Questions tagged [apologetics]
Defenses of religious positions using reason. This tag should only be used with respect to disagreements with religions other than Christianity.
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For those who believe in the resurrection, what makes it different from these other extraordinary sightings?
Paul wrote that 500 people saw Jesus at once (1 Cor 15:6). If his recounting is true, it's obvious they saw something, but it's not clear to me why that thing couldn't have been a vague figure ...
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Is God being just by sending Christian murderers to Heaven?
Let's say that a Christian serial killer has murdered many people who happened to not be Christians. Would God be just by sending the Christian serial killer to Heaven, while sending his victims to ...
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Is there a comprehensive list of arguments for Christian theism?
On the internet, one can find articles like 100 Reasons to Believe that God Does Not Exist written by atheists. Are there any articles/papers/books that, on contrary, compile a large number of ...
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What are Christian responses to Carlo Alvaro's argument against theism (the “Heaven Ab Initio” Argument from Evil)?
I'm referring to Carlo Alvaro's paper The “Heaven Ab Initio” Argument from Evil:
HAIAFE (“Heaven Ab Initio” Argument from Evil):
As a perfect being, God’s goal is to create free-willed creatures ...
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What makes Christian theism more likely to be true than polytheism?
There are infinitely many combinations of possible polytheisms (2 gods, 3 gods, 4 gods, etc). There are also polytheisms where gods perform different and often complementary functions. What makes ...
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Is Trinitarian Christian theism a simple hypothesis?
For theism to be simple, it must follow from some basic property. Christian theism posits an unlimited agent at the core of reality and likewise a perfect being that has no proper parts as per divine ...
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What is the solution to the Problem of Child Cancer? [duplicate]
Why would an all-powerful God allow young children to have terminal diseases like cancer? Why would an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity allow innocent younglings to experience such profound pain ...
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How does your denomination refute the various claims that God is a liar?
A recent question asked for a natural theology answer to this question. I am however more interested in a denominational answer with the valid reasoning, theology, doctrine, etc. of that denomination.
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If every denomination is skeptical of every other denomination, why shouldn't non-Christian outside observers be skeptical of all denominations?
To the best of my understanding, Christianity lacks a unified theory or epistemology. Instead, each denomination proposes its own framework (though calling these "theories" may be ...
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What is the Calvinist/Reformed solution to the Problem of Hell?
How could a loving and just God condemn people to eternal conscious torment, a punishment that seems disproportionate to any finite sins committed in a limited human lifetime? If God desires all to be ...
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Belief of Nasrani Christians
What were the beliefs of the Syriac Christians in Arabia at the time of the Islamic prophet?
I have heard that these Nazarene Christians (Christians of the city of Najran) did not believe that Jesus ...
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How can souls be the real thing? [closed]
If you look at historical records, the concept of a soul has existed long before it was ever "revealed" by any ancient prophet, with tribes and ancient civilizations already coming up with ...
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How can the Jewish burden of proof argument against Christianity be refuted? [closed]
Adherents of Rabbinic Judaism makes the following argument:
If Christianity is not true then it is idolatry because we know that Jesus was at least human. The abrogation of the Mosaic Law although ...
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Mandaenism and Christianity
This paper The Priority of Mandaean Tropes Generally Considered Derivative of Christian and Islamic Influences seems to show that Mandaenism influenced a lot of Christianity and Islam, as we see many ...
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What reasons does Christianity offer to reject Apathetic Agnosticism?
Wikipedia defines apathetic agnosticism as follows:
Apathetic agnosticism
A view related to apatheism, apathetic agnosticism claims that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one ...
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For those who believe that Noah's flood is not global, how do they reconcile it with universal judgment?
Several Christian Bible scholars / theologians, for various reasons, want to interpret the flood in Genesis 6-9 as "not global" (see various interpretation). Those who believe there was a ...
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A step into darkness: Historical Judeo-Christian relations in the early church, does it persist in the modern era?
