Almost three and a half years ago I waded into an issue in a blog for which in some circles I was scorched with disagreement and (by some people) with ridicule. I warned that respect for what is called widely “the Great Tradition” was beginning seriously to cause the boat of sola scriptura to list. Events since then have shown that my concerns should not have been dismissed as foolish and ridiculous.
Christians should be cautious, as though feelings, happenstances, and desires are equated to God’s will. Such conclusions based on flimsy forms can be just as arbitrary as interpreting entrails of sacrificial animals.
Shockingly, a man in Minnesota who professed to be a Christian has been revealed as a murderer. Because he hated abortion, he murdered two pro-abortion lawmakers and tried to murder many more.
Men cannot hold fast the truth in unrighteousness. Rather, they hold down, repress, or suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Dr. James White uses the illustration of someone actively trying to hold down a beach ball under the water!
It is the business of apologetics to present the authentication of natural revelation as the context of our redemptive relationship with God and the authentication of redemptive revelation as the basis of our redemptive knowledge of God.
Cornelius Van Til developed the system of apologetics known as presuppositionalism in conscious interaction with Warfield and Kuyper.
Natural theology refers to the theology constructed by reason on the basis of natural revelation. For Kuyper, natural theology has a negative significance.
Princeton’s theology and apologetics were deeply influenced by its link to Common-Sense Realism.
Kant’s philosophy establishes the futility of non-Christian thought.
There is surely an enormous contrast between the approaches of Aquinas and Calvin to apologetics.