Category Archives: General Apologetics

General Apologetics, Philosophy

Are You Refuting Yourself?

4 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most common mistakes in thinking I have seen in discussions on the blog is the making of self-refuting statements.  According to philosopher J. P. Moreland, a self-refuting statement is a statement which “refers to itself and fails to satisfy its own criteria of rational acceptability or truthfulness.”  An example would be the following:

“No English sentence is longer than three words.”

Obviously this is an English sentence which is longer than three words, so the very statement itself fails to meet its own criteria.  Here is another example that Moreland offers:

“There are no truths.”

The person making this statement obviously thinks that this statement is a truth, so once again the statement fails to meet its own criteria.

Moreland concludes, “They refer to themselves and they falsify themselves. Self-refuting statements are necessarily false; that is, they cannot possibly be true.”  Here are some additional examples of self-refuting statements:

“I do not exist.” The problem here is that a person must exist to make the statement that they do not exist.

“Anyone who is biased should not be trusted.” Isn’t the person who is making this statement biased himself?

“Only science gives us true knowledge.” How do you know that statement is true?  It isn’t a statement of science.

“All truth is relative.” Is that truth relative?

“There are no absolutes.” Is that statement absolutely true?

“It’s true for you, but not for me.” Is that statement only true for you or is it true for everyone?

“You should be skeptical of everything.” Should we be skeptical of that statement?

“You can’t know anything about God.” Do you know that God is unknowable?

“You ought not judge.” Isn’t that a judgment?

“You should be tolerant.” Aren’t you being intolerant of me?

It is amazing to see how many times these kinds of statements are made.  One tip-off that a self-refuting statement my be on the way is if a person uses the words all, every, or no.  These words indicate that the statement is going to be a universal categorical statement, meaning that it will encompass all of its class.  Sometimes these words are implied in the statement without being explicitly included, so you’ll have to be watchful.

A person making one of these self-refuting statements can correct the situation by changing all or every to some.  For example, instead of saying, “All truth is relative,” a person could say, “Some truth is relative.”  The drawback is that the statement is now weaker and has less force, but at least it is not self-contradictory any more.  Better to make a weaker statement than a statement that flatly contradicts itself.

General Apologetics

Want to See Short Christian Apologetics Videos?

Leave a comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

I came across an interesting apologetics ministry at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics a couple weeks ago.  It’s called The One Minute Apologist and the idea behind the ministry is to record short videos (usually a couple minutes) that tackle important apologetic issues.

There are videos that deal with topics like Islam, the resurrection, intelligent design, and evidence for the existence of God.  If you are interested in seeing these kinds of short videos, give the site a try.  Below is a sample video featuring an interview with William Lane Craig:

About the blog, General Apologetics

Off to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics

Leave a comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Today Darrell and I are off to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary.  I’ve been to the conference many times over the past decade and have watched it grow from less than a thousand in attendance to over four thousand.

Some of the speakers that will be there this year are Chuck Colson, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, Erwin Lutzer, Marvin Olasky, William Dembski, and Anthony Bradley – an impressive lineup, as usual.

If you live anywhere near Charlotte, NC, you ought to consider coming either Friday or Saturday.  Friday features smaller seminars and workshops, whereas Saturday is when the plenary sessions are held.

Every year I learn a tremendous amount and come away inspired, so I’m sure the conference will generate lots of ideas for new blog posts in the coming weeks!

Darrell and I will take a break from the blog for a few days while we attend, but we’ll be back next week.

God bless and thank you for reading Tough Questions Answered!

General Apologetics

How Should We Respond to Name-Calling?

1 Comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

We don’t have a serious problem on our blog with commenters calling each other names.  I have had to delete very few comments because someone crossed over the line of good taste.  Every once in a while, though, people forget their manners and start hurling accusations at each other.  When someone calls you a name during a serious discussion, what should you do?

Recently I came across a short article written by the folks at Stand to Reason which suggests a good idea.  When someone calls you a name, just ask for a definition of the name they called you.  That’s all.

This approach will often work because people are rarely thinking clearly when they call names.  When you ask them to define the word they used to describe you, it will generally bring them back to rationality.

