Thinking

Out until 4/23

I will not be around to approve comments/respond until April 23rd. I’ll be in California for a class related to my M.A. studies.

My apologies in advance for the delay in approving comments/responding.

Announcing my new site: “Eclectic Theist”

I have many more interests than just philosophy of religion and Christian apologetics. I’ve been longing for an outlet for these interests for some time. Finally, I got down to business and made a new blog: “Eclectic Theist.” 

On this new site, I’ll be writing about topics not normally discussed here on “Always  Have a Reason.” For example, my first main entry is a reflection on science fiction. On this new site I’ll be discussing my other interests. Readers on here may be surprised at how random my reading is sometimes. In my undergraduate studies, I was a social studies major and I read extensively about Mesoamerican history. Did you know that!? Well now you do, and guess what? I’ll be writing about it again. I also love World War 2 history and have been reading more in that area in what exists of my free time. Of course, I’m also a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, role-playing games, and more. All of these will be featured on this new site.

Will there be crossover? Probably. I’ve already thought of a few posts which can bring my outside interests on here and vice versa. For example, a series I’ve been contemplating for a while about science fiction and Christianity will see its launch on here in just a few short weeks. Other topics may crossover as well as they come up.

Does this mean I’ll write less here? Absolutely not. I have posts lined up for weeks now, and I continue to add to them. I’ll be maintaining my regular posts on here and using “Eclectic Theist” as an outlet for my other creative energy. Please, take the time to check out my introductory post to “Eclectic Theist” and browse the two new posts I have up. The site will be expanding quickly, so be sure to subscribe.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you over there and talking about topics that interest us apart from philosophy of religion.

Finally, because I like pictures, I’ll share one that I just put up over on the new site: a picture of Orson Scott Card and myself.

Changes to site layout

Readers,

I wanted to let you know that (obviously) I’ve made some changes to the layout of the site. I’d appreciate any feedback about the changes, whether positive or negative.

A quick walkthrough of the site: on the home page you’ll find the most recent post in abbreviated form. Underneath that post are featured posts which I think they are important/interesting/etc. Thus, you can view either the featured posts or the latest post directly from the home page. At the top of the page you’ll find pages with other links in the various series’ of posts I’ve made or general topics. For example, you can click on “God exists” to find several posts about the existence of God.

On the home page, if you look to the right of the latest post, you’ll see 5 more recent posts, along with my latest Twitter entries, along with an option to follow me (please do!). Under that on the left are the categories (another helpful way to skim through the site for things you want to read about), recent comments, and a calendar of posts. On the right side there is a search option so you can look for specific phrases or concepts on the site. Under that is a place to put your e-mail and subscribe (thanks to those who have).

If you want to read posts older than the last 5, you’ll need to either use the archive or the calendar. The archive is directly under the subscription box, and you can utilize the drop down menu to select a month. The number of posts per month is listed.

Finally, under the archive you can find my blogroll. A lot of these sites are really quite awesome and I recommend them all highly. If you hover over the link, you’ll find a short description will pop up.

So that’s the new layout for my site. I’d really like to hear your input so either drop me a comment or use the contact form at the top!

While you’re here don’t forget to check out the most recent post (yesterday) about J.L. Mackie’s book attacking theism.

Thanks for taking the time to visit the site. I hope you’ll come back!

-J.W.

Back from wedding, honeymoon, and relocation!

Hello all! To those who have commented: I’ll try to get to you soon. There are new “real” posts in the making, so please be patient. I just got married, honeymooned, and moved about 700 miles, so it’s been quite hectic.

On the plus side I still finished reading a couple books, and there are some reviews and new posts in the works. Can’t wait to get back to this in full swing and start talking philosophy of religion and Christianity some more!

Getting Married, Will Be Away

I am driving (not right NOW) to Kansas (from Michigan) to get married. I will be leaving Sunday, but I work tonight and tomorrow and I need to finish packing everything. As such, I wanted to share that I will be mostly out of contact until about August 20th. After the wedding, we have a weeklong honeymoon, and then we move to Minnesota. So there’s a lot going in. I’ll check in once in a while as I get internet access here and there, but I wanted to explain why you won’t hear from me for a while. Therefore, if you comment, it may take several weeks for it to get approved, as I’ll be mostly out of touch.  I look forward to coming back on here as a married man. The wedding is August 5th.

It would be impossible to describe how excited I am to be getting married. God has blessed me profoundly through Beth. In her, I found compassion, determination, love, gentleness, and grit all rolled into one. As a team, we’re going to be doing many great things, I am sure.

