moving in opposite directions each at the speed of 10cm per chronon. It’s possible, then, that the two balls pass each other without ever being next to each other. Because the balls moved between these two positions at the speed of a chronon, there wasn’t point between…

  • Enabling, not burdening

    When we read the Bible we can see a pattern in the way God deals with those he saves. In the Exodus, God saves the Israelites and then gives them the law, telling them how they are to act as God’s people (Ex 20ff). Similarly, when we are saved as Christians we are called to repent from our sin and turn to God (eg. Romans 6, James 2:14ff). Now initially I can sympathize with the person who gets the impression that God is, in some sense, “trapping” his people. Like he’s imposing these rules after they get saved. But once…

  • Burden of Proof

    It’s heard on the lips of of some atheists that they, unlike us theists, don’t bear the burden of proof in the question of God’s existence because they merely lack the belief in God. The theists bear the burden of proof, however, because they make the claim that God exists. I agree with this reasoning only in that it affirms that the person making a claim bears the burden of proof. However, the atheist, just like the theist, makes a claim about the existence (or non-existence) of God and therefore equally bears the burden of proof with the theist. “But…

  • God’s Providence: Preliminaries

    In my first post I said I’d be posting a bit on God’s providence, but before we start it should be asked what we mean by the term “providence of God”? When we ask questions about God’s providence, we’re asking questions about how much and in what ways he controls all of creation. Does he guide nature or does he just let it go by itself? Does he guide our human decisions or do we have some sort of control independent of God that he can’t control? Sometimes this is called God’s Sovereignty, but some people use “Sovereignty” to refer…

  • Is vegetarianism the best solution to animal cruelty?

    It is sometimes heard on the lips of vegetarians that vegetarianism is the solution to animal cruelty in the food industry. After all, it is argued, if we stop eating meat then the corporations who are cruel to animals in the process of getting meat to their consumers will either shut down (because of lack of customers) or wake up and change their tack (because of the real threat of loss of customers). Now while vegetarianism does seem to be a solution to this is it the best solution out there? I’m not convinced. It seems to me that there…

  • Plans for a blog

    I’m still deciding whether or not to actually maintain a blog. But if i were to maintain this blog it would contain things about my main interests: Theology Philosophy Apologetics Computer Science Pure Mathematics And why not start big? I’m thinking of starting a series of posts dealing with God’s providence. Assuming I maintain this blog, of course 🙂

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