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Laws of logic
The law of non-contradiction.
- Nothing can both be and not be at the same time in the same respect.
- God is consistent and cannot life.
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The law of excluded middle.
- Any factual statement in its denial cannot both be true.
- Example – either Jehovah is Lord or he is not the Lord.
- Either Buddha was enlightened or he was not.
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The law of bivalence
Any ambiguous declaration statement is either true or false– not neither true nor false and not both true and false.
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The law of identity
- Something is what it is.
- Example: a = a
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Major worldviews:
- Monotheism
- Deism
- Dualism
- Polytheism
- Pantheism
- Naturalism
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Offensive apologetics
To evaluate that worldview against appropriate criteria in order to show its logical deficiencies in relation to Christianity.
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Defensive apologetics
If a genuine objection is brought against Christianity that challenge should be rebutted.
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Constructive apologetics
Builds a case for Christian theism by arguing that Christianity bet fits the appropriate criteria for worldview assessment.
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Criteria for worldview evaluation:
- 1 It explains what it ought to explain
- 2 Internal logical consistency
- 3 Coherence
- 4 Factual adequacy
- 5 Essential viability
- 6 Intellectual and cultural Fecundity
- 7 Radical ad hoc readjustment
- 8 Simpler explanations are preferable to unnecessarilyy complex ones.
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Fideism
- An attempt to protect Christian faith against the assault on reason by means of intellectual insulation and isolation.
- Needs no intellectual fortification form the classical arsenal of apologetics.
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Presuppositionalism
- A school apologetics influenced by reformed
- Christianity that rejects the tools of classical apologetics.
- Unless we presuppose a Christian worldview, we have no reason to trust our rational faculties.
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Reformed Epistemology
- Alvin Plantinga
- The believer can have a warrant for his or her belief
- without having evidence for the belief.
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Limits of Apologetics
- The Bible is a long, ancient and sometimes perplexing book.
- Apologetics is limited not only by the difficulty of the subject itself, but by the weaknesses of the subjects who practice it – us.
- If we fall short as apologists, this does not mean that Christianity is untrue or irrational.
- Apologetics must be understood within the framework of God's secret councils.
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