Keep us in your prayers, share any advice about marriage you may have, and, God willing, I’ll be back at it in about 3 weeks.

In Christ,

-J.W.

Donation Requests

Readers, I’ve received several contacts from people wanting to donate to my ministry. I feel kind of strange asking for money, so for those interested in donating, you could also check out my Amazon Wish List and pick out a book. I keep it updated very well and any donations would help my ministry (as I read, I can share!). Check out the amazon wish list here.

Christians don’t need apologetics? Think again.

“We don’t need apologetics. We just need the Holy Spirit.”

“We don’t need to ‘apologize’ for anything!”

“I just believe, and that’s all.”

“There doesn’t have to be a reason to believe in Jesus, you just have to feel it.”

Perhaps you’ve heard some variation of these mantras from leaders or members in your church. I have something to say:

They are wrong.

Consider Jesse Kilgore, a young man who read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, lost his faith, and killed himself.

Yeah, this is an extreme example. But think about it for a second: if you’re a member of a church community, have you heard of youths losing their faith? Have you heard or experienced the day a child comes home and says “I’m an atheist?”

“Okay,” you say, “but what does any of this have to do with apologetics?”

Well, perhaps its best to define the term first. Apologetics can most basically be defined as the defense of the faith. Apologists are people who study philosophy, theology, and other fields in order to become equipped to argue for the central teachings of Christianity. Such argumentation can involve both scientific and philosophical evidence.

Why do we need it? Think once more of the youths who leave the church: how often do they have a rationalization for this lack of faith? It is, in my experience, every time. “There isn’t enough evidence to believe in God,” they may say, or “There is so much evil in the world, I can’t believe there is a good God watching it all.” Such objections are indeed challenges to the faith. But without apologetics we would be left treading water. To the first objection, the response could only be “There may not be, but why not just believe?”; to the second, we could only say “God has his reasons.”

What about to someone like Jesse Kilgore? Could apologetics have helped him? I’m not trying to make light of his suicide–but I think that yes, apologetics would have helped. Had he been exposed to arguments for the existence of God, he would have known Dawkins merely caricatures them and ignores their premises. Had he read books on perspectives on the Creation account (theistic evolutionism, intelligent design, or creationism), he would have been unphased by Dawkins’ arguments for evolution. The bottom line is there are rational arguments out there which easily rebut Dawkins’ claims. It is a failure in the church that Jesse hadn’t been exposed to them.

Christians, I challenge you to learn apologetics. Learn a “case for Christianity” which you can utilize whenever you are witnessing to someone who thinks there are no reasons to believe. My own example of such a case is here. Learn about some more of the basic arguments. Read Lee Strobel, read William Lane Craig. But don’t reject apologetics. Our youths need more. Those without faith deserve more. Apologetics is part of the core of our Christian heritage, let’s make it part of our lives.

Let us not forget the commands to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19) and to always have a defense/reason (apologia) (1 Peter 3:15).

SDG.

More Committed to Truth than God.

JP Moreland has said that he is “more committed to truth” than he is to God (JP Moreland,  ”Christianity and the Nature of Science” Lecture).

What he means is that were it shown that belief in God is irrational, he would drop faith belief in God.

I think it is supremely important for all Christians to maintain this attitude. We cannot simply assume the truth of our position, but must rather be willing to follow the evidence where it leads. Notably, the evidence leads us directly to the existence of God.

Such a view is also Biblical. Examine, for the moment, 1 Corinthians 15:14 “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”  Paul here asserts what Moreland does: if it is shown that what we believe in is false, then our faith is useless. We must remain committed to truth as we examine the universe around us.

It is that commitment to truth which must also leave us unrestrained from examining the deep topics of our faith. We must be open to modifying the doctrinal positions we hold as we scrutinize them with both Scripture and philosophy. There is objective truth, and we are, in some sense, obligated to pursue it–particularly if the alternative is to blindly hold to our position.

Such advice applies not only to believers but also to those who do not believe. Dogmatic atheists who deny God’s existence on principle are no more committed to truth than theists who believe because they “feel it’s right.”

I can put it no better than the words of our Lord: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” -Jesus, John 8:32

SDG.

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nwmsu-truth.jpg

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Enriching your Mind in Apologetics

(Yes, I know the picture is Brain Coral. I don’t like how brains look, so I put coral in the picture instead. I think you can make the connection.)

