This was David’s statement that was not made in vanity but in the worship of his great Creator/God. Our study of the nature of man should also move us to worship our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
As Ryrie brought out in his introduction to chapter 32, man has a material part with a variety of features such as arteries, veins, brains, muscles, etc. All of us are agreed on this facet of man’s nature. Man also has an immaterial part with a variety of features such as soul, spirit, heart, will, mind, etc. This is where we agree to disagree on the nature of man. This is not a hill we must die on. But we do want to be as accurate and precise as possible when it comes to interpreting the Bible.
Read more1. What are the strengths of the Intelligent Design Arguments/Movement?
Douglas Groothuis wrties that ID “opens a door for Christian apologetics that would otherwise be closed” (Christian Apologetics, 268). The argument of irreducible complexity seen in the human eye, the flagellum, and DNA irrefutably show intelligent design. Of course, materialistic evolutionists reject this evidence with counterarguments. Groothuis concludes that ID should take its rightful place in the overall circle of evidence. Standing alone, it cannot provide a full apologetic for Christianity.
Read moreIn chapter six, Frame states that the main task is to isolate the Bible’s own argument, rationale, for the truth of the gospel message. Frame argues that only the Christian worldview presents God as an absolute person. Earlier chapters prove this. Also, this absolute personality is found mainly in God’s Word not the Quran and other religious books which though dependent on the Bible distort it.
Read moreIn chapter 5, Apologetics as Proof: Theistic arguments, John Frame presents traditional arguments for the existence of God with a Van Tillian conclusion: nothing is intelligible unless God exists, and God must be nothing less than the Trinitarian, sovereign, transcendent, and immanent absolute personality of the Scripture.
Read moreIn chapter four, Apologetics as Proof: Transcendental Argument, Frame states that the transcendental argument for God’s existence (hereafter TAG), a form of argumentation that has become something of the bread and butter of presuppositionalists. Cornelius Van Til sometimes referred this view as transcendental and sometimes presuppostional.
Read moreIn chapter three, Apologetics as Proof: Some Methodological Considerations, and the next three chapters, John M. Frame discusses one, proof, of the three aspects of apologetics that he discusses in chapter one:
1. Apologetics as proof: presenting a rational basis for faith or “proving Christianity to be true.”
2. Apologetics as defense: answering the objections of unbelief.
3. Apologetics as offense: attacking the foolishness of unbelieving thought.
Read moreIn chapter two, The Message of the Apologist, Frame states that “the apologist’s message, ultimately, is nothing less than the whole of Scripture, applied to the need of his hearers.” Frame summarizes the message of Scripture from two perspectives. The first is Christianity as a philosophy, and second, Christianity as good news.
Read moreFrame states that many passages of the Bible from the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles do not sound very “peaceful.” These men were willing to use very strong, angry language when necessary. On many occasions, however, they showed much patience and gentleness. In my view, strong language is appropriate against people who (1) claim to have some religious teaching authority, and (2) are proclaiming false doctrine on serious matters, leading believers astray, or are dishonoring orthodox doctrine by ungodly lives, and (3) have ignored clear and graciously expressed warnings that their conduct displeases God. The Protestant Reformers used similarly strong language (which can usually be justified on these principles). Most of those today who are seeking to emulate the biblical and Reformation writers in this respect are overdoing it, in my opinion. They should learn to give at least equal attention to peacemaking.
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Antony Flew spoke with Gary Habermas about his abandonment of atheism for a minimal form of theism (or deism), Flew, while not a believer in the resurrection, made this telling point about Christianity’s claim of resurrection with respect to other miracle claims: The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity, I think, from the evidence offered for the occurrence of most other supposedly miraculous events” (My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: A Discussion Between Antony Flew and Gary Habermas, p. 209).
Read moreIn the kenoticism, Jesus did not forfeit any attributes, he temporarily suspended the employment of some of his divine attributes, but without ontologically losing these attributes. For example, Michael Jordan might play a pickup basketball game with some junior high children in Chicago. In order to have fun with the lesser players, he would voluntarily suspend the use of some of his exemplary basketball skills. He would continue to possess those powers, but they would be held in check in order to play basketball with the children. However, at time Jordan might decide to dazzle the kids by showing this true stuff. Similarly, Jesus would sometimes declare that he had forgiven a person’s sins (Mark 2:1-10) or would receive worship from his followers (John 20:24-28). These are both uniquely divine prerogatives.
Read moreIn chapter 20, The Claims, Credentials and Achievements of Jesus Christ, Groothuis proposes to focus on the story of Jesus and his unique and unparalleled identity as revealed in the New Testament as a whole.
Read moreCraig L. Blomberg in discussing apparent contradictions comes close to denying inerrancy: “But if Matthew does not satisfy modern, scientific standards of precision, it is unfair to impose those standards on a first-century world that had not yet invented them. None of the differences affects the point of the story, which is the miraculous resurrection of the girl” (page 454). To this Blomberg adds, “No historian on any ancient document operates this way. A document that has proved generally reliable is not suddenly discounted because of just one demonstrable mistake.” So, Blomberg sounds like if the Bible has only “one demonstrable mistake” it is not out of step with other historical documents.
Read moreIn chapter 18, Deposed Royalty: Pascal’s Anthropological Argument Groothuis puts forth Blaise Pascal anthropological argument to answer man’s deepest question, as expressed in Shakespeare’s King Lear, “Who is it who can tell me who I am?”
Read moreIn chapter 17, The Uniqueness of Humanity, Groothuis argues that Biblical anthropology teaches that man is a unity of body and soul. Philosophically, this is called substance dualism. Groothuis distinguishes between substance and property.
Biblically, man is both physical and mental. Jesus understood man as dualistic heard in His statement to the dying thief in Luke 23:43. Paul also taught this in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. Materialism as in Darwinianism denies dualism.
Read moreIn chapter 16, The Argument from Religious Experience, Groothuis argues that because man is made in the image of God makes concourse with God possible. Groothuis also notes that the Bible and Christians have claimed that God reveals himself through various kinds of human experiences.
Read moreIn chapter 15, The Moral Argument for God, Groothuis offers a moral argument for the existence of God by establishing the existence of objective moral reality and showing that a personal and moral God is the best explanation for the existence and knowledge of objective moral reality.
Read moreIn chapter fourteen, Evidence for Intelligent Design, Groothuis, explains that advocates of Darwinism believes it is invincible because there is no replacement for it. The Intelligent Design, however, is an alternative to Darwinism.
Read moreIn chapter thirteen, Origins, Design, and Darwinism, Groothuis makes two arguments: (1) Belief in Darwinism as a comprehensive explanation for the biosphere has become a deterrent to Christian faith; thus, a cogent refutation is in order (2) Darwinism suffers from fatal flaws both logically and evidentially.
Read moreIn chapter twelve, The Design Argument: Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Groothuis states there is enough design evident at multiple levels of nature to infer that there is a Designer. However, there is also evidence of deformity, decay and disease, indicating that the design is often less than optimal. Thus, there is enough evidence to believe in a Designer, but not enough to claim a perfect creation. There is enough deformity to warrant the idea of the fall, but not enough to deface the idea of design entirely.
Read moreIn chapter eleven, Cosmological Arguments: A Cause for The Cosmos, Groothius states that the question to be answered is “Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?” This is the question asked by Christian theist Gottfried Leibniz and atheist Martin Heidegger.
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