The article lists three likely results of using this tactic:

1. It will give them pause the next time they think about calling you a name. If they have to define every “bad” word they call you (intolerant, narrow-minded, homophobic, judgmental, etc.), then they’re less likely to call you a name and more likely to explain their concern. That makes for a more productive conversation.

2. It will make it more difficult for them to define you, a friendly person who is merely asking for a definition, in a horribly negative way. Instead, they’ll soften the definition and it won’t have the same negative rhetorical impact that the word had.

3. Their definition will likely also apply to them.

I think this is solid advice that any of us can use when a conversation becomes heated and names start flying.

General Apologetics, Theology

What Is Christian Faith?

2 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most abused words in the English language is the word faith.  For skeptics, faith is believing in something despite reason.  For some religious folks, faith is simply the expression of positive emotions toward God.  Others claim faith is purely intellectual.

Can we more rigorously define what faith is?  I think we can, and I will call on Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to help out, from their book Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

Kreeft and Tacelli first differentiate between the object of faith and the act of faith.

The object of faith includes all the things that are believed about God, as communicated by the Bible.  These things that are believed are expressed in propositions (e.g., Jesus is the Son of God).  These propositions, however, are only pointers.  They direct our attention to the real object of faith, God.  If the real object of faith is God, then why do we need all the propositions that capture our beliefs about God?  Kreeft and Tacelli explain, “Without propositions, we cannot know or tell others what God we believe in and what we believe about God.”

The act of faith consists of more than just belief.  There are four components of faith: 1) emotional, 2) intellectual, 3) volitional, and 4) heart.  Let’s look at each of these one at a time.

Emotional faith is “feeling assurance or trust or confidence in a person.  This includes hope (which is much stronger than just a wish) and peace (which is much stronger than mere calm).”  Emotional faith is the weakest component of faith because emotions change so frequently.

Intellectual faith is belief.  According to Kreeft and Tacelli, intellectual faith is more stable than emotional faith.  Strongly held beliefs will tend not to change often.  They cite the definition of intellectual faith from the Baltimore Catechism: “the act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the grounds of the authority of the One who revealed it.”

Volitional faith is an act of the will.  “This faith is faithfulness, or fidelity.  It manifests itself in behavior, that is, in good works. . . . For the root of volitional faith – the will – is the faculty or power of the soul that is closest to . . . the ‘heart’.”

Heart faith is the very center of a person’s being, the center of their soul.  This is the “I” where the emotions, intellect, and will reside.  “The heart is where God the Holy Spirit works in us. . . . With the heart we choose our ‘fundamental option’ of yes or no to God, and thereby determine our eternal identity and destiny.”

All four of these components of faith work together, with the heart being the intersection of them all.  Faith is, therefore, not just about emotions or intellect.  Faith involves the entire person – every part.

The interaction of the intellect and the will are particularly interesting.  Kreeft and Tacelli describe how they work together:

The intellect is the soul’s navigator, but the will is its captain. . . . The will can command the intellect to think, but the intellect cannot command the will to will, only inform it, as a navigator informs the captain.  Yet the will cannot simply make you believe.  It can’t force the intellect to believe what appears to it to be false, or to disbelieve what seems to it to be true.

We could also add that if the emotions are predisposed against believing, then faith can be thwarted.  This is why purely intellectual appeals to a non-believer may not be effective.  If their emotions and/or will are set against faith, then intellectual arguments cannot bring them to God.  Likewise, purely emotional appeals may appear to work for a short time until that person has time to think about their beliefs and decide they are not reasonable (they have an intellectual problem).  There are even people who will to believe, but their intellect and/or emotions stand in the way.

Christian faith deals with the whole individual, so the takeaway is that the church can never become one dimensional and forget that will, intellect, emotions, and finally the very heart of a person must all express faith.

Atheism, General Apologetics, Theology

Does the Size of the Cosmos Render Man Insignificant?

18 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

That is the popular view among materialists (those who deny the existence of anything but the material world).  They beg us look at the sheer immensity of the universe and then look at the tininess of the human race in contrast.  The idea that man is special, that man holds a privileged seat in the cosmos is simply ridiculous, they claim.

