Real Seekers

In this episode, I was a guest on Tom Jump's YouTube show.  We discussed the Cosmological Argument, Ontological Argument, Argument from Beauty and the Shroud of Turin.

This is our very first episode of the new TheoGeeks Podcast, with both myself and PORA host David Russell as the hosts.  In this first episode we cover Jesus' relationship to the OT law, first we establish what Dr. Dale Allison calls the "conservative Jesus", next we establish the "progressive Jesus" and finally we put it all together to discover the true Jesus, Jesus the Messiah of the OT!

In this show, I engage with Vaal the Atheist to evaluate his views on Compatibilism vs. Libertarian Freewill based on the 5 conditions for freedom; the ability condition, control condition, rationality condition, the nature of causation condition, and the Person as Agent condition. 

This episode was mostly recorded 2 years ago- in this show I provide the warrant for the 2nd Premise of my argument, namely that the Principle of Sufficient Reason as defined as every "thing" that exists has a sufficient reason/explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own internal nature or in an external cause.

Note, due to time constraints, I haven't done much editing on this one, so it somewhat reflects an outdated version of my argument (for e.g. I speak of my first premise as though it said the universe was "an existing thing" as opposed to a "contingent existing thing" or I say PSR applies to "things" but only mention substances rather than saying it applies to all three types of things- substances, heaps and property-things).  That said, despite some little modifications I would've liked to make, by in large the arguments presented are perfectly as I would have presented them today.

In this episode, I continue to assess the warrant for the first of the three premises of our Cosmological argument.  Here I finish off my case providing a third Abductive argument (i.e. inference to the best explanation) for proving that our Universe probably began to exist (as a matter of fact).  

I do so by wrapping up the warrant for Aspect 2 on proving the Universe beginning to exist a finite time ago is the best explanation by comparing it to various eternal cosmological models (including, Quantum Vacuum Fluctuation, Eternal Inflationary and Quantum Gravity Models.

I went on the S&S show to debate my Argument from Beauty with the Atheist David J.- it was good cordial and substantive conversation.

Enjoy :)

This is an argument for God's existence that is often overlooked by Atheists and Christians alike, it's often said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and thus there is no objectivity to it in the same way one can argue for the objectivity of moral values and duties being grounded in God.  Having taken a philosophy of Aesthetics class for my Masters program, I have decided to give the argument from aesthetic values and judgements a second look and discovered how rich the area is in providing an good apologetical argument for God.

By identifying 7 fundamental features about the nature of aesthetic values and the associated judgements we make about them, I identify and assess a total of 7 different theories in the Philosophy of Aesthetics and show why "Theistic Dispositional Realism" (i.e., Non-Natural Agentism) is best explanation relative to the other competing explanatory hypotheses- including Emotivism, Pure Natural Objectivism, 3 Evolutionary Accounts (Natural/Sexual Selection, the Biophilia Hypothesis and Social Cohesion Theory), Pure Natural Subjectivism, Atheistic Aesthetic Platonism and finally end off by comparing and contrasting Natural (or Atheistic) Dispositional Realism with the Theistic counterpart.

World renowned scholar in the philosophy of religion, Dr. Klaas Kraay joins David J., Andrew Knight and myself on RSM to discuss three topics; i) Religious Disagreement, ii) The Hiddenness of God, and iii) Is there a Best Possible World (along with how that relates to the truth or falsity of Theism).  Enjoy :)

I was invited onto a PORA roundtable with several Christians to say farewell to David Pallmann as co-host and speak on the issue of apologetics in culture (including within anti-apologetic church culture).

In this episode of S&S, I am struggling with how best to interact with the various skeptics of the S&S Boards as they were very hard of heart against the truth.  I've evolved since these days and better worked out what strategies are appropriate Biblically for different types of skeptics as I think Jesus' example provides Christians with great flexibility within reasonable limits in how we address individual unbelievers.