Reading The Bible Among Other Things

Reading The Bible Among Other Things

By Evan Minton 

So you’ve just gone to the bookstore and got a stack of books you really want to dive into. However, you are also a dedicated Christian who wants to nourish yourself on God’s holy, inspired, inerrant word. But, there are only so many hours in the day and the free time you do have is, for the most part, spent reading. When you want to study The Bible, but you also have other books you want to read, it can be difficult to manage your reading time. You don’t want to neglect the word of God, but you also don’t want to let your other books sit on the shelf collecting dust until you can somehow get around them. What to do? Here are some tips.

Option 1: Read One Book Of The Bible In Between Your Other Books

The Bible is not simply one whole book. It’s an entire collection of 66 books and letters put together and written over time periods spanning thousands of years. Therefore, you could have your reading plan planned like this: read one book of The Bible (e.g., Numbers). When you’re finished, pick up that novel or non-fiction theology book you’ve been chomping at the bits to get to. When you’ve finished with your novel or whatever it is you want to read, go back to The Bible and read The Bible’s next book (e.g., Deuteronomy). Once you’ve finished with that book, go to another non-divinely-inspired book.

This way, you can get through The Bible and those books you stuffed your bookshelf with at an even pace.

Option 2: Put The Bible On Hold For A Little While Until You Complete Your Stack.

Depending on how fast you can get through a book, how many books you need to get through, you may want to try this option. If all you’ve got is 2 or 3 400 page books, and like me, you can burn through books of that length over 2 days (reading 4 hours at a time), then in taking this option, you won’t be putting scripture on hold for an immense amount of time.

Option 3: The Bible During The Week, Other Books On The Weekend

Another option you can choose is to read The Bible every weekday and reserve your weekends for reading novels, apologetics books, theology books, science books, etc. I suspect this may be the most appealing for many of this blog’s readers. For Monday through Friday, read The Bible at your usual pace. Once Saturday comes along, you can put The Bible away to read a non-inspired work like A Hellacious Doctrine: A Biblical Defense Of The Doctrine Of Hell by Evan Minton ((shameless plug)). Once Monday comes along, put the book God didn’t write back on the shelf and continue with The Bible.

Option 4: Read The Bible And A Non-Bible Every Day.

Let’s say you have 4 hours of free time every evening. You can read The Bible for those first two, and a non-biblical book for the second two. Or if you only have 2 hours, read The Bible for one hour and the non-Bible for the second hour. This way, you kill two birds with one stone.

One con with this option is that it’s difficult to digest and meditate on the content of both books at once. This is why I’m a “One book at a time” kind of guy. If you’ve just read The Bible, you’re going to want to take a while to reflect on what you’ve read. As I always say “Reading The Bible without meditating on it is like eating food without digesting it.” Martin Lloyd Jones used the illustration of a man walking by a fire but not stopping to warm himself by it. Of course, you also want to reflect on what you read in non-biblical books too.

As for myself, I prefer this option the least. But if it appeals to you, go for it!

Option 5: Wait Until You’ve Finished Reading The Bible

You could just say to yourself: “These books I got at Barnes and Noble I will definitely get around to, but not until I’ve finished reading The Bible.” In other words, you could just simply go through the entire Bible and once you’ve read the last chapter of the New Testament, go through your non-inspired books. Once you’ve finished with all the non-inspired books you’ve read, go back to The Bible.
This is the option I take most of the time. For me personally, I choose to open The Bible and read it from Genesis to Revelation. It takes me several months to do this, but then when I’m done, I close the Bible and go on to other books. This means I read The Bible once a year like most people, but I get it done in about 4 months time (usually from the beginning of January to the end of April). However, I’m not liking this option at the moment, for the reason you’ll see below.

Conclusion 

I wrote this blog post as a result of a strong inner conflict. Having just come back from the 2018 ETS conference, I have a big stack of books I’m really eager to dive into. However, while these are theology books, books about The Bible are no substitute for The Bible, any more than cookbooks are a substitute for eating. I’m not sure which of these options will be best suited for me, but number 5 isn’t going to work for the time being. I haven’t gone through The Bible from cover to cover in a while, and I am starving for God’s Word. I am thinking of choosing options 1 or 3.

I think Charles Spurgeon was correct when he said; “Visit many good books but live in The Bible.” Hopefully, this short blog post gave you feasible strategies to carry that out.