The arch-materialist Carl Sagan (as quoted from The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World by William Dembski) had these thoughts on the matter:

Because of the reflection of sunlight . . . the earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world.  But it’s just an accident of geometry and optics. . . . Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

Does the size of the universe relative to man render him insignificant?  Maybe if you’re a materialist, but not if you’re a Christian.  Scripture declares that God has created man in his image, that man indeed has a special seat of honor in the universe.  Theologically, Christians recognize that the materialist argument fails.  Scientifically, works like The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery demonstrate that the earth is unique in its ability to support advanced life and to enable scientific discovery.

As Dembski points out, G. K. Chesterton wrote one of the most memorable responses to the materialist claim of man’s insignificance in his classic work Orthodoxy.  Here is Chesterton speaking of the materialist Herbert Spencer:

He popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image of God, then a whale may be the image of God. . . . It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small compared to the nearest tree.

What the size of the universe tells us is how awesome God is, not how insignificant man is, for man has always been spatially smaller than what surrounds him (e.g., whales and trees).  As Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”

Difficult Bible Passages, Essential Beliefs, General Apologetics, Inerrancy, New Testament Reliability, Textual Criticism

How Brittle Are Your Christian Beliefs?

6 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman wrote in his book, Misquoting Jesus, that his Christian beliefs began to fall apart when he realized that there was a mistake, an error, in the Gospel of Mark.  Now, I think that the alleged mistake is not a mistake, but let’s assume for a minute that we just don’t know for sure – maybe Mark made a mistake, and maybe he didn’t.

Is this any reason to jettison your belief in Christianity?  That has not been my reaction when I’ve been faced with many of the same kinds of difficulties in the Bible.  Why does Ehrman feel that he has to give up the whole show when he finds one error?

There are a few Christians who have been upset with me when I’ve talked about the fact that the 5,800 Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament differ from each other so that we are unsure of about 1% of the text in the New Testament.  These verses have nothing to do with any major Christian doctrine, but nonetheless they believe it is unacceptable to have any uncertainty at all.  Their faith is threatened by the science of textual criticism, even when textual criticism is practiced by conservative Christians.

Other Christians claim only the King James Version of the Bible is correct, that all the others are full of significant mistakes.  They feel their faith threatened by the other versions.

What do these people all have in common?  New Testament scholar Darrell Bock referred to these kinds of Christians as brittle fundamentalists.  They are brittle because when one of their cherished beliefs are challenged, their faith either falls apart, like Ehrman, or they retreat deep into isolation so as not to deal with anyone who disagrees with them.

I have a deep concern for the brothers and sisters who hold these beliefs.  They are majoring on the minors of Christianity.  They are making secondary things primary things.  There are certain teachings of the church that have always been recognized as the essentials, the things that form the core of our faith.

Holding on to the essentials, we need to make room for the findings of history, science, and philosophy that help us better understand our faith.  We need to be willing to learn about our faith, and maybe even change some of our secondary beliefs.  If your understanding of a Bible passage has never changed, if your understanding of a secondary doctrine has never changed, you are not growing and your Christianity may be brittle.

I have been studying the tough issues that face Christians for 7 years now, and I have had to modify several of my secondary and non-essential ideas about Christianity.  It can be uncomfortable sometimes, but what has happened to me is that the core beliefs I hold have become stronger and stronger, the more I learn.

I hope the same will happen for you.  We have nothing to fear.  We really don’t.

Creation Ex Nihilo, General Apologetics, Philosophy

Is An Actual Infinite Coherent? Part 2

6 Comments

Post Author:  Darrell

In my last post I discussed how an actual infinite number of things is incoherent.  How does this apply to the universe, time, and Mormonism?

The Mormon Church denies creation ex nihilo, choosing instead to teach creation ex materia, the position that God organized the universe from pre-existing matter.  In fact, Mormonism takes this position even a step further, teaching that matter, the stuff everything is made of, has always existed.

Time and matter are relative, i.e., one cannot exist without the other (see Einstein’s theory of relativity).  Therefore, if matter has always existed, time has always existed.  Time is the succession of moments; in otherwords, one moment following another makes up time.  If time has always existed, prior to today there existed an actual infinite amount of time.  As a result, there were an actual infinite number of moments prior to today.

However, an actual infinite number of things is incoherent, and whatever is incoherent is impossible.  Therefore, an actual infinite number of moments prior to today, as well as the Mormon belief of the eternal existence of matter and the universe are all impossible.

