Dr Paul Allen

The news of Ravi Zacharias’s alleged sexual misconduct left me incredulous. Literally. I simply could not believe it. Whenever a person is accused posthumously, with no way to defend themselves, my “innocent until proven guilty” reflex is to give the benefit of the doubt to the accused. But in this case, as an avalanche of evidence poured out over the following weeks, and allegations continued to pile up, it seems impossible to deny that Ravi Zacharias was living a double life.   (See the Christianity Today article, which also links to the RZIM report, here). This is bewildering to me and I feel compelled to compose an explanation for myself, and for those in my flock and readership who have asked me about it. This is how I think through any type of allegation of a professing believer who is unable to defend themselves. The way I see it, one of three things happened; which one is accurate, we will only know on judgment day.  First, it is possible that the evidence has bee...

“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...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Anyone can claim to be the sole path to God . In fact, quite a few people have made this assertion throughout history. The real issue is why anybody should believe Jesus was telling the truth when he said it. We can say that Jesus’ resurrection confirmed him as the Son of God. If that’s true, then all other faith systems cannot be true, because they each assert something contrary to Jesus’ divinity. And of course, the historical record concerning the resurrection is extremely compelling. Well-known apologist and evangelist Dr. Ravi Zacharias believes people should approach the subject by looking at the four fundamental issues that every religion seeks to address: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. In these key areas, only the teachings of Jesus Christ fully correspond to reality. There is coherence among his answers unlike those of any other religion. “Consider Buddhism ,” says Zacharias. “ Buddha ’s answer on the question ...

Our Lord Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) John 14:5–14 Anyone can claim to be the sole path to God. In fact, quite a few people have made this assertion throughout history. The real issue is why anybody should believe Jesus was telling the truth when he said it. We can say that Jesus’ resurrection confirmed him as the Son of God. If that’s true, then all other faith systems cannot be true, because they each assert something contrary to Jesus’ divinity. And of course, the historical record concerning the resurrection is extremely compelling. Well-known apologist and evangelist Dr. Ravi Zacharias believes people should approach the subject by looking at the four fundamental issues that every religion seeks to address: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. In these key areas, only the teachings of Jesus Christ fully correspond to reality. There is coherence among his answers unlike those of any other religion. “Consider Buddhism ,” says Zacharias. “Buddha’s answer ...

Image via Wikipedia How did this book come about for you? Like any philosopher of religion, I’ve followed the new atheist movement with interest.  But after reading   numerous responses   from Christian apologists , I noticed a conspicuous lack of attention to the moral-psychological roots of atheism.  Given that the biblical writers emphasize this dimension of unbelief, I thought someone needed to address it. How does this book uniquely contribute to critiques of atheism and the “new atheism”? Most Christian apologists’ responses to the new atheists challenge their arguments and reveal the many fallacies in their objections to religious faith.  This is helpful, of course, and I applaud the work of Ravi Zacharias ,   Alister McGrath ,   Dinesh D’Souza ,   Paul Copan ,   William Lane Craig ,   Tim Keller , and others for their superb contributions to the debate.  What they so well demonstrate is that atheism is not the consequence o...

Image via Wikipedia How did this book come about for you? Like any philosopher of religion, I’ve followed the new atheist movement with interest.  But after reading   numerous responses   from Christian apologists , I noticed a conspicuous lack of attention to the moral-psychological roots of atheism.  Given that the biblical writers emphasize this dimension of unbelief, I thought someone needed to address it. How does this book uniquely contribute to critiques of atheism and the “new atheism”? Most Christian apologists’ responses to the new atheists challenge their arguments and reveal the many fallacies in their objections to religious faith.  This is helpful, of course, and I applaud the work of Ravi Zacharias ,   Alister McGrath ,   Dinesh D’Souza ,   Paul Copan ,   William Lane Craig ,   Tim Keller , and others for their superb contributions to the debate.  What they so well demonstrate is that atheism is not the consequence o...