 

Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference To The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine.” He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2qYHc8h

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Should You Force Your Kids To Go To Church

Should You Force Your Kids To Go To Church?

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By Natasha Crain 

A reader of this blog posed this question on the Facebook page because her boys –ages 10, 12 and 15– are uninterested in church. It’s a very important question that I wanted to address with this post.

At the risk of trivializing the question itself, I’m going to offer a brief rationale for my own answer and then provide an alternative question which I think is more at the heart of the issue.

A home is like a microcosm of society. There are laws (requirements for living there) and freedoms (options you have while living there). Each society/family sets its own laws based on what it feels is most important for its members. The laws a society/family chooses to reflect its core values. As Christian parents, a core value to impart to kids should be that God comes first in our lives. Part of acknowledging that is going to church each week. By classifying church attendance as a law and not a freedom, we are making a statement that God’s priority is a core value in our home. Parents generally don’t care whether a child wants an education or not in determining that going to school is a household “law”; likewise, parents shouldn’t care whether a child is interested in faith or not in determining that going to church is a “law.” Christian parents should not feel church is any different than any other parental choice when declaring, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

That said, required church attendance has to be a rule made for the reason stated here (a statement about family priorities) and not because the parents assume it means children will become believers from it, that they will come to salvation from it or that they will even be spiritually changed by it. Church is not a spiritual “cure-all.” If your children don’t want to go to church, there is a much more important question to ask:

WHY don’t your children want to go to church?

The answer to this question is your gateway to impacting the spiritual life of your kids much more than how you go about physically getting them to church.

Perhaps an immediate answer comes to mind. “They just want to do other things,” or, “They think it’s boring.” These answers, however, are really symptomatic of a child’s underlying beliefs about God and his/her relationship to God. Those beliefs must be identified.

I would break underlying beliefs into two categories: 1) They don’t believe in God or 2) They believe in God but don’t think church is important.

1. They don’t believe in God.

Perhaps your child is saying “I want to stay home and play video games”  but what he/she really means is “I don’t really believe all this God stuff,” and doesn’t want to tell you (maybe he/she hasn’t even identified that consciously yet).  What they need most is to have conversations with you about God. They need to know it’s OK to doubt, and that you are willing to talk to them about those doubts.  It might be intimidating to be the one who has to present the case for God’s existence, but if you aren’t going to be that person in your child’s life, who will?

(Need help teaching your kids why there is good reason to believe God exists and Christianity is true? Check out my new book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith.)

2. They believe in God but don’t think church is important.

It’s not enough to say that church is unimportant – again, we have to understand the underlying premise to address the spiritual issue. Consider these three possibilities:

a. I believe in God, but I don’t believe He’s really involved in my life (therefore church doesn’t matter). 

Theologically, this is referred to as “Deism” – the belief that there is a God, and He probably set this world in motion but isn’t really involved with the world or our personal lives today. From a spiritual standpoint, this isn’t much different than not believing in God in the first place. Even if your child is saying, “Yes, I believe in God, I just don’t want to go to church… “don’t take it at face value. What does your child believe about God? You might be surprised what you find out; it might not be much different than not believing in God at all (see the first category above).

b. I believe in God and believe he cares about my life, but I don’t believe he cares if we go to church.

The reasons Christians should go to church would be the topic for a whole book, but if I could point to a single reason, it would be that Jesus set the example for us. Luke 4:16 says (about Jesus), “…on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom” (emphasis added). If Jesus thought weekly church was important, so should we. Are we in a position to decide that church is not necessary for us when it was necessary for Jesus?

Without going into significant detail on this giant sub-topic, it must be addressed here that church is first and foremost for God (yes, the Bible is clear God wants us to worship). Most people who have the attitude that “God doesn’t care about church” are seeing the value of church in terms of what it gives to them. While church is absolutely necessary for us as well in terms of spiritual growth and fellowship with other believers (Hebrews 10:25, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, James 5:16, Acts 2:42, Romans 12:5), church must be seen as being for God’s glory. Timothy Keller, in his book, “The Reason for God,” eloquently addresses this:

“But wait,” you say. “On nearly every page of the Bible God calls us to glorify, praise, and serve him. How can you say he doesn’t seek his own glory?” Yes, he does ask us to obey him unconditionally, to glorify, praise, and center our lives around him. But now, I hope, you finally see why he does that. He wants our joy! He has infinite happiness not through self-centeredness, but through self-giving, other-centered love. And the only way we, who have been created in his image, can have this same joy, is if we center our entire lives around him instead of ourselves.

c. I believe in God, believe he cares about my life, and believe he wants me to go to church, but I don’t want to go to this church because (any number of reasons).

