The Master's Pottery Shop

• What is Christian Apologetics - part b

  “The most crucial issue facing the Christian apologetist is that of method: Should the apologist in his effort to defend the faith and to persuade the unbeliever of Christianity’s truth claims reason to or from special revelation?  Said another way, Should the Christian apologist begin his defense of the faith standing within the circle of revelation or with the unbeliever outside the circle of revelation?” (Robert Reymond, Faith’s Reasons For Believing, p. 26)

  Where do we start from?

  How we answer the following questions will determine where a person starts when engaging in apologetics.

  What is the nature and function of general revelation?

  Major Apologetic Methods:

• What is the nature and function of special revelation?
• Are there “two books” of knowledge, specifically general and special revelation?  Or just one?
• How does sin effect man’s ability to know God?
• What is the character of faith?
• What is the test of truth?
• What kind of certainty does Christianity offer?
• What is the value of theistic proofs?
• What is the value of Christian evidences?
• What is the nature of the common ground between believer and unbeliever that allows for intelligent conversation? 

1. Evidentialism
   • all truth is discovered through sense perception 
   • asserts the ability and trustworthiness of human reason in its search for religious knowledge
   • relies on probability arguments using empirical or historically verifiable facts
   • insists that religious propositions must be subjected to the same kind of verification that scientific assertions must undergo
   • examples would be the Thomistic Roman Catholic tradition (see Thomas Aquinas), inconsistent Reformed evidentialist (i.e. R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner), and the Arminian tradition)
2. Presuppositionalism (or Biblical Foundationalism or scripturalism)
   • fear of the Lord precedes understanding everything else (Prov. 1:7)
   • understanding follows upon and is governed by the faith commitment.  This is often expressed by the Latin expression Credo ut intelligam (”I believe in order that I may understand”).
   • believes that human depravity has made human autonomous reason incapable of understanding truth
   • the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is necessary for Christian faith and enlightenment.
   • example would be the consistent reformed tradition
3. Experientialism
   • stresses inward religious experience as the foundation of truth instead of evidence or written revelation
   • subjective religious experience is the ground of truth and meaning
   • insistence upon the paradoxical character of Christian teaching and that Christian truth is not capable of rational analysis
   • strong emphasis on transcendence and hiddenness of God in religious experience.
   • example would be the Neo-orthodox tradition (see Karl Barth)

Follow Up Questions:

• Why would an arminian naturally tend towards evidentialism?
• What does the Bible say about man’s ability to understand truth?  Read Prov. 2:6-7; John 1:4-5; 14:6,16-17; Col. 2:2; 1Cor. 1:17-20 
• What about Romans 1:32; 2:12-16?  Seems like unbelieving man kind knows a lot without “special revelation”  Are these truths understood through sense perception?  Do they know these truths with certainty?
• Why are presuppositionalist often labeled as “gnostic”.  What is gnosticism?  How is it different from presuppositionalism?

Related Articles:

• The White Horse Inn: Nonsense on Tap - John W. Robbins from September-October 2007 Trinity Review

What is Christian Apologetics - part A

Here is a good quote for all to think on, it is from Stephen Charnock’s book “The Existence and the Attributes of God”:  

“It is true, God’s will cannot be hindered of its effect, for then God would not be supremely blessed, but unhappy and miserable : all misery ariseth from a want of that which a nature would have, and ought to have : besides, if anything could frustrate God’s will, it would be superior to him : God would not be omnipotent, and so would lose the perfection of the Deity, and consequently the Deity itself ; for that which did wholly defeat God’s will, would be more powerful than he. But sin is a contradiction to the will of God’s revelation, to the will of his precept: and therein doth naturally tend to a superiority over God, and would usurp his omnipotence, and deprive him of his blessedness. For if God had not an infinite power to turn the designs of it to his own glory, but the will of sin could prevail, God would be totally deprived of his blessedness. Doth not sin endeavor to subject God to the extravagant and contrary wills of men, and make him more a slave than any creature can be? For the will of no creature, not the meanest and most despicable creature, is so much crossed, as the will of God is by sin (Isa. xliii. 24): ” Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins:” thou hast endeavored to make a mere slave of me by sin. Sin endeavors to subject the blessed God to the humor and lust of every person in the world.” Stephen Charnock’s

Take time to think and ponder:

When we stubborn, unregenerate, measly, nonrepentant, and sinful humans believe we who have violated God’s Moral laws have the right, and a free will, to override God and choose Him and grant ourselves salvation, we make ourselves a God, because we believe we can checkmate God and that He doesn’t have the power to do anything about it. Nor would He be Sovereign with the power to choose (elect) whom He wants to save. When one believes he or she can checkmate God they are on VERY dangerous ground.

Lynn

Excalibur Food Dehydrator

You are asking, why in the world would I put this on my site, and I guess you could say, I believe that we are to help each other and when we find something that will help us in our journey here on earth we should share it with our sisters and brothers in Christ. I don’t get anything for putting this on my site but it could be a help to you.

http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/ here is Excalibur’s official web site. I have also placed it in my Favorites - Excalibur’s Offical Site

If you order an Excalibur I suggest you buy it from Excalibur’s official site, you may call them as we did, however ordering from them you actual are assured of receiving your dehydrator.

A friend named Tammy  ordered from another site and never received her unit. She then placed an order direct from the Excalibur’s official site. Tammy knows of others who ordered from other web sites aswell and didn’t get there units either. We ordered our directly from Excalibur without any troubles at all.

I have one Excalibur which I have only had for a few months and also have a 20 year old Vita Mix Harvester stackable dehydrator which you can’t buy anymore. Although, there are other units that are stackable on the market.

I love both of my machines, however I cannot use frozen foods in my stackable dehydrator because the fan and the motor are in the bottom, then when the foods drip it destroys the motor and fan. So do not use frozen foods in a stackable unit… the Excalibur fan and motor are in the back of the unit so when frozen foods drip it does not harm the machine.

The Excalibur comes with a timer or without depending on which you want.

Oh speaking of Tammy she does a LOT of dehydrating and she has two Excaliburs and is getting another one for Christmas this year, she not only dehydrates for her family but for others. She also has a web site you can go to at: http://www.dehydrate2store.com/ - you will really enjoy this site. I have also placed it in my Favorites under Tammy’s Dehydrating Site 

Enjoy,

Lynn

Times are tough and we need to take a lesson from the 10 virgin in the Bible - remember some were ready and had oil in their lamps and others had to beg for oil and ended up leaving to find oil, when the Bride Groom came - the wise  went in - but the ones who were foolish were left out.

Stop and think about the times in which we are living… if you set aside food for your family and times do get bad, you will have food for your family, if times get better then your pantry has a supply for you still to feed your family from.

There is a web site I highly recommend…http://www.dehydrate2store.com/.I have it in my favorites under Tammy’s Dehydrating Site. The site is owned by a lady named Tammy and she has filled it with so many tips and helpful things to help you along your journey of dehydrating, even videos on how to.  You can also find her videos on U-Tube.

You ask — why I am suggesting dehydrating and here is my reason… 1 bushel of tomatoes = 32 quart jars of canned tomatoes -  but that same bushel will dehydrate down to 2 quart jars - it takes much less storage space — not only that but dehydrating retains much more of the enzymes - vitamins and minerals than any other method of preserving your food.

I do not know what will happen, as I am not God but I think God has taught us many times to be prepared. I hope you are among the wise and prepare for what could befall us in America, be ready to care for those you love.

Lynn