The Great Debate: Does God Exist?

Published on January 17, 2012 in Apologetics. 1 Comment

Justin Holcomb of the Resurgence summarizes the great apologetics debate between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein.

It became known as the Great Debate.

In 1985 the University of California at Irvine hosted a public debate between philosopher Greg Bahnsen and atheist Gordon Stein on the topic “Does God Exist?”
What Ensued

Stein came prepared to cut down traditional apologetic arguments for the existence of God, but the philosopher’s approach was unexpected. Bahnsen went on the offensive and presented the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God: the God of the Bible must exist because no other worldview makes rational sense of the universe and logic, science, and morals ultimately presuppose a theistic worldview. He explained:

The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.

Remembering the debate, philosopher and theologian John Frame writes,

I was there, having driven up with several students from Westminster in Escondido. It was in a large lecture hall at U. C. Irvine, and the place was packed. The atmosphere was electric. I don’t know how many were Christians, but it was evident as the debate progressed that the audience became convinced that Bahnsen won the debate.

Read the rest here.

Decorah Eagle Comes Full Circle

Published on December 30, 2011 in Creation. 3 Comments

My wife, who followed the eagles on her Ipad, and whose teenage children will presumably fly away in the approaching years, will like this story of eagles circling back to the nest:

DECORAH, Iowa – She’s back. After a four-month, 900-mile tour of Minnesota and Wisconsin, D1, the world-famous, wired Decorah eagle, has returned to Decorah. “Who would have ever guessed? Not me,” said Bob Anderson, the raptor expert who fitted her with a satellite transmitter this summer.

Satellite data confirm that D1 roosted Wednesday night in a tree just north of Palisades Park on the east edge of Decorah. “She is so near to my house that if the transmitter was turned on I could get a beep from my doorstep,” said Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, whose nest-cam website has been visited more than 213 million times this year. Anderson said he picked up her signal near the Yellow River in Allamakee County on Tuesday morning but was unable to track it to the bird herself.

On Wednesday morning, Anderson and a friend returned to the area and picked up a weak signal, which grew in strength as they traveled toward it on gravel roads. . .

Read the rest here.

Collin Hansen’s Top Stories of 2011

Published on December 30, 2011 in Recommended Links. 0 Comments

There is much for local church pastors and leaders to consider in Collin Hansen’s Top 10 stories of 2011.

Derek Thomas looks back on his conversion 40 years later

Published on December 30, 2011 in Soteriology. 0 Comments

There is much to be encouraged by and learn from Derek Thomas’ story of how he came to Christ 40 years ago.

It was forty years ago today (December 28, 1971) that I became a Christian. My conversion was Saul-like: sudden, unexpected, and decisive. I was eighteen, a freshman at university studying physics and math at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
            I was not raised in a religious home. My memory holds only fleeting acquaintance with the church – a “Christening” in my early teens with just my mother, an Anglican vicar and myself present; the ritual of “confirmation classes” and the visit of the bishop followed by rebellion and atheism. By eighteen, I was, like most of my peers, a firm believer in science. The universe was the product of a Big-Bang and everything that exists – Mozart, The Beatles, Rembrandt, Salvador Dali, you name them – came from this primal event. Everything comes from nothing.
            Enter John Stott. In mid-December, 1971, a book arrived in the mail from my best friend. “Read it,” an enclosed card insisted. The book was Basic Christianity. Truth is, I had never read a Christian book in my life, not unless J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings counts as one (a book I had read several times). Nor had I read the Bible. In fact, I did not posses a copy.

Read the rest here.

Christianity Today’s Top 10 Christian Stories of 2011

Published on December 28, 2011 in News. 2 Comments

It is important for believers to stay abreast of developments in Christendom. CT’s first story should be of particular interest to evangelicals.

Click here for Christianity Today’s Top 10 stories of 2011.

Christopher Hitchens Has Died, Doug Wilson Reflects

Published on December 16, 2011 in Apologetics and death. 1 Comment

The well known atheist Christopher Hitchens died Thursday night. Doug Wilson, who debated Hitchens numerous times reflects in a Christianity Today article:

Editor’s Note: Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. A statement from Vanity Fair said that he died Thursday night at cancer center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. CT asked Douglas Wilson to weigh in on the life and death of the prominent atheist.

Christopher Hitchens was a celebrity intellectual, and, as such, the basic outlines of his life are generally well known. But for those just joining us, Christopher Hitchens was the older of two sons, born to Eric and Yvonne in April 1949. He discovered as a schoolboy that probing questions about the veracity of the Christian faith were part of a discussion that he “liked having.” His younger brother, Peter, followed him in unbelief. But unlike Christopher, Peter publicly returned to the Church of England, the communion where they had both been baptized.

Christopher spent some time in the 1960s as a radical leftist, but of course that was what everybody was doing back then. Somehow Christopher managed to do this and march to a different drummer, doing his radical stint as part of a post–Trotskyite Luxemburgist sect. He graduated from Balliol at Oxford, and soon became established as a writer, the vocation of his life, one in which he excelled. As a writer and thinker, he was greatly influenced by (and wrote about) men like George Orwell and Thomas Jefferson, while as the same time reserving the right to attack any sacred cow of his choosing—and the more sacred, the better. He is widely known for his scathing attack on Mother Teresa, and when Jerry Falwell passed away, he spent a good deal of time on television chortling about it.

Read the rest here.

Hallelujah Flash Mob in the GSOI

Published on December 8, 2011 in Christmas. 5 Comments

It requires a certain degree of humility, if I may humbly say so, for a Central grad to share a Simpson link. Never the less, it is in the GSOI (“Great State of Iowa”) and this is well worth watching.

Christmas Songs That Don’t Make Sense

Published on November 26, 2011 in Christmas. 2 Comments

HT: Trevin Wax

Do you have an odd feeling going into Thanksgiving?

Published on November 23, 2011 in Quotes. 4 Comments

Cornelius Plantinga:

It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in the institution seems to be thankful ‘in general.’ It’s very strange. It’s a little like being married in general (Cornelius Plantina, Jr in Assurances of the Heart).”

Al Mohler: The Tragic Lessons of Penn State and a Call to Action

Published on November 10, 2011 in Leadership and Sports Links. 1 Comment

Dr. Mohler explains a change that is being made today in the policy manual for the institution he leads:

No one thought it would end this way. Joe Paterno, the legendary head football coach at Penn State University heard of his firing by the school’s board of trustees by phone last night. Just two weeks after achieving the most wins of any NCAA Division One football coach in history, Paterno was fired. His firing — a necessary action by the Penn State board of trustees — holds lessons for us all.

Almost a decade ago, a graduate assistant told Coach Paterno that an assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, had been observed forcing a young boy into a sexual act in the school’s football locker room showers. Sandusky was himself a big name in Penn State football, and he was considered a likely successor to Paterno if the head coach had retired. Sandusky also ran an non-profit organization for boys, and he brought the boys onto the Penn State campus. He continued to do so even after his own retirement from Penn State’s coaching staff.

Read the rest here.