Bill Pratt | July 30, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt I just finished reading a wonderful book by New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg, called The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. In his chapter where he discusses the miracles recorded in the Gospels, he had this to say about the scientific objection to miracles. In short, the scientific objection to the credibility [...]
Bill Pratt | July 28, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt My seminary professor, Norm Geisler, used to say, “Everything the Bible affirms is literally true, but not true, literally.” What he meant by this is that we cannot read the Bible in a wooden, “literal” way when it is clearly using figurative language. A good Catholic friend of mine once asked [...]
Bill Pratt | July 27, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt I consider the age of the earth to be a secondary issue among Christians (not something to divide over), but I am curious about what the readers of this blog think about it. If you have not answered the poll question on the home page of Tough Questions Answered, please drop [...]
Bill Pratt | July 26, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt See if you can follow this argument, which is one form of the cosmological argument. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause. The first premise should be uncontroversial. If something begins to exist, it needs a cause of its [...]
Bill Pratt | July 23, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt According to John Heininger, the answer is “no.” What follows is an extended quotation from John, who submitted this as a comment to our blog. His comment makes some great points in a succinct fashion about the nature of science, especially with respect to the ruling of the Dover trial in [...]
Bill Pratt | July 19, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Certainly the appearance of design in the natural world makes a strong case for the existence of a super-intelligent being, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Many people look at the world around them and marvel at its functionality and complexity. A common reaction to the functionality and complexity of the [...]
Bill Pratt | July 15, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Only if the skeptic is open to the existence of a God who can intervene in the affairs of the world. I have discussed the historical reliability of the New Testament with many skeptics over the years. The skeptics I typically speak to inevitably dismiss or downplay much of the historical [...]
Bill Pratt | July 12, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Seldom a month goes by that a major announcement isn’t made about a fossil that demonstrates the evolutionary lineage of some animal. These announcements have always fascinated me because of the bold claims that are made. But something I have struggled with for a long time is understanding exactly how paleontologists [...]
Bill Pratt | July 9, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Once a person is justified (saved), can they lose their salvation? This seems like an important question, but there are differing views within Christendom. Calvinists, both moderate and 5-point, affirm eternal security. Eternal security is the idea that once a person is truly saved, he can never lose his salvation. Calvinists [...]
Bill Pratt | July 6, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Poll results like these demonstrate the failure of proponents of Darwinian evolution to provide persuasive scientific evidence for their viewpoint. Worse than that, the attempt to squash the intelligent design movement is seemingly back-firing. Americans overwhelmingly support academic freedom on the issue of the origins and development of life. It is time [...]
