Think for Christ

In Part 26 of this Introduction to Apologetics series we set the stage for making a historical case for resurrection of Jesus by comparing the top-down method with a bottom-up method. That is we can arrive to the truth of the Resurrection by first establishing the historical credibility of the New Testament sources which testify to the Resurrection (top-down) or by starting from some well-attested historical facts and arguing that the Resurrection is the best explanation for those facts.

In this episode of Think for Christ Andrew continues to walk us through Soren Kierkegaard's highly influential work Fear and Trembling. Andrew reviews the structure of the work and explains some of Kierkegaard's big ideas. Among the central themes of the book is the "Knight of Faith" which is Kierkegaard's name for the heroic believer who recognizes his absolute duty to God above all else. Kierkegaard illustrates the radical nature of faith through the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac at God's command.

Pat Flynn joins Anthony Alberino to discuss a new version of Thomas Aquinas's cosmological Argument for God. Following on the work of philosopher Barry Miller, Pat makes the case for the existence of God without appealing to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) allowing him to bypass two of the most recurrent objections to cosmological reasoning: (a) the possibility of brute facts (i.e., that not everything needs an adequate explanation of its existence) and (b) the accusation of the composition fallacy. Pat argues that any contingent entity, upon metaphysical analysis, is either a contradictory structure and therefore an impossible existent or else points towards an extrinsic cause for the unity of its really distinct metaphysical parts (namely, its essence and its existence). This conclusion enables the inference that only an uncaused cause with no really distinct metaphysical parts can ultimately produce anything with really distinct metaphysical parts.Amazon link to Pat's book The Best Argument for God: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Argument-God-Patrick-Flynn-ebook/dp/B0CL2P973T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39U9H0C3ZKFMV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4DuJewgSkxzUqIp6I3W5KRUu-dGXgSvnsffyJoixPZ8roBd45LQeT4R0jnc78HimJsKNZyzw8pK0bGBk1T7x7iNhxF4_XcdSz2cOwfAKuo_6S_ZXdjCRV0XhnxghWCGBVTEv0n6vQ0snDvvKq0QK4j5PDm37wy6yg9OFl5m68AVSeSm4zpE1cMXIp8PbkTsQDdBJ9CTyMSu1huSdAV-aw4sYle4BpAzjJ8ng2dvpjgM.UoTCL7dQ3UV7bOl-YQviW3rb59dCVGSXDksaWh0qV0w&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+best+argument+for+god&qid=1733768828&sprefix=the+best+argument+for+god%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-1 Link to Pat's Substack The Journal of Absolute Truth: https://journalofabsolutetruth.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Link to Pat's YouTube channel Philosophy for the People: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyforthePeople

Anthony and Andrew discuss the main theme of Soren Kierkegaard's famous short work, Fear and Trembling. We consider the main theme and aim of the book and how Kierkegaard intends us to see that the intent of Scripture is to order us to God rather than to order us to a system of ethics or morality. True faith, as seen in the story of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac as sacrifice, requires a radical alignment of one's life to God as to the ultimate authority, an authority which transcends all our ethical rationalizations and culturally conditioned expectations.

In Part 25 of this Introduction to Apologetics series we continue our consideration of the historical reliability of the New Testament by reviewing some reasons that can be given in support of the claim that the New Testament authors actually did provide a reliable account about Jesus. Three general categories of evidence for New Testament reliability are considered. First there is what sometimes goes by the name "signs of credibility" (or sometimes also "marks of authenticity"). Here we see that much of what the New Testament reports about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus meets the criteria historians use when evaluating the historical reliability of a source. Then we consider confirmation of the New Testament from non-canonical sources. Here we look at ancient sources, Christian and non-Christian, that corroborate some of the central claims of the New Testament. Finally, we have a brief look at how archaeology has added support to the general historical reliability of the New Testament. Here we consider ways in which archaeological discoveries have contributed to the credibility of some New Testament reports.

In his dialogue the Republic the ancient Greek philosopher Plato famously warned us about the perils of democracy and the moral degradation of what he calls the "democratic man". In this episode, and on the heels of the historic election of Donald Trump to a second term as President of the United States, Anthony Alberino and Andrew Payne discuss what Plato has to say about democracy and its relevance to modern political society.

In this episode on the life and thought of Soren Kierkegaard, Dr. Andrew Payne reviews four major themes that emerge across his works.

In Part 24 of this Introduction to Apologetics series we consider the question: Did the New Testament authors intend to provide a reliable account about Jesus? Sometimes it is claimed that the NT authors, especially the Gospel authors, never actually intended to give us a factual account of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Instead, what we have are mostly fabricated stories full of embellishments and non-historical material. The gospels are thus said to belong to a genre that is more akin to folk lore, legend, or myth rather than to the genre of historical memoir or biography. Of course, if this is the case, then even if the NT was written at the right time and by the right people, it won’t be a historically trustworthy source of information about Jesus since it was never intended to be one in the first place. However, despite the claims of some radically skeptical scholars and internet atheists, we do in fact have very good reasons to believe that the NT writers intended to provide us with historically factual accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In this episode we continue our look at the life and thought of Soren Kierkegaard by considering whether he can rightly be characterized as an existentialist.

In Part 23 of this Introduction to Apologetics series we begin our review of the case for the historical reliability of the New Testament. To make this case, we first argue that the writers of the New Testament were well able to write a reliable account by focusing on the dating and authorship of the New Testaments documents. We show that the authors of the New Testament were the right people writing from the right place and writing at the right time. In other words, the New Testament documents were written close enough to the events they describe and by people who were in a position to know whether the events described actually happened.