Call me Icarus. My God-given name is Adam, and what’s unfortunate is I’ve always lived up to that name. The miracle came when God broke my rebellion and named me Christian, but when I began to suffer, the miracle seemed like wishful thinking.
Read moreJonathan Edwards vs Charles Finney: On the Causes of Conversion and Revival
Jonathan Edwards’s view on the causes of conversion and revival is more biblical than Charles Finney’s because Edwards maintains the biblical tension of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in conversion—between God’s immediate and mediate actions—while Charles Finney loses that tension by overemphasizing the responsibility of man and the mediated nature of God’s work, and thereby loses grip on some key doctrines like the depravity of man and the sovereignty of God.
Read moreAugustine vs. Cassian: On the Tension Between the Sovereignty of God and the Responsibility of Man
Augustine’s view of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man is more biblical than Cassian’s because he honors the paradox of compatibilism presented in the biblical text while Cassian charges ahead too far into the mystery of God’s character and ends up diverting from other biblical doctrines, like original sin and the free will of man, in order to make this paradox more comprehensible.
Read moreThe Black and White Fallacy, and the Christian Gospel
It’s a little hard to believe that life is really just about a single choice. Actually, sometimes it’s impossible to believe—because often there is a third way. But what the Christian Gospel claims is that there is no third way, that among the millions of layers of complexity in life, there really are only two paths you can take. This, to the secularist, is illogical—the perfect example of the black and white logical fallacy.
Read moreThe Dark Night of My Soul: The Philosophy of Suffering
As many of you know, I've been through an extended period of suffering. It’s hard to communicate it to people who have never endured chronic illness, but it truly broke me. It broke my spirit and it caused me to ask questions I’m not meant to find answers for.
Read moreAlbert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd
Albert Camus is one those philosophers who is close to my heart because he helped me see myself more clearly and thereby helped me get out of a very dark place.
Read moreC. S. Lewis, On the Reading of Old Books
"The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."
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