There may be a very real reason why your children want to avoid your specific church. Maybe they don’t fit in with the other kids; maybe there is a disconnect between them and the pastor or youth leader; maybe there are too few other kids their age, and they feel isolated; the reasons are infinite. If it’s a legitimate, overarching issue, it would be reasonable to seek another church out of respect for the faith development of your kids.

The bottom line is this: The underlying reason for kids not wanting to go to church shouldn’t change your “law” that they have to go, but that reason should be searched for in order to best determine how to guide them spiritually at home.

What do you think? Should you force kids to go to church? Is there an age at which they should have a “say” in the matter?

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2QeYqfG

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Book Review Scientism and Secularism by J. P. Moreland

Book Review: Scientism and Secularism by J. P. Moreland

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By Timothy Fox (Orthodox Fox)

J. P. Moreland is one of the most prominent Christian thinkers of our time, and I’ve been greatly impacted by his works, such as Love Your God With All Your Mind and Kingdom Triangle. In his latest popular-level work, Scientism and Secularism (Crossway, 2018), Moreland addresses one of the most dangerous ideologies facing our culture and church. But the true danger of scientism is not that is necessarily being argued for, it is simply assumed to be true. So Moreland’s task in this book is not just to refute scientism but to first expose it and how it has influenced society and Christianity.

But first, what is scientism? It “is the view that the hard sciences – like chemistry, biology, physics, and astronomy – provide the only genuine knowledge of reality” (26). Obviously, this would place theology outside the bounds of knowledge and leave religion to the realm of mere belief, feelings, and opinions. Thus, Moreland has quite the hill to climb.

Content

In the first three chapters, Moreland defines scientism and explains its influence on the church and the university. The following three explain the failings of scientism: how it is self-defeating, how it is the enemy of science, and how weak scientism – the belief that science is the best way to know truth – is no better than strong – the belief that science is the only way to know truth.

In chapter 7, Moreland discusses three areas that we all know internally or intuitively and that science cannot account for logic and math, our personal conscious states, and moral knowledge. In the case of logic and math, science cannot operate without them. I view chapter 8 as a bonus chapter that delves deeper into consciousness and neuroscience. Those interested in science will love it, and those who aren’t can skip it. But laypersons who wish to learn more about these topics will definitely need a few thorough reads through the chapter.

Chapter 9 explains the importance of philosophy in science, how it forms the foundation and framework by which proper science can be performed. This is another of the more challenging chapters, containing a lot of philosophical content and terminology. But since scientism is a philosophical assumption about the nature of truth, it is an extremely important chapter and should not be skipped. Moreland continues explaining the importance of philosophy in science in chapter 10, in which he provides examples for the authority and autonomy of philosophy.

The next three chapters deal with how we explain reality. Chapter 11 shows the difference between scientific and personal explanations and introduces the concept of methodological naturalism, the idea that “one must seek only natural causes/explanations for scientific data” (121). Then in the next two chapters, Moreland outlines the shortcomings of methodological naturalism. Chapter 12 is another critical chapter in that it discusses five things that theism can explain but science cannot: the origin of the universe; the origin of the laws of nature; the fine-tuning of the universe; the origin of consciousness; and the existence of moral, rational, and aesthetic laws. While this chapter is only a few pages long, every Christian should explore these topics more as they not only undercut scientism but are also powerful arguments for the existence of God. Chapter 13 discusses two competing Christian views to the origin of life, Intelligent Design, and Theistic Evolution, which are also important topics that require further study.

The final two chapters discuss integrating science and Christianity, explaining why it is important and offering five ways to do it.

Assessment

This is a critical book for the Christian as scientism is possibly the number one enemy facing the church today. As the belief that science is the only way to know truth becomes more widespread, the claims of Christianity simply cannot be taken seriously by society.

Depending on your prior knowledge, this may be a challenging read – not because of Moreland’s writing style but by the nature of the content. Moreland himself urges the reader to read it again in the book’s epilogue, and it may require multiple thorough reads to fully grasp. Thankfully, the book is only around 200 pages in length, and it includes plenty of footnotes and a selected bibliography for further study, as well as a glossary since technical vocabulary cannot be avoided.

