Category Archives: Apologetics

October 9, 2013

Life After Death (Part 2)

By John Paine

“Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.”
1 Corinthians 15:49 (see Dick Woodward’s post)

Rene DescartesHave you ever thought about your thoughts? This may seem like a ridiculous question, but it turns out there is a powerful apologetic argument for life after death that derives from simply understanding that humans have a body and a soul, and that the immaterial element (the soul) is spectacularly different from the material element (the body).

Continuing our review of the Areopagus Journal issue dedicated to Life After Death (Fall 2011), in this post we will explore what apologetics can bring to bear on the subject using philosophy, logic, and history.

The blog text below in italics is entirely the writing of Chad V. Meister.  I have edited out quite a bit of material to fit this format, without (I hope) misrepresenting his beliefs and positions.

Mind, Body, and the Possibility of Life After Death

Various conceptions of the human self have been held in the West, the two foremost being dualism and materialism.  Historically, dualism has been the more prominent of the two.  There are different conceptions of dualism as well, but on one main account the human person consists of two substances, one material (the body) and the other immaterial or mental (the soul or mind).  Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is perhaps the most widely recognized defender of substance dualism.  On his account, sometimes called the Cartesian view of the soul, the soul is an unextended, non-spatial substance, and it is contrasted with the body, an extended, spatial substance.  The soul and body are (somehow) connected to one another, but how an immaterial substance can connect to and interact with a physical substance is a bit of a mystery—a mystery which has often been castigated as the problem of the “ghost in the machine.” Continue reading

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September 21, 2013

Life After Death (Part 1)

By John Paine
Serenity

Serenity by Henri Martin, 1899

Have you ever tried to share the concept of Heaven with someone who doesn’t understand much about the Christian faith?  The theology of Heaven can be a stumbling block to those who have haven’t thought much beyond caricatures of floating angels and harps in an afterlife.  How can something that every reasoning adult must process be so subject to myth and misconception? Can an apologetic approach help?

Yvonne Brendley recently gave me back issues of Bill Brendley‘s Areopagus Journal, published by the Apologetics Resource Center. The Fall 2011 edition addresses the topic of life after death.

So is there evidence for life after death?  This journal will address biblical, historical, philosophical, and scientific evidences that support the reality of life after death as well as refute false ideas about it.
Craig Branch, Senior Editor, Areopagus Journal, Fall 2011

Continue reading

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September 2, 2013

Unwinding with Alvin Plantinga

By John Paine

“Be merciful to those who doubt;”
Jude 22 (NIV84)

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga speaking to students and faculty at Baylor University on April 26th, 2012 (photo credit: Chris Derrett).

Have you ever heard a presentation of the Gospel that goes something like this: “Hell is hot, death is certain, Jesus saves, turn or burn”? This is the Ripley’s (Believe It or Not) version of the Gospel. While this presentation may work—if only pragmatically—on a theological level, it’s a complete mess on a personal, relational level. It falls so short of the mark. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who hear the message of Jesus Christ just this way.

I came across a common theme in atheists’ objections to Christianity three times last week—specifically that Christians are misguided. You know: the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales and legends, a loving god wouldn’t allow evil and suffering, there is no god, hell is an invention, science disproves Christianity, and so forth. (If you’re not running into these objections might you be playing it a little too safe in sharing your faith?) One atheist posted a rant in which the sophomoric level of his uninformed statements exposed his unwillingness to think rationally about theism and Christianity. They also pointed to a long line of Believe-It-or-Not presentations that left negative impressions. (His argument denying the plausibility of God was solely based upon his personal conviction that there can be no such thing as hell.) Who ‘shared’ their faith with him, and how? Too much truth and not enough grace? Continue reading

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August 26, 2013

C.S. Lewis: Christian Champion … or Contrarian?

By Clarke Morledge
C.S. Lewis. Died on the same day as President John F. Kennedy and author Alduous Huxley.

C.S. Lewis. Died on the very same day that President John F. Kennedy was shot.  The author of Brave New World,  Aldous Huxley, died on that day as well:  November 22, 1963 (Wikipedia image, photo by Arthur Strong, 1947)

In 2013, we remember the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis. Though his death back then was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I would argue that at least for followers of Jesus, C.S. Lewis has had a far more profound and lasting influence than even JFK…. but how well did he do as a theologian?

Lewis was clearly the most popular Christian apologist of the 20th century. His works have been cited as a major factor in the conversions to faith of numerous prominent Christians, ranging from the scientist and U.S. National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, to the British atheist and molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books remain bestsellers among children’s fiction, several of the books having been portrayed in big-budget, major motion pictures. He was a member of the Inklings, a group of Oxford scholars that included such literary luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, and (indirectly) Dorothy Sayers, the inspiring visionary of the classical Christian education movement. Lewis’ classic introduction to Christian faith, Mere Christianity, is also the slogan for a major Christian magazine, Touchstone, and his writings form part of the “canon” of many homeschooling curriculums.

For any Christian living in the past fifty years or more, Lewis has been big stuff. However, where does Lewis stand now in the mind of 21st century Christianity? Oddly enough, his legacy is somewhat controversial among some Christians.
Continue reading

6 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Apologetics, Witnesses

July 5, 2013

How Do We Know the Old Testament is Valid?

By John Paine

Codex Sinaiticus

Photo Credit: CodexSinaiticus.org


 
I’ve been reading the Old Testament straight through, struggling at times with the accounts reported in the ancient texts.  Admittedly, if someone at a party started telling these stories we’d all think they were loony.

There are essentially three possible pronouncements for the passages in the OT that are represented as factual, either:

  1. They are fictional and/or fraudulent, or
  2. They are (wholly or partly) allegorical and not meant to be taken literally, or
  3. The miraculous is in play and the historical accounts are correct.

There is no half-off sale in Christianity—we can’t have the New Testament without the Old.  Some poor souls work themselves into torturous and indefensible theological positions by cherry picking which parts of Scripture they accept and which ones they discount as allegorical.  Some of them even show up on documentaries wearing clerical collars, affiliated with organizations that have ‘Jesus’ or books of the Bible in their name.  Hmmm…. It’s best to think it through yourself.

Is our faith based merely on the hope that the OT is valid, or is there some intelligent basis of assurance? Continue reading

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