It just occurred to me that when it comes to philosophy of mind, the naturalists that take the mind somewhat seriously in its phenomenal aspects that resist a reductive analysis, are very often guilty of the “emergence of the gaps” fallacy. Proponents of at least some of the stronger forms of emergence seem to be saying basically something to the effect that “The mind just emerged from matter and isn’t reducible to it in any sense — don’t ask me how this happened, or how it could be explained, even in principle. That’s just what happens when certain amount of neurological complexity gets in place.”

It seems to me that not only is this a clear case of the “emergence of the gaps”, but it may be worse than the average “God of the gaps” argument, even in principle. For the strong emergentist presumably maintains that not only is the explanation not known, but arguably, there isn’t a true explanation at all.

OK, are you ready? IT IS (often) RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR VIEWS ON OTHERS!

It is right for the police (or even a random bystander) to impose his moral views on the rapist who thinks that if he wants to have sex with some particular woman, he’s entitled to take forcible measures to get it. It is right for the school to impose heliocentric views on the kids of the ignorant geocentrist parents. It is right for any of us to impose our views of equal moral worth of people regardless of their race on the racist bigot. When it comes to the religious fundamentalist cult leader that puts his followers in danger, it is right for us to impose our views on religion on the leader just as well as his followers (namely, the view that their cult is false and immoral).

I can go on, but one point is quite unavoidable by now. At least in some “extreme cases”, it’s perfectly OK to impose your views on others. In fact, it can often be immoral to do otherwise.Now, someone may object that it’s only these cases that are exempted from the requirement of not imposing one’s view on others. But the obvious problem here is this: Who gets to decide what counts as an “extreme case”? (Remember, the relativist denies the existence of objective truth in such matters.) And are you (gasp) imposing your view on the standards for what counts as an extreme case on me?

There are few strategic moves that the relativist may try at this point in order to justify his/her position, but I’m quite convinced that any such move will ultimately collapse under the weight of its self-refutation. (If you disagree, feel free to challenge me on this point in the comment section.)

Not only is it often right to impose one’s moral, religious, etc. views on others, but (assuming the flawed relativist understanding of “imposing” on which this slogan is based) it is also inevitable. Individual human behavior in a society (not to mention public policy issues) will either implicitly or explicitly presuppose and express all sorts of beliefs that have implications on others that doesn’t share them. Religious liberties, abortion laws, observance of traditions. You name it. If the mere expression of those views in the presence of people who think differently counts as “imposing one’s views on others” (as the politically correct postmodern relativist often claims), such imposition is impossible to avoid.

There is so much that could be further said on this topic, but perhaps I’ll return to it in some later post.

On January 21st, there will be a debate between James White and Bart Ehrman. The actual debate topic is advertised as “Does the Bible Misquote Jesus?”, but apparently the subheading “Is the Bible inspired in light of textual variation?” is something that Ehrman is now disputing, as he doesn’t want to debate a theological topic (rather than purely historical). So my best guess is that the debate will focus on the issues of textual criticism, but it’s still unavoidable that the theological issue (on which Ehrman does regularly present his conclusions publicly) will come up as well.

I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to view or listen to this debate (whichever multimedia format will be available first). While Ehrman is probably more qualified as a textual critic than White is, his conclusions concerning the theological implications often seem a bit naive. And White certainly has a lot of debate experience.

See the advertisement page for the debate.

Also see James White’s website.

I found this debate to be very enlightening. The so-called satanic verses are a big problem for Islam, as I think this debate amply demonstrates.

Adnan Rashid’s opening statement:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5074108594265376338&hl=en

David Wood’s opening statement:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1693130198610629356&hl=en

Rebuttals:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4876153218123366439&hl=en

Q & A and conclusions
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3437660053707495295&hl=en

See also David Wood’s blog at http://www.answeringmuslims.com. There you’ll find links to many other debates, as well as David’s insightful blog posts and links other web resources.

Actually, I suspect that many of the advocates of alternative theories of truth (such as coherentists and pragmatists) will often tacitly assume what they deny — namely, that truth is about correspondence. Let me illustrate this briefly.

The Correspondence Theorist: “Hey, could you explain to me what you mean by truth?”
The Coherence Theorist: “Sure, I’ll gladly do that. You see, I think that truth is all about coherence. As long as a statement coheres with the others that one accepts or affirms, one can say that the statement is true.”
The Correspondence Theorist: “Now, do you mean that it is coherent to affirm that you have this view of truth? Or do you mean that it is actually the case that you have this view of truth?”

A similar example could be given about the pragmatic theory of truth, but I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader (shouldn’t be too hard, if you understood the point of my example and know a bit about what the pragmatic theory is).

I would also recommend the following short video where J. P. Moreland gives a basic presentation of the correspondence view of truth.

I think this is one of the most one-sided debates on God’s existence that I have ever heard or seen. Craig has a reputation of winning most of his debates, but this time the opponent didn’t really even put up a decent fight.

Bill Cooke is a Senior Lecturer at Manukau Institute of Technology. William Lane Craig is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada.

See also Craig’s website at www.reasonablefaith.org

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Answer
Not true. You have failed to distinguish between two separate issues, which leads to confusion. First of all, there is the issue of whether a creator / designer / moral lawgiver of some kind exists. If this question can be answered affirmatively, this entity would be appropriately called God. Whether or not it is appropriate to refer to this God with a name taken from some particular religious tradition is another matter.