Pretty much everything Moreland writes is a must-read, and Scientism and Secularism is no different. Every Christian is going to encounter scientism of some form, and so we all must be on our guard to defend against it. J. P. Moreland has provided us another valuable resource in our ongoing struggle with a secular culture.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2DTflz1

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An Insight Into Why Young Adults Are Leaving Christianity

An Insight Into Why Young Adults Are Leaving Christianity

By Michael C. Sherrard

Sociologists, apologists, and the media have well articulated the abandoning of religion by many young adults. The church is aware of the attack on the faith of teenagers. It is becoming old news. We have become saturated with the statistics. We know the problem; it is time for a solution.

The solution, the way forward begins with obtaining a good understanding of where you are. This excerpt from “A Solution” given at the NCCA offers three insights into why young adults are leaving Christianity.

Hear:

An+Insight+Into+Why+Young+Adults+are+Leaving+Christianity
Audio Player
1. An Insight Into Why Young Adults are Leaving Christianity
24:00

 

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Qa0pSB

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Everything is Connected

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS

Join Frank on a fascinating survey of history from 1453 to the Pilgrims to Thanksgiving with none other than historian Bill Federer. This episode for the CrossExamined podcast is packed with surprising historical data. Don’t miss it!

Visit Bill’s website here: https://americanminute.com/

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33 Reasons Why We Need Apologetics

33 Reasons Why We Need Apologetics

By Jeremy Linn

I’ve written a bunch about what Apologetics is – a rational defense of the Christian faith – and what it all involves. But the “What” of Apologetics doesn’t matter if there are no reasons why we should use Apologetics or even have it on our minds. To show its importance on our daily lives as Christians, I created a list of 33 reasons explaining why we need Apologetics.

I placed the reasons into categories for easy reading and sorted the categories into alphabetical order.

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

  1. It prompts a deeper discussion between Christians. It’s simple – Apologetics topics drive deep discussion. This discussion starts to change the shallow habits of some Christian circles.
  2. It eases tension between Christians with different views. When you understand the array of views Christians can reasonably hold, you become more open to accepting a Christian who holds a different view on a specific topic.
  3. It unifies people from various Christian denominations. The defense of God’s existence and the evidence behind Jesus’ life crosses all Christian denominations – no Christian is excluded from the Apologetics enterprise.
  4. It provides opportunities to encourage other Christians. A community of Christians can come together and ask tough questions, talk through them, and encourage each other to use what they’ve learned in daily life. This kind of encouragement happens all the time in podcasts like Stand to Reason.

EVANGELISM

  1. We can use it to break down intellectual barriers to the gospel. Many people won’t instantly accept Jesus into their life after hearing the gospel. They may have questions or objections that hold them back from doing so. Apologetics starts the process of tearing down these intellectual barriers.
  2. We can use it to better connect with people that have passions different than ours. For example, by diving into Apologetics topics related to science, you can have a deep conversation with a scientist (say, about the origin of the Universe) even when science isn’t your top passion.
  3. It helps us to better understand another person’s perspective. When someone stars explaining a viewpoint we’ve already heard through Apologetics study, we can better understand how the person arrived to that viewpoint.
  4. It gives us greater empathy toward people with other views. When we wrestle through Apologetics topics and understand the difficulty of that process, it helps us identify emotionally with people who have wrestled through the same topics and came to different conclusions.
  5. When we use it, we carry on the work of Christian thinkers living throughout the centuries. There is a long list of Christians defending the truth of God through the ages – St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and C.S. Lewis instantly come to mind.
  6. We can use it to reach people who are naturally skeptical. Sometimes, Apologetics-based discussion is the only kind of spiritual discussion a skeptic will be open to.
  7. It prepares us for questions about faith people may ask. Many Christians shy away from evangelism because they’re afraid of the questions that might be asked. Apologetics eases this anxiety by increasing our confidence in answering the questions others have.

