Apologetics

Thomas Bradwardine and the Pelagians

Simonetta Carr
Oct 2, 2018
Anyone who felt perplexed – even outraged – the first time they read Romans 9 may identify with Thomas Bradwardine, a 14 th -century Archbishop of Canterbury. His age was, like ours, entrenched in Pelagianism, exalting man’s free will and ability to come to God on his own terms. That’s the...

Natural Revelation: Is Natural Theology Reliable?

John Hartley
Oct 1, 2018
Natural theology, to be contrasted with Revealed Theology, is that human response to divine revelation where truths about God, or arguments for his existence, are discerned from the created order without aid of special revelation. In a sense, natural theology does not take special revelation into...

To Know Ourselves...

Sinclair Ferguson
Oct 1, 2018
Calvin's Institutes opens with a strikingly important sentence--crafted first by a young man in his mid-twenties and only fine tuned between its first appearance in 1536 and its final expression a few years before his death. Wisdom--the knowledge coupled with practical understanding and piety that...

Still Protesting: Trent Ruins Everything!

Jeffrey Stivason
Sep 29, 2018
I teach a small weekly Bible study that is attended by a couple of Roman Catholics one of which is practicing and the other is not. A third member has embraced the Gospel and broken ties with Rome. Recently, in one of these studies, I mentioned purgatory and received an instant, “Oh, we don’t...

Natural Theology & Christian Apologetics: A Brief Primer

David Smith
Sep 28, 2018
The topics of apologetics and natural theology are, to say the least, complex and controversial. Yet as Christians we have to deal with them. So let us try informed by God’s word and the history of the Church. We must define our terms, and while broad summary definitions can generally be agreed...

Still Protesting: the Donum Superadditum

Jeffrey Stivason
Sep 27, 2018
“Why can’t you get past the objections of Luther and his progeny?” That was the question that came plaintively from the man who sat opposite the pastor in the coffee house. The Pastor, whose name was Peter, looked at him as if to say, “Haven’t I already explained?” I could see his frustration as I...

What is Natural Revelation?

Tim Bertolet
Sep 26, 2018
It is important to understand that we cannot know anything about God unless He reveals Himself to us. God is infinite, and we are finite. The distance between God and man is so great that we could not know anything about Him or what He requires if He did not reveal Himself to us (WCF 7.1). As...

Natural Revelation Podcast

Jonathan Master
Sep 24, 2018
Natural Revelation God has revealed himself in nature, as Romans 1 affirms, but should natural revelation be the starting point of conversation in an apologetic or evangelistic encounter? James and Jonathan consider the text of Acts 14, with Paul’s apologetic approach to Jews and Greeks. Is seeing...

Post-Theism?

James Richey
Sep 24, 2018
With Anatheism: Returning to God after God , Richard Kearney carries on a tradition of philosophy "after the death of God." Building upon philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Kearney finds himself squarely within the continental tradition of philosophy of religion. Kearney...

Still Protesting, a Pastor’s Perspective

Tim Bertolet
Sep 14, 2018
Let’s be honest: the evangelical and Protestant church has seen better days. We have our own scandals. In a fast-paced world, our faults are replicated through our communities at a much quicker rate than in previous generations. We may not have a pope but we certainly have a celebrity culture of...