Dr Paul Allen

For my days are consumed like smoke … ( Ps. 102:3). One of humanity’s greatest dilemmas is its relationship to time. Whether we live or die, time continues its unrelenting cadence. Sometimes it seems as if we have been discarded into life’s vast ocean, to drift without a beginning or an end. Often it seems as if all we have is the here and now. Hoping for something more, we ask, “Is this all there is?” Secularism quickly answers in the affirmative—all we can be certain of is the present. Secularism’s short-sighted philosophy produces grave moral consequences. If all we have is the here and now, then why stop and consider the consequences of our actions, especially in relation to eternity? The Bible tells us we are responsible for our actions; yet, like secularism , it does not deny the transience of man: “… all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away” ( 1 Peter 1:24); “… he is like the beasts that perish” (Ps. 49:12); “… they

We live in an age of narcissism. It is the era of self-actualization, the relentless race to perfect the self. Time  magazine reported in 2013 that “ Narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their twenties as for the generation that’s now 65 or older. . . . 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982.” As the West has become more narcissistic, so have the people in our churches. We see it on social media. We hear it over coffee. We see it when young people break away from living and breathing social groups to snap a selfie. We also see it in our evangelism. A decade or two ago our evangelism still pointed outward. We spoke of the existence of God , objective truth, and the historical reliability of the resurrection. Now, swaths of churches have moved on to leading with personal testimonies. This contextualization isn’t necessarily wrong. In a postmodern era, stories are often more powerful than o

English: Alvin Plantinga after telling a joke at the beginning of a lecture on science and religion delivered at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The twentieth century has seen philosophers of religion, such as Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne , reaffirm the rationality of faith and reinvigorate traditional debates about reasons for belief in God—catalysed in part by new scientific understandings of the origins of the universe. There’s a growing consensus that belief in God is perfectly rational—unless, of course, you define rationality in terms that deliberately exclude such a belief.5 Rationality is less concerned with adopting a particular starting point or conclusion than with the rules that regulate reflective discussion leading to a conclusion. New Atheist writers often define the term beyond its fundamental sense, holding that it demands we interpret the world in a specific way that excludes belief in God. Yet this interpretation c

“All scientists —including agnostics and atheists—believe in God. They have to in order to do their work.” The dependable regularities and constants we observe in nature are the basis for all scientific inquiry and progress. Whatever their philosophical theory of these regularities might be, all scientists in practice depend on these laws to be a reliable guide to the external world . These natural laws or regularities are simply the providential speech of God upholding the world. Our beliefs about natural law are eerily similar to classical divine attributes . We assign to natural laws such properties as omnipresence (operating in all places), eternity (at all times), immutability (constant effects), immateriality (seen only in its effects), omnipotence (incapable of being broken), transcendence (applies generally), immanence (applies particularly), incomprehensibility (mystery as to why such laws work), goodness (natural laws are reliable), rectitude (consequences for breakin

We make a distinction between knowing it is true and showing it is true . We know Christianity is true primarily by the self-authenticating witness of God ’s Spirit. We show Christianity is true by demonstrating that it is systematically consistent. What, then, should be our approach in apologetics? It should be something like this: “My friend, I know Christianity is true because God’s Spirit lives in me and assures me that it is true. And you can know it is true, too, because God is knocking at the door of your heart, telling you the same thing.  If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will give you assurance that the gospel is true. Now to try to show you it’s true, I’ll share with you some arguments and evidence that I really find convincing. But should my arguments seem weak and unconvincing to you, that’s my fault, not God’s.  It only shows that I’m a poor apologist, not that the gospel is untrue. Whatever you think of my arguments, God still loves you and holds you

English: Icon showing the Resurrection of Jesus, at the inner side of the Resurrection Gate to the Red Square, Moscow (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Apologetics is a necessary discipline for the Christian faith . Jesus and the apostle Paul regularly defended their beliefs through rational arguments. The apostle Peter tells us to be ready to give a reason for the hope we have in Christ (1 Pet. 3:15). This lost world needs to hear and believe the gospel of God , so, when unbelievers ask questions about the truth and rationality of Christianity, we must be ready with sufficient answers, trusting in the Holy Spirit to apply the message to their souls (Acts 1:8). Some apologetic arguments, however, have virtually no chance for success and are destined to fail right from the start—no matter how sincerely or repeatedly stated. These nonstarters fall flat and do not serve the cause of Christ simply because they are bad arguments. Four of these arguments are so common and so detrimental to th

Cover via Amazon It’s all relative .” “That’s true for you but not for me.” “That’s just your reality.” “Who are you to impose your values on others?” The relativist believes truth functions more like opinion or perspective and that truth depends upon your culture, context, or even personal choices. Thus evil actions by Nazis or terrorists are explained away (“We don’t like it, but they have their reasons”). Relativism , however, is seriously flawed. Relativism cannot escape proclaiming a truth that corresponds to reality. “The moon is made of cheese” is false because it does not match up with the way things are, with what is the case. As Christians, we claim the biblical story is true because it conforms to the actualities of God’s existence and His dealings with human beings. Truth is a relationship—a match-up with what is real or actual. An idea is false when it does not.  But what of those making such claims as “ Reality is like a wet lump of clay—we can shape it any way

G.K. Chesterton once said that when people stop believing in God , they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.  The rejection of Christianity by our culture has resulted in a spiritual vacuum that is being filled by all manner of aberrant teachings. Related articles Even Pope Francis is a G.K. Chesterton Fan (percalamus.com) Against Chesterton (kierkeguardians.wordpress.com) "Chesterton's genius lay in the fact that he was a deeply Catholic thinker ..." (insightscoop.typepad.com) G. K. Chesterton's timeless, timely hymn (insightscoop.typepad.com) Chesterton on devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (insightscoop.typepad.com) I cannot prove God (jonathanbalmer.com) Leadership and Thinking (christopherscottblog.typepad.com) In His Latest Film, Slavoj Žižek Claims "The Only Way to Be an Atheist is Through Christianity" (openculture.com) Tasty Quote from G.K. Chesterton (brandautopsy.typepad.com) 8 100-year-o

What philosophers call “the problem of evil” is a family of arguments from the existence or nature of evil to the conclusion that God does not or probably does not exist. The oldest form of the argument is that the mere existence of evil is logically incompatible with God’s existence. If God exists , evil could not, and if evil exists, God could not. I call this argument the “charge of contradiction.” The claim is that there is a logical contradiction in asserting that God is all-powerful, God is all-loving, and that evil exists.  Wouldn’t this kind of God eliminate all evil? The existence of God, in this view, is on a par with a square circle. Given the existence of evil, it is impossible for God to exist. The challenge is to show that theism is logically consistent. Few today, including atheists, think this argument succeeds. If God might have a good reason to allow evil, then it is possible that both God and evil exist. We need not know what God’s actual reasons are, but if it