FAITH

  1. It gives us a well-rounded understanding of our faith. Apologetics doesn’t just hyper-focus on specific issues like the Trinity, divine providence, or the applicability of Old Testament laws. Through Apologetics, we can explore and understand a wide range of elements of our faith.
  2. It helps us wrestle through intellectual doubts. Doubts aren’t a bad thing to go through, but unanswered intellectual doubts can debilitate our faith over time. Apologetics provides the resources needed to wrestle through our intellectual doubts.
  3. It grounds the faith of young people and new believers. This grounding is hugely important as young people enter a skeptical academic environment and new believers encounter new challenges.
  4. It provides a foundation of truth to hold onto during difficult times in life. When difficult circumstances carry the potential to turn us away from God, we can instead turn to Apologetics and cling to the truth about God.
  5. It keeps our guard up. When we consistently immerse ourselves into Apologetics content, we prepare ourselves for sudden and unexpected intellectual challenges that come our way – challenges which could easily put us into a “crisis of faith.”

PRACTICAL

  1. It exercises our mind. Reading books exercises our mind and thinking ability the most, and book reading is plentiful in Apologetics study.
  2. It connects some of the main areas of thinking together. Philosophy, science, history, and theology become an interwoven venture rather than separated subjects.
  3. It prompts us to be life-long learners. There is always more Apologetics content to learn, which leads us to yearn for a life of gaining knowledge and wisdom.
  4. It informs our voting decisions. Studying ethical issues helps us decide where to stand on key election topics.
  5. Sharing it builds up various skills. Sharing through blogs develops writing skill, sharing verbally shapes public speaking skill, and sharing through video builds production skill. My own graphic design skills have increased greatly from sharing Apologetics content on Instagram.
  6. It causes us to check our biases. People tend to listen only to data which affirms their own beliefs – this is a well-known phenomenon called confirmation bias. Apologetics prompts us to reflect on our biases and push against confirmation bias when we dig into views which oppose our beliefs.
  7. It helps us to recognize the false ideas in our culture. Recognizing these false ideas is key to ensure we don’t start to follow those ideas and suffer from their damaging consequences.
  8. It teaches us basic logic and formation of arguments. We can understand and assess arguments more effectively and identify logical fallacies in other people’s thinking.

SCRIPTURE

  1. Scripture commands us to use it. Paul says in 1 Peter 3:15 – “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” Apologetics gets us prepared to make this defense.
  2. It allows us to follow the example of Jesus. Jesus used Apologetics methods (such as asking questions) in conversations described in Mark 12:18-27 and Matthew 22:15-22.
  3. It allows us to follow the example of the earliest Christians. They used Apologetics to affirm God’s existence by pointing to the events of Jesus resurrection – see especially Acts 2:29-33.
  4. It shows us the importance of the events of Jesus’ life. What did Jesus’ sacrifice accomplish? Why does it matter that he rose from the dead? Apologetics provides answers to these key questions.
  5. It coincides with reading scripture correctly. Apologetics helps us to read Bible passages in proper context, through an understanding of the historical background behind the passage and through the idea that we can’t just read one Bible verse (we need to read the verses around it to gather the flow of thought).

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

  1. It can deepen our relationship with God. When you’re in a relationship with someone, knowing more about that person can take that relationship deeper. The same goes with our relationship with God as we learn things about him through Apologetics!
  2. It gives us a greater sense of awe towards God. When we can acknowledge true things about God and see his power more through Apologetics content (on topics like miracles), our sense of awe towards him increases.
  3. It puts us in a position where we need to trust God. We don’t know the results of using Apologetics in conversations with others. We also don’t know what path our investigation of truth will lead us down. We need to trust in God through these unknowns.
  4. It brings us to a place of humility. The more we study Apologetics, the more we realize there is much we don’t know. At some point, humility is needed to accept we won’t have all the answers, which opens up an opportunity for faith.

This list is not exhaustive – I’m probably missing some reasons in it. But the list is sufficient to show that Christians truly need Apologetics in their daily lives.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Fk4orK

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Secular Leftists Demand Christian Student Senator Resign For Disagreeing With Them

Secular Leftists Demand Christian Student Senator Resign For Disagreeing With Them

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By Wintery Knight

I had to blog about this story about a tough girl at UC Berkeley who is taking a lot of heat for her Christian beliefs. It would have been easier for her to keep them private. But they forced her to vote, and she had to respect her conscience. Campus Reform posted an article about the facts of the case.

It says:

Isabella Chow is an elected student senator who represents the Associated Students of the University of California party Student Action. But after choosing to abstain from voting on a resolution to oppose the recent Title IX changes proposed by President Donald Trump, Chow’s own party disavowed her.

