Bill Pratt | April 30, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt In part 1 of this series, we argued that physicalism and determinism are self-refuting because they undermine rationality. At the end of part 1, we said that there are three conditions of rationality that physicalism does not allow, and Dr. Moreland explains them below: First, humans must have genuine intentionality; they must [...]
Bill Pratt | April 25, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt If you recall, at the end of the series comparing physicalism and dualism, I promised to look at additional problems for physicalism. Before doing so, let me remind you what physicalists believe. Here is philosopher J. P. Moreland: According to physicalism, a human being is merely a physical entity. The only [...]
Bill Pratt | July 20, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt The question of the origin of human rationality plagues the atheistic naturalist worldview – the worldview that says that all that exists ultimately is matter governed by the laws of physics. If every event that has ever occurred and ever will occur is determined by physical laws, then how are humans [...]
Bill Pratt | July 19, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Since the Fall, we know why people choose evil – we are all born with original sin that saturates our soul. The Fall, however, does not explain why Adam and Eve, or even Satan, used their free will to choose evil, to reject God. This question may never be answered this [...]
Bill Pratt | May 4, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In the past when I’ve discussed free will in the context of the problem of evil, I have had skeptics come along and deny that God has granted humans free will because children who choose not to be molested are sometimes molested, or women who choose not to be raped are [...]
Bill Pratt | April 2, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt This question first came to a dramatic head in the church in the fifth and sixth centuries. There were four main protagonists. Augustine of Hippo argued that salvation is totally and causatively of God’s grace. A contemporary of Augustine, Pelagius, argued that salvation is totally and causatively of man’s free will. [...]
Darrell | January 7, 2010
Post Author: Darrell I recently had a conversation with Seth over on Markcares’s blog regarding God’s foreknowledge. Seth believes that man’s freedom is incompatible with God’s foreknowledge. As a result, he believes that God cannot know the future. Here are a couple of his comments. A being is not “free” unless capable of acting otherwise [...]
Bill Pratt | November 5, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt One of the most common objections to belief in God is the problem of evil. One form of the problem of evil sounds like this: “I can’t believe in a God who allows children to be sexually molested. If there was a God, He wouldn’t allow such things to occur.” I [...]
Bill Pratt | September 6, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Yesterday, I posted on the issue of free will and God’s knowledge of of human free acts in the future. This is an area the church has grappled with for centuries. But how do other major worldviews deal with this issue? Most atheists think they can avoid the issue by denying [...]
Bill Pratt | September 5, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt Some people get hung up on the idea that God can know, for sure, what I will freely do in the future. Their argument goes something like this: if whatever God knows will certainly occur (as virtually all Christians agree), then either I am not free to act or God does [...]