My own development as a Christian apologist and philosopher has been bolstered by a number of practices, many of which were learned from others. I wanted to share many of these resources for learning about and growing in faith. Mostly, the idea is to provide resources to others who desire to learn more about Christ. (You’ll find many of the links I use link directly to Apologetics 315. I highly recommend this site!)

Podcasts- Listening to others reflecting on elements related to apologetics and philosophy of religion is an awesome practice. I recommend downloading podcasts and listening to them on the way to work or school. Even with 15 minutes a day dedicated to listening to a podcast, you’ll be surprised by how much you can learn. Some fantastic podcasts can be found at Apologetics 315′s list of “The Best 16 Apologetics Podcasts.”

Blogs- Seek out other people who are discussing apologetics and writing on the issue. Finding other blogs and reading them will help you clarify important issues as well as finding new approaches to the same problems. Check out my “Blogroll” on the side of this page for some of my recommended blogs. Also, check out Apologetics 315′s list.

New Challenges- Always seek out new ideas and things to explore. Often, when you are researching a topic, you can get bogged down. When this happens, pick up a different topic and read a book on it. It will often feel like a breath of fresh air and give you a break. Then, you can return to the area you were reading before.

For example, I was reading several books on historical Christianity and apologetics related to Christ recently, to the point that I was getting a bit tired of it. So, I decided to read a random book from my shelf and read a book called Time and Eternity by Brian Leftow. This was a book about God’s relationship to time. In it, Leftow argued for a timeless view of God (in contrast to William Lane Craig’s Time and Eternity, in which he argues God is temporal post creation). It was a wonderful break and it got me interested in a new area.

You’ll be surprised by how picking up books you may not even think look interesting will lead you to new avenues for discovery in your apologetics research. There is no shortage of topics, but some major areas you could explore are (I’ve included some issues which are not Christian specifically, but that it would be good to have background knowledge about): theistic arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, God’s relationship to time, God’s attributes, the Incarnation, the Trinity, theistic metaethics, panentheism, atheism, epistemology, metaphysics, reformed epistemology, Thomistic philosophy, Platonism/neoplatonism, Augustine, Church Fathers various doctrines which are non-essential, and many, many more. Simple searches on amazon for these topics will turn up multiple books of interest.

Read the Bible- It seems like an obvious point, but I’m guilty of forgetting it too often to count: read your Bible. While researching topics related to God and Christ, it is all too easy to forget to read the Bible itself. I cannot underscore how important it is to get into Scripture daily. You’ll be surprised at the things you notice as you read Scripture alongside other studies. Your research into other fields will heighten the interest of Scripture as you find passages which speak to your areas. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit works through the Bible to strengthen faith. It is imperative that you continue to open the Bible, take notes, and meditate on God’s Word.

Searching for Writers

I’m planning to start a new site (in addition to this one). The point of the site is to have internal Christian dialogue, with an emphasis on the fact that despite our disagreements on matters not related to salvation, we are all Christians and should treat each other with love.

The writers for the site will be required to affirm the three ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian).  The posts on the site will be intended for the lay reader but will feature doctrinal discussion on a loving, Christian level. Specifically, some topics could include: the origins of life (i.e. creation vs. evolution vs. ID), Christian approaches to religious diversity, original sin, baptism, the role of women in the church, the authority of the Bible, the authority of the Church, etc. The posts would be laid out either as a point-by-point dialogue between the contributers (i.e. a back and forth with short e-mails in published form) or as series of posts with writers talking back and forth.

The purpose will be many-faced: to encourage discussion among Christians about issues which are important, while still maintaining Christian love for each other; striving for church unity by increasing respect among members of the Body of Christ; potentially apologetic/evangelistic purposes; and giving glory to God.

Posts on this new site will be short, so as to make sure the time commitment is not too high. I’m thinking about around 500 words as being the upper limit (though writers could exceed that if they desired–these issues are important and some could require several pages to fully address).

Any interested writers should be prepared to demonstrate writing skill and a knowledge base sufficient for engaging in discussion on the aforementioned topics. Applicants may submit an up to 500 word sample of writing on one of the topics above, along with a short biography and affirmation of Christian belief (this part will not count towards the 500 words) to oontabob@yahoo.com.  Applications from Christians of any denomination are accepted, though, once more, adherence to the three ecumenical creeds is a requirement (which includes belief in the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, etc.).

I’m also looking for people talented with graphics/etc. who could potentially help with making pictures/banners/etc. for the site.