Category Archives: Philosophy

God and Evil

Posted by on March 12, 2012 Comments Off

Jay Adams on reconciling God and evil.

Simply this: God controls all things, even the existence and activity of evil.

We must remove the word “allows” when speaking  of God and evil.   He doesn’t merely allow evil to occur. If so, there would be another power, or force, in the universe as great as (or nearly so) as God. It is a force wanting to express itself in various evil ways, but must seek permission from God to do so.  So when evil occurs, God has given way to this force and allows it to have its way .

But God is in control of all things.  What does that really mean?  Think about it—who is the force that determines if and when evil occurs-for His own purposes? There is no second god-like force; He is the sole force in the universe.  All evil is according to His determinate purposes—always for some good purpose. God doesn’t allow evil; He has planned all good and evil.  Actually, all the “evil” we talk about today is actually a good that we shall someday see to be such. God  doesn’t allow it—He foreordains it.

(Via Institute for Nouthetic Studies Blog)

If there is a God…

Posted by on February 24, 2012 Comments Off

Mere Christianity

Another quote from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis:

What can you ever really know of other people’s souls—of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call ‘nature’ or ‘the real world’ fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?(pp. 216-217).

I look forward to the “anaesthetic fog” lifting.

Lewis on the atheist’s straw man

Posted by on February 22, 2012 2 comments

C. S. Lewis

In Mere Christianity, Lewis warns about over simplifying Christianity (something some people who call themselves Christians sometimes do) and the straw man that Atheists often build from this.

Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is the view I call Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right—leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. Both these are boys’ philosophies.

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Out of the Silent Planet

Posted by on February 8, 2012 Comments Off

Out of the Silent Planet

C. S. Lewis’ 1938 Sci-Fi novel Out of the Silent Planet chronicles the voyage of three men, two of whom are partnering for their own reasons and a lone philologist on a walking tour who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and won’t be missed if he disappears. Weston and Devine drug Ransom (the philologist) and take him to the planet of Malacandra (which turns out to be Mars). Weston and Devine have been there before, and were asked them to bring back another person with them as (they believe) a sacrificial offering.  Their belief that the Malacandrians are unsophisticated savages and that humanity represents the most highly advanced civilization in existence makes them willing to sacrifice Ransom for the greater benefit to come from Malacandra.

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C. S. Lewis’s conversion from atheism

Posted by on January 23, 2012 Comments Off

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis traces his conversion story through his autobiography “Surprised by Joy” from his early childhood through to his conversion to Christ as an adult. As the story unfolds, he traces the “aesthetic experience” of “joy” as an experience that “was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer.”

Early in his life, he speaks of a “religious experience”, which is followed by his becoming an “effective believer”, by which he means he “heard the doctrines of Christianity…” and “had no skepticism”. This resulted in a fear for his soul to the effect that he “began seriously to pray and read [his] bible and to attempt to obey [his] conscience.”  At this stage, Lewis’s faith is a simple faith, which does not understand how to comprehend and consider the world. Furthermore, it seems it bore a fear of God, but not an explicit understanding of his own sin and in this sense, he did not feel a sense of personal responsibility before God, which comes much later.

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Playtime is over

Posted by on January 19, 2012 Comments Off

William Lane Craig

Via Christian Apologetics. This is a good quote from William Lane Craig. Apologetics is note the lone answer to the difficulties facing the church (and I don’t think Craig would agree say it is), but certainly churches need to be deadly serious about what they teach – lives depend on it. And as parents – we also must teach our children. The world will regardless of whether we do.

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Issues with Theistic evolution

Posted by on January 18, 2012 1 comment

Jay Richards

I’ve previously expressed my reservations about theistic evolution.  Recently, I was interested to hear some new reasoning against it in this interview with Jay Richards

Jay Richards (who co-wrote the Privileged Planet) has recently edited a book (God and Evolution) dealing explicitly with theistic evolution.  While I haven’t yet read the book (although it looks quite good), I listened to this short interview with him in which he gives a number of reasons. Read more »

Triablogue: What motivates science

Posted by on December 20, 2011 Comments Off

Good post summarizing science and Christianity.

In Christianity, greater intelligence produces lesser intelligence. In atheism, unintelligence produces intelligence. Which is more intrinsically interesting?

Worth a read…

Triablogue: What motivates science

Over half of NZers believe in psychics

Posted by on December 13, 2011 1 comment

Over half of NZers believe in psychics – National – NZ Herald News

Interesting to see that there are still significant numbers of kiwis who believe that there is more to this world than the natural world.  Which reminds me, I should do a post about desecularization some time…

 

Dawkins vs. Craig – a mismatch?

Posted by on December 9, 2011 Comments Off

Richard DawkinsI was interested to read this post by Edward Feser regarding Dawkins “forgetting” he’d not debated William Lane Craig.

One of the comments led to this post which defended Dawkins’ refusal to debate Craig.  The argument from this author was that Dawkins shouldn’t debate Craig because Craig is an expert in religious philosophy and Dawkins is an expert in Biology so it would be a mismatch.

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