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a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth A Quest for Godliness (126)
Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.Dividing Line
From the beginning Christianity has been a proclamation, not a thesis supported by various logical arguments. The Doctrine of God (109)
What you win people with is what you win people to.
Truth shines the most brightly against the backdrop of error. The Potter's Freedom(14)
Apologetics cannot precede faith and does not attempt a priori to argue the truth of revelation. It assumes the truth and belief in the truth. It does not, as the introductory part or as the foundational science, precede theology and dogmatics. It is itself a theological science through and through, which presupposes the faith and dogmatics and now maintains and defends the dogma against the opposition to which it is exposed. Thus understood, apologetics is not only perfectly justified but a science that at all times, but especially in this century, deserves to be seriously practiced and can spread rich blessing all around. The Valid Apologetic
The ontological trinity will be our interpretative concept everywhere. God is our concrete universal; in Him thought and being are coterminous, in Him the problem of knowledge is solved. If we begin thus with the ontological trinity as our concrete universal, we frankly differ from every school of philosophy and from every school of science not merely in our conclusions, but in our starting-point and in our method as well.
But the best and only possible proof for the existence of such a God is that his existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for the coherence of all things in the world. We cannot prove the existence of beams underneath a floor if by proof we mean that they must be ascertainable in the way that we can see the chairs and tables of the room. But the very idea of a floor as the support of tables and chairs requires the idea of beams that are underneath. But there would be no floor if no beams were underneath. Thus there is absolutely certain prod for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism. Even non-Christians presuppose its truth while they verbally reject it. They need to presuppose the truth of Christian theism in order to account for their own accomplishments.
It should not be forgotten in this connection that the minister's duty is increasingly that of an apologist for Christianity. The general level of education is much higher than it has ever been. Many young people hear of evolution in the high schools and in the college where their fathers never heard of it except as far as a distant something. If the minister would be able to help his young people, he must be a good apologete, and he cannot be a good apologete unless he is a good systematic theologian
How shortsighted and how uncultured, then, are the efforts of believers in Christ when they seek for snatches of worldly culture for themselves by placing themselves, as they think, on common ground with those who are not believers in Christ. How dishonoring to their Christ if they allow that any culture endures unless it be because of the power of his resurrection in the world. If you have been taken out of the miry clay, do you jump back into it because of some glistening objects that you see in it? Do you run back into the house now almost burned to the ground in order to save your silverware? It is only those who are believers in Christ that will inherit the earth and all the fulness thereof.
For what you have really done in your handling of the evidence for belief in God, is to set yourself up as God. You have made the reach of your intellect, the standard of what is possible or not possible. You have thereby virtually determined that you intend never to meet a fact that points to God. Facts, to be facts at all–facts, that is, with decent scientific and philosophic standing–must have your stamp instead of that of God upon them as their virtual creator.
If the God of Christianity exists, the evidence for His existence is abundant and plain so that it is both unscientific and sinful not to believe in Him.
You realize that if you are to change your belief about God, you will also have to change your belief about yourself.
It is not kindness to tell patients that need strong medicine that nothing serious is wrong with them.
If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point. Then he will have to seek an exhaustive understanding of reality. He will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such an exhaustive understanding of reality he has no true knowledge of anything at all. Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing. This is the dilemma that confronts every form of non-Christian epistemology
I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else
Anti-theism presupposes Theism
The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks.
Moreover, it speaks of everything.
the theology of Barth is dialectical rather than biblical in characterChristianity and Barthianism, p203
The proper activity of professing Christians who disagree with one another is neither to ignore, nor to conceal, nor even to minimize their differences, but to debate them. We are 'to maintain the truth in love,' being neither truthless in our love, nor loveless in our truth, but holding the two in balance.Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970), pp. 22, 19.
the pressure was on Platonism to adapt to the challenge of Christianity, not the other way round.32
it cannot be claimed that the influence of Greek philosophy drove Christians to develop a corresponding theology; Jews and Muslims were exposed to the same influences, but with very different results. This suggests that there is something in the nature of Christianity itself which led to this development.The Doctrine of God (20)
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Apologetics that simply take tight philosophical arguments, dump them on people, and then simply wait to see if they can say "uncle" or not, are not very effective. First of all, not all of us are philosophers; second, it doesn't reach into heart commitments, which is where the issues of life are. It's not how bright I am and whether I can think through a problem that is going to lead me to Christ. It's whether I have the kind of information, wisdom, and preaching that will challenge my deepest assumptions and lead me to Christ. World Magazine(July31 2010)
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