Darrell

Creation Ex Nihilo, General Apologetics, Philosophy

Is An Actual Infinite Coherent? Part 1

38 Comments

Post Author:  Darrell

In short, no.   The story of Hilbert’s Hotel helps to demonstrate this fact.  It goes like this…  Let’s say we have a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of guests; as a result, the hotel is full.  If a prospective guest walks in and asks for a room, can he check in?  Since there are an infinite number of rooms, the answer must be “Yes.”  How about if an infinite number of guests arrive wanting to check in.  Can they?  Again, despite the fact that the hotel already has an infinite number of guests, since there are an infinite number of rooms, guests can always check in – even an infinite number more.

Now, let’s say that the guests in all of the odd-numbered rooms check out, how many guests are left?  There are an infinite number of total rooms.  However, there are also an infinite number of odd-numbered rooms, the guests of which checked out, and there are also an infinite number of even-numbered rooms, the ones still left occupied.  So in reality, there are still an infinite number of guests left in the hotel even though an infinite number of guests just checked out.  This means when you take an infinite away from an infinite, you still get an infinite.

Where does this leave us?  Even though Hilbert’s Hotel has an infinite number of guests and rooms, more rooms and guests can always be added.  In addition, no matter how many guests check out there will always be an infinite number of guests left.  As a result, the hotel could have a sign which reads, “Hilbert’s Hotel: Always full, Yet Rooms Are Always Available.”

This illustration points out how an actual infinite is incoherent.  In an actual infinite the whole and the parts are always equal.  You can take half away and still have an infinite, or you can add more and still have the same amount – an infinite.  However, in reality, a part can never equal a whole.  For example, two is part of four (half of it to be exact). Thus, two can never equal four.

Is there any infinite that is coherent?  Yes, a potential infinite.   A potential infinite is always finite and the whole is always greater than the parts.  In a potential infinite you can always add more, but it will never become actually infinite.  For example, let’s say you have 100 Jelly Beans in a pile.  You can always add more Jelly Beans to the pile.  In fact, you can continue to add Jelly Beans and never reach a maximum.  As a result, you could say that the pile you are creating as you add more is potentially infinite.  It is not an actual infinite because no matter how many you add, there are always a finite number of Jelly Beans in the pile.  However, it is potentially infinite because more can always be added.

In the next post, we will look at how the concept of an actual infinite applies to the universe, time, creation, and Mormonism.  Stick around.

Darrell

Evil, Pain, and Suffering, General Apologetics

The Problem of Evil

25 Comments

Post Author:  Darrell

One common atheist argument against Christianity is known as The Problem of Evil. It can be stated as follows.

1)  God is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2)  If God is omnipotent, He has the power to defeat evil.
3)  If God is omniscient, He knows when and where evil exists.
4)  If God is morally perfect, He wants to destroy evil.
5)  Yet evil exists.
6)  Therefore, God does not exist.

There are several responses open to the classical theist in response to this objection. I am fond of one of Dr. Norman Geisler’s responses.  He says the atheist has overlooked an important factor, and as a result, the argument can be restated with a different conclusion.

1)  God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2)  Being omnipotent, He has the power to defeat evil.
3)  Being omniscient, He knows when and where evil exists.
4)  Being morally perfect, He wants to defeat evil.
5)  “Therefore, evil will yet be defeated. It is a fact that an all-good, all-powerful God assures us that this will happen. In short, since God is both all-good and all-powerful, evil will be defeated” (Geisler, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 161).

I discovered another response to this argument in a recent Seminary class of mine.  It states that the atheist’s fourth premise is faulty as God is not morally perfect.  In fact, to say that God is morally perfect is to hold that there is a principle to which God must adhere, i.e., there is something which transcends God.  However, if there is a principle which transcends God, then God cannot truly be said to be God.  Instead, the principle to which God is held is God. 

Traditional Christianity teaches that God transcends all, i.e., there is nothing which is greater than Him.  He created all things, and there is nothing that is outside of His power or dominion.  Since God is the greatest of all, there is nothing by which He can be measured.  As a result, God cannot be said to be morally perfect; instead He is Good.  More appropriately, He is Good Itself.  God does not have a standard to live up to because He is The Standard by which all else is judged.  Consequently, the atheist’s argument has a faulty premise, makes incorrect assumptions about God, and is inappropriate and inapplicable to God.

Darrell