The classical arguments for God – Part Five

This is the final installment in a series of posts where I’ve been attempting to explain some of the arguments for classical theism. The reason for this philosophical foray is because it’s the most logically consistent argument for God of any I’ve ever seen, and yet so few seem to understand it, including some Christians. But, as I said before, once you do see it you’ll also see how solid our foundation is for belief in God. 

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The Way | Pat Barrett

I love this new song by Pat Barrett (Housefires). It’s a declarative song based on several  Scripture passages. At the center is Jesus’ statement in John 14:6:

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6 NKJV)

We believe Jesus is the way to living the life we were meant to live. He’s the truth about who we really are, humankind’s blueprint, the logos, the Living Expression, which is the structuring reality for everything (John 1:1-3). And Jesus is the means by which we have become sons and daughters who can call God our Abba Father! (Gal.4:4-6)

So, give the song a listen…turn it up…and rejoice! Beloved, it’s a new horizon! His mercies are new every morning. Know that God is for you and He loves you more than you could ever possibly know (but it’s fun trying!).

The classical arguments for God – Part Four

One thing I like about the classical arguments for God is that they’re logically deduced from our everyday experience. And when one fully understand them (which no detractor I’ve heard so far actually does), we see that asking for evidence becomes a silly question because what could be more evident than that some things are changing.  Also, the nature of these arguments are such that no new discovery in science or cosmology would be relevant to refute them.

The classical arguments for God – Part Three

We’re now ready to talk about the importance of essence and existence. I’ve already mentioned this argument in “God is not a god.” I won’t repeat of lot of what was said there so read that post first if you  haven’t already. Again, much of this is technical and philosophical in nature so I will try to explain it simply as possible. I’ve also provided links to videos explaining the graphics. Also, if you haven’t read part one and part two, I suggest you do so first since these arguments build upon one another. 

No Empiricist can be a Materialist

I’m posting this video clip as an addendum to my “Classical Arguments for God” series of posts because of some of the comments I’m getting. I’ve been accused of presenting false equivalencies and presenting “word games” with my logical arguments for God as opposed to science that’s based on “real evidence.” While I believe the accusation itself self is bogus based on a materialist or physicalist presupposition, Keith Ward also points out the irony of this sentiment. He says a committed materialist cannot be an empiricist. Here are a couple of quotes from the video. 

The classical arguments for God – Part Two

Logical argumentation is to metaphysics and philosophy what mathematical theorems are to theoretical physics and cosmology. For instance, in the field of quantum mechanics, we have very little hard “evidence” for what we believe to be true, and we may never have observable evidence,  yet we do have theorems that prove it to be true, and the science works because of the theorems. 

On tolerance

I’ll be out of town for a few days and will continue my series, “The classical argument of God” when I get back. For now, I wanted to share a grace perspective on tolerance, adapted from Larry Osborne’s book,  Thriving in Babylon.

Tolerance doesn’t mean we’re saying everyone is right; it means we grant people the right to be wrong.