Secondly, there is a vast difference between the anthropomorphic deities of ancient polytheistic religions, and the monotheistic concept of God. In particular, even aside from the problem of all too humanlike characteristics of these polytheistic deities, it is simply unwarranted on the philosophical level to postulate multiple gods with great but finite knowledge, power, etc if the concept of one unlimited personal God would serve the same explanatory function in one’s worldview. This puts the monotheistic faiths at a great advantage in comparison to the vast majority of others. This will limit the realistic options down to a small fraction of the huge number of deities that humankind has believed in. Whether or not it is appropriate to refer to God by a name that is familiar from some particular religious tradition can be settled by examining the serious contenders that are still standing. I see no reason as to why this question could not be rationally examined in light of the evidence. Thus it is far from a matter of arbitrary choice. An in any case, as we have seen, it is just false that the grounds for affirming atheism instead of monotheism are in some obvious sense the same ones that enable one to see the superiority of monotheism over polytheism. The issue of monotheism vs. atheism is at the most foundational level a philosophical conflict between metaphysical personalism (mind first) and metaphysical materialism (matter first). This is a genuine philosophical debate to be had, but it’s unwarranted to assert that atheism/materialism wins the debate by default.

I hope that you find time to reflect on the actual reason for this time of celebration. It’s one of those things that we can fail to be amazed about only because we are so very, very used to hearing about it (and so we may cease to actually listen). It may take a quiet moment of reflection or a totally new point of view for one to get back the joy and astonishment that should accompany the idea of an infinite, almighty God’s becoming incarnate in the for or a tiny human baby. Actually, I can kind of sympathize with those who just find that whole story unbelievable. The story of Easter is, in a way, much more “natural” in the sense that assuming that Jesus truly was God incarnate, it becomes obvious that death could not have the last word over him. But the story of Christmas should be ultimately understood in light of Easter. The One who entered the world as a little baby would eventually bear the sins of the humankind on that cross. Once you realize the full implications of the Incarnation, your view of God (and perhaps also your view of humanity) won’t be the same again.

Again, a blessed Christmas to you.

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
(Matthew 1:21)

Answering Muslims Blog
David Wood is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy, and he has done extensive study on Islam. During the last few years, he has begun to establish himself as a well-known debater on the subjects related to the dialogue between Christianity and Islam. He occasionally likes to stir things up a bit by provocatively titled blog entries and such, but still, he’s a reliable source of information and  an able defender of Christianity.  His blog also contains links to many free online videos that feature Christian-Muslim debates.
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/

Alpha and Omega Ministries
While Dr. James White focuses on many more topics than just Islam, he has had a big focus on Islam recently. (I think he’s also either begun or planning to begin doctoral studies in Islamic Studies.) There’s a lot of good stuff on his ministry website, but perhaps even more interesting is his Youtube page.
http://www.aomin.org/
http://www.youtube.com/user/DrOakley1689

Answering Islam
A wealth of materials by numerous authors. Probably the first site to check if you’re looking for informative articles on some particular topic related to Islam.
http://www.answering-islam.org/

Muslim Journey to Hope
Contains videos that feature personal testimonies of former Muslims who have found the truth and salvation Jesus Christ.
http://www.muslimjourneytohope.com/

The main schools of thought in Christian apologetics can be classified in several ways, but I propose the following as a useful way to categorize various schools of thought.

The basic distinction between two schools of thought:

-Evidentialism
- Presuppositionalism

As the names imply, Evidentialism is mainly concerned with the presentation of evidence for Christianity, whereas Presuppositionalism’s main focus is on the presuppositions of Christian and non-Christian worldviews. This is often coupled with the claim that non-Christian worldviews lead to contradiction, epistemological futility, etc.

Further refinement within the category of Evidentialism:

- Historical Evidentialism
- Cumulative Evidentialism

Historical Evidentialism focuses on presenting the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus, the reliability of the Gospels, etc. Cumulative Evidentialism is likewise an approach that focuses on presenting evidence, but it recognizes that the case for Christianity is a cumulative case that can start with arguments for the existence of some kind of a creator-designer, or with some other kind of philosophical argumentation. This can then be combined with the historical case for the resurrection and the NT reliability.

With regard to the category of Presuppositionalism, I would find it useful to distinguish between:

- General Theistic Presuppositionalism
- Biblical Presuppositionalism

Not many broadly Presuppositional apologists would even recognize the validity of the category of General Theistic Presuppositionalism.  But I use it as a label for a view that insists on the necessity of holding a broadly Theistic worldview, without necessarily going so far as to argue that the Biblical revelation is somehow necessary as a presupposition of a coherent worldview. Biblical Presuppositionalism would be a view that insists on making this set of initial presuppositions more explicitly Christian and Biblical.

With theses basic categories in mind, we can propose a third main category, namely, Combinationalism. By Combinationalism, I mean a view that combines insights and elements from both Evidentialism and Presuppositionalism. For example, General Theistic  Presuppositionalism and Cumulative Evidentialism could thus be taken together as one form of Combinationalism (this would be pretty close to my actual view).

One could get further clarification by adding terms like “strong”, “moderate” and “weak” to the various elements of these approaches, according to the degree of emphasis.

I very much doubt that this is the perfect way to classify the apologetic methodologies, but in some ways, it seems very logical and practical. It would be an interesting exercise to place each author on apologetics into one of these categories.