Unit 1 Flashcards
Apologia
A Verbal defense
Apologia in the New Testament
The noun is used several times
Classical Methods
Begins with natural theology to establish the theistic worldview
Classical Methods 2
Then uses historical evidences for the deity of Christ, the trustworthiness of Scripture to show the superiority of Christianity.
Classical Methods 3
The early church apologists used this approach.
Classical Methods 4
Asks how can one meaningfully discuss historical evidences unless one has first established god’s existence
Evidential Method
A “one step” approach that argues that miracles do not presuppose God’s existence, but can serve as one kind of evidence for the true God
Evidential Method 2
Argue for Christian theism on the basis of the factuality of Jesus’ resurrection and without recourse to an elaborate natural theology.
Evidential Method 3
Jesus’ resurrection authenticates his claim to be God incarnate and declares the authority of Scripture.
The Cumulative Case Method
The case for Christianity is like a lawyer’s informal brief that pieces together various lines of argument that best explain the data.
The Cumulative Case Method 2
Christian theism makes the best sense of all the evidence available compared to any other worldview.
The Presuppositional Method
The noetic effects of sin sabotage the common ground of rationality between believers and unbelievers
The Presuppositional Method 2
The apologist must presuppose the Divine revelation of Scripture as the proper framework through which all experience is interpreted and all truth is known.
The Presuppositional Method 3
Arguments and evidences can be advanced but these are ultimately true only if Christianity is true.
The Presuppositional Method 4
all meaning, thought, and facts presuppose the God of Scriptures
The Reforms Epistemological Method
Advocates reject the enlightenment “evidentialist” epistemology that says that belief apart from substantiating evidence is irrational.
The Reforms Epistemological Method 2
IT is perfectly reasonable for a person to believe many things without evidence
The Reforms Epistemological Method 3
Belief in God does not require supporting evidence or arguments because all humans have an innate sense of the divine (senses divinitatis) which makes immediate rational belief in God Possible
The Reforms Epistemological Method 4
Focuses upon challenges to theistic belief.
The Reforms Epistemological Method 5
Positive Apologetics will be employed to help awaken unbelievers to their latent sense of the divine.
Classical, evidential, and Cumulative Case Methods
assume a common rationality
Christian rationality
is connected with the universal laws (natural laws)embedded in the nature of creation.
The apologist
appeals to this core rationality in preparing the ground for the gospel proclamation.
The Reformed Epistemological Method assumes
an innate sense of the divine which makes rational belief in God possible.
Act of Reason
All those acts of our mind by which we discover understand or seek to demonstrate truth.
Apprehension
the act of reason whereby the mind lays hold or grasps that something is
Judgment
the act whereby we affirm or deny that the thing apprehended is or was or will be.
Reasoning
the acts whereby the mind proceeds from known truth to new truth.
Objects of reason
whatever the mind can know by reason
What is faith
Personal trust in someone and something
Acts of faith involves four aspects
The emotions; The intellectual; The volitional; the whole person
The emotions
the feeling of confidence in a personal God
The intellectual
intellectual belief grounded in knowledge of God and reality that something is corresponds to reality.
The volitional
The act of the will by which I make a commitment to live on the basis of God’s Word
The whole person
in total commitment of trust
Object of Faith
the person or thing in which one trust
Truths of Faith—special revelation
Christ’s atoning death, the trinity
Truths of Faith and reason
the existence of one God and objective moral law
Truths of reason and not of faith
human reason and general revelation
The Kalam Argument
can be traced back to medieval Islamic philosophers.
Kalam Argument Structure
Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The Universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause
KA Premise 1 defense
Intuitively true (i.e. human cognitive faculties affirm) and constantly confirmed in our experience.
KA Premise 1 Objection
Empiricists may deny the warrant for the universal Claim; “Quantum indeterminacy” suggest that subatomic events have no cause; Doesn’t God fit into the whatever begins to exist category since he “began to exist in time” when time began to exist?
KA Premise 2 Defense
The Impossibility of actually infinite sets; Moreland’s library; “Tristam Shandy”; The impossibility of traversing an actual infinite in the spacio-temporal world
Teleological Argument
“the argument from design”
A Design Argument
The universe displays a staggering amount of intelligibility, both within the things we observe and in the way these things relate to others outside themselves.
A Design Argument 2
Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or of intelligent design.
A Design Argument 3
It is not the product of chance.
A Design Argument 4
Therefore, the universe is the product of intelligent design.
A Design Argument 5
Design comes only from a mind, a designer.
A Design Argument 6
Therefore, the universe is a product of an intelligent Designer—God.
A Design Argument Critique
Premise 1 is obvious to all and Premise 2 gives two possible explanations Premise 3 denies chance, but doesn’t evolution show that the universe is the result of chance?
Irreducible complexity
a single system of well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts cause the system to cease functioning
Specified complexity
A meaningful pattern that cannot be explained by natural law or necessity.
Two kinds of Fine Tuning
Natural Constants& Arbitrary Quantities
Natural Constants
Unchanging initial quality like the force of gravity and the subatomic “weak” force.
Arbitrary Quantities
like the amount of thermodynamic disorder (or entropy) put in as initial conditions on which the laws of nature operate.
Criticism of a fine tuner
The odds for any bridge hand are very small and a random hand has the same probability as a perfect bridge hand has the same probability as a perfect bridge hand. So every time one deals, the improbable happens and thus we should not be surprised at “design”
Anthropic Principle
We should not be surprised to observe a finely tuned universe because if the universe were not finely tuned universe because if the universe were not finely tuned we wouldn’t be here to be surprised
Taxicab Fallacy
Can’t say that everything has an explanation for its existence and then when you arrive at your destination, then suddenly exempt the universe itself
What follows about Gods nature as First Cause
Uniqueness; Immaterial simplicity; Perfection; Eternality; Personhood
Immaterial simplicity
God is immaterial, pure mind, does not change (intrinsically) and is one being.
Perfection
An uncaused first cause existing in and of itself, must be perfect, since lacking in nothing.
Eternality
A being that necessarily exists is eternal since it is in that Being’s nature to exist
Personhood
since the universe contains persons who are rational, social, moral, and free, how could the first cause be any less than a person
Moral Argument
If objective moral values exist, then God exist; If there is no God, then moral values are not objective.; .’. God exists
Objective values
something is right or wrong independent of whether one believes it or not.
Criticism of premise (2): Objective moral values exist.
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism
Morality is defined by culture.
Criticism of premise (1): If objective moral values exist, then God exists
Darwinian naturalism
Darwinian naturalism
Moral values are bi-products of socio-biological evolution.
Darwinian naturalism response 1
If morality is just the product of naturalistic evolution then rights do not truly exist.
Darwinian naturalism response 2
Can we trust our minds of we are nothing more than random chance and impersonal processes?
Darwinian naturalism response 3
Why are humans so special if merely recent accidental by-product of an impersonal universe?
Darwinian naturalism response 4
Naturalism dissolves morality in determinism.
Closing Comments on the moral argument
The fact of moral obligation makes more sense in a universe in which the ultimate reality is a moral Person.; Much of morality is based on respecting the value of persons, a fact that argues for a personal Creator God.; The moral argument adds the idea of a moral being