I recently took a "plunge" into the Jewish SE and noticed a very strong anti-christian sentiment from some of the active and "vocal" members. Some of this was my own reaction, but ...
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God the Father punished the Son as sin-bearer: how does that prove God’s righteousness?
Given that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, “the righteousness of God is revealed” (Romans 1:16-17), and the gospel is the good news of what God did in Christ, how is this explained in the New Testament?...
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What is an apologetic to confront Schellenberg's non-resistant divine hiddenness argument?
I was came across an Atheist YouTuber and one of his arguments against the existence of G-d is Schellenberg's non-resistant divine hiddenness argument and its three premises.
How would you address ...
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God as he relates to truth [closed]
I am convinced that none of Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God are sufficient to proving his being. All of these have been thoroughly destroyed, underwritten, decimated by secular ...
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Can the Bible be the word of God, when there are multiple versions of it?
I recently found out on quora that the Catholic Bible has 73 books; the Orthodox Bible contains 76 or 77 books; the Protestant 66; and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo (Amharic) has 81 books. With ...
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Were the Nazis "real" Christians? [closed]
Well, I know this question sounds a bit provoking, but I want to collect reasons to refute that Christians can be Nazis as well.
I recently had a debate with someone who noted that the German ...
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How do Christians present the teleological argument for God's existence in an era where abiogenesis and evolution are so widely accepted?
The teleological argument is defined as follows:
The teleological argument (from τέλος, telos, 'end, aim, goal'; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent ...
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Is God an artist? [closed]
If Man creates art in paintings and sculptures, etc, which are depictions of the natural world such as landscapes flora and fauna, life itself and man accepts and qualifies this to be art.
Is the ...
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Is there a study that gathered credible accounts of healing under scientific scrutiny?
Is there a study that gathered accounts of healing under scientific scrutiny?
What is meant by healing?
Healing in this context means a person who had a medically documented sickness was healed in a ...
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What is a Christian response to the claim that atheists make that "the Bible condones slavery" in Colossians 3:22-25?
Colossians 3:22-25 (NIV) states:
22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence ...
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Do any Christians adopt a reliabilist approach to their belief in God and Christianity?
Reliabilism is defined by several sources as follows:
Reliabilism is an approach to the nature of knowledge and of justified belief. Reliabilism about justification, in its simplest form, says that a ...
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What is the biblical basis for answering questions about Christianity under the ethical rules of conduct on a non-Christian platform on the Internet?
Most groups of Christian faiths consider their beliefs and associated ethics are above anything the world can understand. Nevertheless they will condescend from their lofty and glorious faith and ...
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Can you prove that God is just for punishing Jesus without taking into account Jesus also being God?
If Jesus was merely a man, then God would seem unjust for punishing the innocent Jesus in place of the guilty due to violating the following:
Man is to be put to death for his own sin and not for the ...
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Why did the Catholic Church ban Pascal's Pensées?
The Wikipedia page for Blaise Pascal's apologetic work Pensées says that the Catholic Church banned the book:
However as conflicting with the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church it has been forbidden to ...
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According to Christian apologetics, how might an atheist come to recognize the reality of Satan and acknowledge that they've been deceived by him?
From a Christian perspective, atheists are regarded as holding mistaken beliefs concerning the existence of God and spiritual truths. It is believed that they are deceived by Satan, an evil entity ...
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How important is the discipline of textual criticism for Christian apologetics?
Does a Christian apologist aiming to uphold the accuracy and reliability of modern Bibles require a strong understanding of textual criticism? Put differently, when making a comprehensive argument ...
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Does Young Earth Creationism presuppose Biblical inerrancy?
Suppose X is a neutral, honest, open-minded truth seeker, and let's say Y is an apologist for Young Earth Creationism (YEC). If Y intends to persuade X of the truth of YEC, must Y first establish the ...
