May 11, 2019 | Culture, Epistemology - Trust
I was recently listening to the late great R.C. Sproul talk about a very large problem for atheists (agnostics as well because they are practical atheists). Since atheists are materialists (the material is all that exists, there is no God or spiritual reality), they must argue that meaning is possible in a purely material universe. The way Dr. Sproul put it is that atheists claim we spring from a meaning-less universe, and we are hurling toward a meaning-less oblivion, and he asks, can it be possible to find true meaning between these poles of meaning-lessness? Good question. The atheists answers blithely, of course we can! Not so quick.
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May 6, 2019 | Apologetics
Raising children, even for my wife and I in the late stages in which we find ourselves with the youngest of our three at 17, offers a plethora (love that word) of opportunities to bring the reality of God into their lives. Christian parents in a secular culture hostile to all things Christian must understand this is a full time job. Fortunately, the opportunities are never ending because so is our God! He is, after all, the Creator of all things, and therein lies a multitude of opportunities. Having a music obsessed son offers many of those in our house.
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May 2, 2019 | Explanatory Power
I often visit the Evolution News website because as a Christian the most obvious thing in the world to me is that the universe and everything in it had a Creator and cannot be a product of random chance. (The site is a great repository of information from the Intelligent Design movement.) In fact, whenever I wonder if this whole Christian thing I and my family have staked our lives on could actually be true, and that we will live forever in paradise with this Creator, I simply look outside, or at my hand, or our cats, and think, “There is absolutely no way this is all a product of random chance!” Because, my friend, if the materialists (the material is all that there is) have it right, that is exactly what it would have to be. I know that if Christianity isn’t true, then something else has to be, and in the 21st century secular West, the only alternative is materialist atheism (the only other alternative other than materialism is pantheism, and that is even less plausible than atheism if that were even possible).
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Apr 28, 2019 | Epistemology - Trust
I recently heard New Testament scholar Daniel B. Wallace on a podcast say that we need to understand the difference between the search for truth and the search for certainty. Most Americans, and westerners in general, think that because you can’t have the latter, the former is impossible as well. That’s one side of the divide where the agnostics and skeptics congregate, and for whom any debate about ultimate meaning is a fruitless waste of time. On the other are those who believe absolute certainty is achievable, and act like they’ve found it. Arrogant, absolutist atheists are the most obvious offenders of this mindset, but Christians aren’t immune from it either. There are certain kinds of fundamentalist Christians (Protestant or Catholic) who think absolute certainty is a requirement for and evidence of genuine Christian faith. You’ll see shortly what this is tragically mistaken.
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Apr 20, 2019 | Truth
Since it is Easter weekend I thought I might bring up an uncomfortable question for those who are not followers of Jesus Christ: what if it is true after all? I’ve been struck reading and writing my way through the gospels, and now in John, that Jesus confronts people with unequivocally exclusive claims. There is zero beating around the bush with Jesus. When you carefully examine the claims he makes, they are stark, and mutually exclusive. With Jesus it’s pretty much either/or, my way or the highway. Yet every religion, even those who espouse no religion at all, wants a piece of Jesus. You will notice that those who do this, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, secularists, all pick and choose what Jesus says or does to server their own ends. None of them takes the texts of the gospels in their entirety because if they did, that Jesus would blow their cover! Why does what Jesus says or does have historical authenticity or authority when it fits their purposes, and not when it doesn’t? Good rhetorical question!
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