The proposed Title IX changes lack a legal definition of gender, effectively limiting “gender identity” to one’s physical sex, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The resolution before the Berkeley student government was a statement of opposition to these proposed changes, intended to display solidarity with members of the LGBT community, specifically “transgender, intersex, nonbinary and gender nonconforming students,” as reported by the independent student newspaper the Daily Californian.

That article was from November 9th, but The College Fix had some news in their article posted Monday:

Chow has faced intense backlash over her position, with numerous individuals slamming her on social media (one commenter on Facebook called Chow a “mental imbecile”) as well as in person. The response has been so hostile that Chow has made changes to how she gets around campus. “I don’t feel safe walking alone to class and take precautions not to walk alone at night,” Chow said.

Chow provided The Fix with multiple Internet postings openly accusing her of bigotry and hatred. One, from student senator Teddy Lake, said that Chow’s Christian beliefs “were not beliefs at all— they were hateful prejudices that deserve nothing less than the strongest condemnation.”

Several posts on the website Reddit were filled with angry comments. One commenter accused Chow of “sanctimonious holier-than-thou bullsh*t,” and another said: “She’s a horrible person.”

The editors of The Daily Californian published an editorial calling for Chow’s resignation, accusing her of “publicly dismissing the identities of individuals on campus” and “eras[ing] and dehuman[izing]” numerous Berkeley students.

“Chow used her powerful public platform to negate entire experiences and identities. UC Berkeley students cannot allow and accept leaders like Chow to make decisions on their behalf,” the editors wrote.

The campus’s Queer Alliance Resource Center, meanwhile, produced a statement in opposition to Chow.

“Her ‘love’ is no protection against the current oppression faced by trans, intersex, and non-binary individuals. Instead, her ‘love’ pads her condescending disapproval towards us and reminds us of our history of surviving so-called ‘love.’ Senator Chow’s ‘love’ is not of warmth and compassion but of judgement and disapproval. We cannot sit idly by while Chow sits on moral high ground casting moral judgements,” the statement reads.

The Center also produced a petition calling on Chow to resign.

[…]At a student senate meeting last week, numerous members of the Berkeley community publicly expressed their opinions, almost all of them explicitly critical of Chow.

“I condemn Isabella Chow’s words, not because they’re different from mine, but because they are dangerous, and inherently prejudiced. I encourage Senator Chow to reach a dialogue with queer-affirming Christian communities that LGBT existence is compatible with the love of God,” one student said.

Another attendee said to Chow: “Your Christian morals should not be in our student government or for any government; and if you cannot separate your religion from your job as a senator, please resign.”

Another accused Chow of “speaking words of hate, mashed under the name of love.”

Chow eventually approached The Daily Californian asking if the publication would run either a statement or an op-ed by her. The Daily refused to publish either.

She has sunk a ton of money into her education, and now she is at the mercy of far-left professors and TAs. For her sake, I hope that she is working toward a STEM degree. It will help her to find work going forward. This is definitely going to affect her whole life going forward – a lot of big companies aren’t going to hire someone like her who refuses to go along with the LGBT agenda. I hope she’s prepared for that.

Isabella Chow, a Christian woman, encircled by secular leftist fascists.

Resiliency

I was watching this video from Prager University on resiliency, and it was talking about several ways that a person can make themselves defensible against unexpected setbacks.

Watch:

I think it’s important for Christians to think carefully about what they will study and where they work. Having a good education and money makes it easier to deal with threats like the ones arrayed against Isabella. It allows you to find work more easily, to move if you have to, etc. It’s important to train your character by studying hard things, doing hard things and finishing what you start. Having a platform to tell your story is important. Having a network of accomplished friends helps, too.

If you marry, then marry someone with courage and strength, who will stand by you, and help you to persist. It’s a serious mistake to marry someone who doesn’t understand Christianity as a service, and who doesn’t have any strength to deploy in case of a crisis. If you’re being attacked, you want a stable partner who has strength in practical areas and informed convictions. Not someone who is drowning in sin, narcissism, student loan debt, peer pressure, drug addiction, reckless thrill-seeking, etc.

Some jobs and cities have a lot of anti-Christian progressives. It’s easier to avoid those if you have a good education, practical skills, and a good resume. Often, the influence you have is going to be determined by the decisions you make to make yourself resilient. My ambition has always been to have an influence without allowing the secular left to easily silence me. If they know where I work, and where I live, then they can put pressure on me to recant my views. Conversely, if I am careful about education, career, and finance, then I can put pressure on them to back off if they challenge me.