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Are there prominent textual criticism books defending the faithful preservation of the gospels in modern Bibles compared to the original manuscripts?
Numerous skeptics assert that modern Bibles are the result of a succession of copies of copies of copies of copies, implying that across centuries of transcription, translation, and interpretation, or ...
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How do men of faith separate good miracles from bad miracles? [closed]
The most standard problem of miracles, attacked by Christian apologists, is that miracles break the immutable laws of physics, and therefore by definition are logically impossible. This was put ...
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Are there any clear Prophecies that Jewish Rabis cannot refute concerning Jesus as Messiah? [closed]
Are there any prophecies about Jesus that contradict (refute adequately) rabbinical Judaism? I read a book with all of the Old Testament prophecies, but the rabbis always seem to have some way of ...
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What lines of evidence and arguments refute the notion that the gospels are nothing more than dismissible 'reports of reports of reports of reports'?
In a previous question addressing skeptical analogies aiming to cast doubt on the evidential worth of testimonies for extraordinary claims, I cited this source which I'd like to revisit here with a ...
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presuppositional apologetics
Well, recently I've been trying to better understand the different apologetics approaches, but am having a hard time understanding the presuppositional apologetics standpoint. I've heard several ...
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How do Christians address the "Bigfoot" analogy presented by skeptics in relation to the resurrection of Jesus?
Bigfoot was brought up by Joe Rogan during his interview with Stephen Meyer, as discussed in Paulogia's review of the interview in this video:
Stephen Meyer: And then that there were reports that he ...
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What is the Biblical basis for Christians partaking in formal intellectual debates with atheists and skeptics?
Notable examples include:
Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens - Full Debate [HD]
The God Debate II: Harris vs. Craig
Does Math Point to God? William Lane Craig + Graham Oppy
...
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Should apologetics take into account deeper convictions behind rational arguments?
Lately I came across What are Christian responses to the atheistic argument that God is an unnecessary and overly complicated extra step? and posted an answer to it. Although I wrote my post in ...
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How might a Christian persuade a naturalist non-theist that the universe cannot be a brute fact?
In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact. There are two main ways to explain something: say what "...
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How do Christian advocates of the Fine Tuning argument for God's existence address the objection posed by the Anthropic Principle?
The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that the range of possible observations that could be ...
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What are Christian responses to the atheistic argument that God is an unnecessary and overly complicated extra step?
One presentation of this argument is put forward by Carl Sagan:
"If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding universe is correct - what happened before that? Was the ...
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When did the demand for explicit deity claims by Jesus emerge?
It is my opinion that the demand or challenge to point to explicit deity claims by Jesus in the Bible began in very recent times—possibly not until the 20th century, by groups that denied his deity. ...
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What are Christian responses to Graham Oppy's argument for atheism from naturalism?
Short version
I'm specifically referring to Graham Oppy's paper An Argument for Atheism from Naturalism:
Abstract This paper outlines an argument for atheism from naturalism that I have developed in ...
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What extrabiblical arguments do Christians employ (i.e., utilize in apologetics) to defend the existence of spirits or souls?
According to the 2020 PhilPapers Survey results, when asked about their stance on Consciousness: identity theory, eliminativism, functionalism, dualism, or panpsychism?, only 20.98% leaned towards or ...
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What are rebuttals to the argument that Christians only worship God to give their lives meaning?
Many people argue that we only created God and religion to give our lives meaning, and that is why we worship God and other gods. However, we have to take into consideration that humans tend to ...
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When is it rationally justified for a Christian to say that an anomalous event that has taken place is a miracle?
I've been engaged in a thought-provoking chat discussion with an atheist on the philosophy site. In our conversation, I've been advocating for the idea that there is evidence supporting the existence ...
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Apologetics vs. Evangelism?
When engaging with non-believers, including atheists, agnostics, apatheists, pagans, and others, two distinct approaches come to light:
The first is the Apologetics approach, involving the ...
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