A Debate on Free Will
This is the audio of a friendly dialogue on Calvinism & Molinism.
An Interview on Evolution
This is the audio of a conversation I had on the compatibility of evolution and Christianity. First, we survey some of the popular views of creation (e.g. Neo-Ussherianism, day-age, observations of Moses, etc). Next, I argue that once we understand the Hebrew Bible in the literary context of the ancient Near East (ANE), most of the conflict between scripture and evolution evaporates. Questions range from death before the Fall, literal Adam, and dino footprints.
Additional Comments
I mentioned that RC National has their own views on evolution. Specifically, RC explicitly denies any version of “theistic evolution” that fails to affirm some specific statements. I’ve listed those statements with my commentary below.
(1) God created the universe ex-nihilo
Affirm, unqualified.
(2) The Bible is to be interpreted in a historical grammatical literary manner.
Affirm in the sense that I agree with the presuppositions of the historic-grammatical method, namely, the Bible is a divinely inspired work written by men moved by the Holy Spirit. However, I think the tools of form criticism, redaction criticism, source criticism, textual criticism, etc should all be brought to bear to understand the text. I don’t think that these tools need to be in opposition to divine inspiration, although, many scholars think they do. This is why in the episode I said “I associate closer to the critical methods, although, I would not accept all of the baggage and presuppositions often associated with them”.
(3) Common biological ancestry of all living organisms from one original living organism is not true.
Open to this. It could be the case that life emerged in multiple areas on the planet. I’m not in a position to endorse a particular view of evolution (neo-Darwinian, neo-Lamarckian, etc) and some views disagree on universal common ancestry.
(4) God did—and continues to—intervene miraculously in nature.
Affirm with the qualifications of being a cessationist.
(5) Adam and Eve were literal historical figures.
Affirm, unqualified.
(6) Adam and Eve are the sole ancestors of all human persons.
I find this highly unlikely, but, my reasons are primarily textual rather than biological.
(7) Adam and Eve were not derived from a preexisting animal body.
I’m not sure what this means. Since this episode was recorded, a great book called The Genealogical Adam & Eve was written which argues for the de novo creation of Adam & Eve. I’m definitely okay with this view.
(8) “Human sinful tendencies such as selfishness trace back to the historic fall of Adam and are not the result of the evolution of humanity from animal ancestors.”
I’m not sure about this one. I affirm sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin. But, wasn’t the Fall perpetrated because of selfish tendencies of humans to supplant God as the chief authority? This is a little too ambiguous for me to sign on.
My Interview with RED-C Radio
This is an interview I did with RED-C Catholic Radio in College Station. I discuss my faith journey, the importance of faith & reason, and my work with Ratio Christi at Texas A&M University. This episode was part of a project called Faith in the Workplace wherein RED-C interviewed representatives from several religious organizations at the TAMU campus. More information about this project can be found at the Faith in the Workplace website.
Also, just to pre-empt any rumours, I’m not Catholic. My (quite Protestant) beliefs can be found here.
Every #RaviTAMU Question
(Or at least every question I could find)
This is a post that I started over a year and a half ago. I found it in my drafts. Here you go!
April 1, 2014
Ravi Zacharias came to Texas A&M for the 2014 Veritas Forum. A part of the lecture included a Q&A populated by questions on Twitter under the tag ‘#RaviTAMU’. Unfortunately, Ravi did not address all of them despite some of them being really thought provoking. Today, I scoured the #RaviTAMU tag and copied all the questions I could find. I’ve grouped them into similar categories.
Molinism v Calvinism Debate
Richard Bushey (thereforegodexists.com) and I defend Molinism in a 2v2 debate against Josh Sommer (seeinggodministeries.com) and TurretinFan (turretinfan.blogspot.com).
Video:
Update on Where I’ve Been and Stuff
This past month, I worked at Pine Cove Camps which was a rather awesome experience. Here are some photos for proof:
Kids shoving me into the lake. See more at http://www.pinecove.com/photo-gallery/
Tying some shoes. More at http://www.pinecove.com/photo-gallery/
Long live Pi Chi Tau. See more at facebook.com/pinecovestaffalumni
So, that’s what I’ve been up to for the past seven or so weeks. Now that First Half is done, I’m doing some summer school getting ready for Fall 2014.
However, you’re probably asking yourself (“Self..”) what am I going to be posting next (“…what is caplawson going to be posting next?”)? Back in May, I posted a critique of James White’s dealings with Molinism. Essentially, he stated his arguments were against William Lane Craig’s version of Molinism; however, it seemed to me that Dr. White wasn’t interacting with Dr. Craig’s responses to the grounding objection. So, I summarized three of Dr. Craig’s published works on the grounding objection and offered some of my personal input on the issue. Dr. White then took time in his subsequent edition of the Dividing Line to go through and interact with my post; that episode can be found at this link. I was quite honoured to have been the topic of discussion and also to have the URL read on air; the effects of which were evident rather quickly.
This stats chart is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
Unforeseen developments notwithstanding, my next article will be my response to Dr. White which will include some clarifications, apologies, and counter-arguments. As far as future content on this blog goes, I’m going to continue focusing on Molinism and I’m planning on releasing the second, revised version of my theological argument against a common young-Earth view of animal death.
S.D.G.
Event: Dr. Nabeel Qureshi
If you’re in the College Station area, you should definitely come see Dr. Nabeel Qureshi on March 17. The Facebook event can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/events/260405630803741
thoughts on being a “Jesus Feminist”
Interesting read
A few weeks ago, for the first time, I used the word “feminist” to describe myself.
Not because something radical has changed about what I believe about women and men, but because I’ve realized that I’m no longer interested in hiding from a word in order to avoid other people’s ideas about that word.
Of course, it’s not quite fair to say that nothing has changed.
I listened to classmates declare that they have gotten “Him’d” out of male depictions for God. I announced my intention to refer to the Holy Spirit as “she” instead of “he” or “it.” (“You’re one of those people,” responded a friend.) I realized that I can’t stand words like “brotherhood” to describe the Christian family, and I cringe when a song refers to “men” and means the whole body of Christ. I have even started to wonder about words like “fellowship.” (I’m not…
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