As we saw when fascists broke down the door at Tucker Carlson’s home, we are living in a time of secular leftist facism. And this fascism is defended even by the elites in the mainstream media.

Here’s a concept every Christian should know that people in information security speak about… being a “hard target”:

A hard-target is a person who, due to their actions and/or appropriate protective measures, is able to minimize existing risks and thus most likely represents an unattractive target. Originally, these two terms come from the military and relate to protected and unprotected targets.

The Christian life is a lot more strategic than churches teach us. We’re obsessed with compassion, feelings, and not being judged. Instead, we should be focused on having an influence and making ourselves into hard targets for the secular culture. We have a sanitized view of how sin corrupts non-Christians, allowing them to do unspeakable evils to Christians who merely disagree with them. We think that secular leftists will behave like moral people as if denying God’s existence makes no difference to a person’s ability to be moral. We think that nihilists will respect our basic human rights – human rights that they can’t even rationally ground in their worldview. And we think that God’s job is to protect us and make us feel good no matter how unprepared and reckless we are.

If you want to have an influence, then you need to make every decision wisely, in order to prepare for the day when your cover is blown behind enemy lines. Remember, with respect to God’s purposes in the world; your happiness is expendable.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2z7Zc4I

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Exclusion in the Name of Inclusion

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Decades ago the free speech movement was born in the campus of UC Berkeley. Today the story is the complete opposite. Only a few weeks ago a student senator by the name of Isabella Chow abstained from a vote supporting “transgender rights” and even though she gave a well-reasoned explanation now more than 1,000 people have signed a petition demanding that she resign from the student government. In other words, she’s being excluded in the name of inclusion. Frank explains what’s happening in the college campuses across the U.S. and why.

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defend christianity

How to defend Christianity in a soundbite world

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The task of defending the truth of Christianity today is becoming increasingly difficult, especially since now technology allows us to “extract” a phrase or two and interpret it any way we want. Whether is in social media, radio or video, it’s never been easier to take things out of context. How can we successfully defend Christianity in a soundbite world? Stay tuned for the answer!

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Definiendo el argumento ontológico modal

Definiendo el argumento ontológico modal

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By Max Andrews

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT [1]

This is the ontological argument that advocates the existence of an essential, omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being:

  1. The property of being maximally large is exemplified in some possible world.
  2. The property of being maximally large is equivalent, by definition, to the property of being maximally excellent in all possible worlds.
  3. The property of being maximally excellent implies the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection.
  4. A universal property is one that is exemplified in all possible worlds or none.
  5. Any property that is equivalent to a property held in all possible worlds is a universal property.
  6. Therefore, there exists a being that is essentially omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect.

Now, this is a very technical argument… So, let’s try to make some sense of this:

Defense of Premise 1. When I refer to a possible world I am referring only to a possible logical state of affairs. The first premise merely states that the property of being maximally large is logically possible – that is, that no contradiction obtains.

Defense of Premise 2. Premise 2 outlines the logical equivalence of maximum greatness with maximum excellence.

Defense of Premise 3. Premise three follows from the logical equivalence located in premise 2.

Defense of Premise 4. Premise 4 presents a disjunctive: either the universal property X is valid in all worlds (hence its universality) or it is necessarily a contradiction, and is impossible to obtain.

Defense of Premise 5. The fifth premise asserts the first disjunctive stated, which is simply that if a property holds in all possible worlds, then it is a universal property. Therefore, if a universal property holds in some possible world, then this universal property holds in all possible worlds. Logic does not vary across possible worlds.

Defense of the Conclusion. Therefore, if these universal properties hold in all possible worlds, they are valid in the actual world. This argument also does not “define” God to exist. Rather, it is an a priori argument that considers the mere possibility of a being with maximally great properties. This modal form of the argument shows that if a being with maximally great and maximally excellent properties is possible, then that being must exist.

Anselm’s ontological argument

Anselm’s argument can be formulated as follows:

  1. God exists in the understanding.
  2. God is a being.
  3. If X exists only in the understanding and is a possible being, then X could have been greater.
  4. Let us suppose that God only exists in the understanding.
  5. God could have been greater (Dado 2, 4, 3).
  6. God is a being of whom nothing greater is possible.
  7. So a being for which no greater being is possible is therefore a being for which no greater being is possible.
  8. Since 4 gives rise to a contradiction 4 must be false.
  9. God exists not only in the understanding.
  10. Therefore, God exists in reality.
  • Existence in reality is an aggrandizing property.
  • The argument is a reductio ad absurdum . To prove X assume ¬X. Show how ¬X leads to a patent contradiction or falsehood.

