Dr Paul Allen

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 ...

The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah, a painting by John Martin (painter), died 1854, thus 100 years. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "I have been assigned to provide “your exegesis on Dr. Dawkins' characterization of Deuteronomy 20:13-15” in regards to his refusal to debate William Lane Craig . First, Dawkins characterized Deuteronomy 20:13-15 by this statement, “You would search far to find a modern preacher willing to defend God ’s commandment, in Deuteronomy 20:13-15, to kill all the men in a conquered city and to seize the women, children and livestock as plunder ... You might say that such a call to genocide could never have come from a good and loving God.” It appears that Dawkins characterizes this section as a command of God commit genocide. Genocide is defined as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” (Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1969) Secondly, I think that we may be starting in the wrong place. In a...

A Name for Evil (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The problem of evil is certainly one of the greatest apologetic issue that Christians face today. In a postmodern world, people’s questions, objections, and problems with the Christian worldview are usually connected to the reality of evil in the world and their attempts to harmonize this reality with the seemingly contradictory notion of an all-powerful , all-good God . So valid is this issue that Ronald Nash, the late evangelical philosopher, said a few years ago (and I quote him loosely), “It is absurd to reject Christianity for any reason other than the problem of evil.” We must be careful not to relegate this problem exclusively to the intellectual realm. I think that J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig have it right when they say we must distinguish between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil ( Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview , 536). The intellectual problem of evil asks, “Is ...

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...