Gaunilo’s objection

Gaunilo proposes the idea of ​​a perfect island. “I can conceive of a perfect island so this perfect island must exist.” The problem with this is that the island could, in reality, always be better. How many palm trees? How big is the island? How good is the climate? Inevitably, when you start adding all the big properties together to form the island you get Anselm’s idea of ​​God.

Plantinga’s modal ontological argument

This is the formulation of Plantinga’s Argument:

  1. It is possible for a maximally great being (God) to exist.
  2. If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
  3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in all possible worlds.
  4. If a maximally great being exists in all possible worlds, then it exists in the actual world.
  5. Therefore, a maximally large being exists in the real world.
  6. Therefore, a maximally large being exists.
  7. Therefore, God exists.

The object in the modal ontological argument is God, and his essence is necessary existence . That is what we get from one world to all possible worlds, because if necessary existence is valid in one possible world then it is valid in all possible worlds, like a computer virus.

Where does God’s necessity come from? If it comes from something else then it lacks a particular aggrandising property (and is therefore contingent). However, if God’s necessity comes from himself, his aseity, then these aggrandising properties refer to God’s essence. An important distinction to make is that a necessary being is not the fact of its existence, but rather it takes part in necessary existence. Furthermore, if God is simple then God is his essence and his essence is to exist.

CONCLUSION [2]

So what God has that we don’t have, then, is the property of necessary existence. And He has that property as part of His essence. God cannot lack the property of necessary existence and still be God. Of course, if something has the property of necessary existence, it cannot lose that property, for if it did, there would be a possible world in which it lacked necessary existence and so was never necessarily existent in the first place.

IMMANUEL KANT’S OBJECTION [3]

Kant’s criticism is that existence is not a property, since existence precedes essence. But it does not follow from this that necessarily existing is not a property. In any case, Plantinga’s version of the modal ontological argument does not assume that necessary existence is a property. It simply assumes that a being is greater if it exists necessarily rather than contingently. This is evidently quite true. The idea of ​​a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect in all possible worlds seems perfectly coherent.

THE OBJECTION OF ABSTRACT OBJECTS [4]

This objection consists in changing the object of the argument – which is God – for any ideal object that is equally necessary or that is considered necessary (for example, the number 1, the triangle, etc.,) to demonstrate that God only exists conceptually and not concretely. Thus premise 1 would be

1′. It is possible for a triangle to exist.

Following the rules of modal logic the conclusion would then be

7′. Therefore, the triangle exists.

If you take the word “existence” in its ordinary sense, then if it is claimed that it is possible for an abstract object like the number 2 or the triangle to exist, and if you believe that these are necessary entities, as most philosophers do, then the conclusion follows, then there is a triangle, a number, and not just in the conceptual sense, but in the full sense of existence, just as Platonism claims, that abstract entities like numbers, geometrical objects, exist in the same sense as concrete objects. But this does not prove that God exists only as a concept, what it proves is that the existence of these abstract objects is real, that they are as real as God! Now, if you are not a Platonist, then you may well deny premise 1 if you take the word “existence” in its full sense (something that is real). We certainly have the idea or concept of the number 1, of the triangle, but we would deny that such entities exist in any possible world and therefore they do not exist in the real world.

Grades

[1] From the ontological argument to this explanation is part of an email I received from Max Andrews in response to a question I had sent to Reasonable Faith about Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument.

[2] See: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/spanish/la-necesidad-de-dios

[3] See: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/spanish/dos-preguntas-sobre-el-argumento-ontologico

[4] This was Dr. Craig’s response to my objection to ideal objects which he addressed on his Reasonable Faith podcast starting at minute 7:13: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/mediaf/podcasts/uploads/RF_Questions_About_Discouragement_Free_Will_and_Martyrdom_2013.mp3

 

Max Andrews is a graduate student of philosophy. His graduate research is in the philosophy of science and religion. His philosophical education consists of a Master of Arts in Philosophical Studies: Philosophy of Religion (2012) and a Bachelor of Science in Religion: Biblical Studies (2010).

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