Blog Archive

You are viewing the monthly archive for: December, 2010

Christmas Wishes from Thinking Matters

Merry Christmas from all of us at Thinking Matters!

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The Unique Gift of Christmas

A quote from Tim Keller about how Christmas and the incarnation reveal God’s heart for both the physical and the spiritual.

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Video from the Saddleback Apologetics Weekend

Media from the recent apologetics conference hosted at Rick Warren’s church on the topic: “Who is Jesus?”.

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The Mystery that Makes Sense of Everything

As we count the days down to Christmas, here are some thoughts from J.I. Packer about the greatest mystery of the Christmas story: the Incarnation.

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Why Southgate’s “co-suffering” Argument Suffers: The Intrusion of the Emotional Problem of Evil in Evolutionary Theodicy

In the conclusion to his series on the Problem of Evil, Stuart considers the emotional force of pain, suffering, predation and extinction experienced by the animal kingdom on the presumption of evolution in Christopher Southgate’s theodicy, and possible strategies for an appropriate defense.

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Southgate’s “only way” the Wrong Way: God’s Omnipotence and Benevolence in the Problem of Natural Evil

Christopher Southgate, author of The Groaning of Creation, denies a cosmic fall on the grounds that pain and predation are instrumental in the Darwinian process for producing values, such as consciousness, rationality and the “range, beauty, complexity, and diversity of creatures the Earth has produced.” He asserts that this was the “only way” that God could have achieved this. Stuart argues that this is incoherent if God is omnipotent, and offer a preferable argument that preserves God’s omnipotence.

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Friday Night Miscellany

A round-up of news, articles and other items of interest on the internet, from Plantinga to Narnia to ancient Greek computers.

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The Problem of Evil: Part Two

In Part Two of this series on the Problem of Evil, Stuart looks at the theodicies of Christopher Southgate and William Dembski that take into account animal suffering in an evolutionary history as a part of the problem of evil, and in doing so develop a framework for his own theodicy.

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The Problem of Evil: Part One

The task of reconciling the evil in this world with the goodness of God and his creation belongs to a branch of Christian theology called Theodicy. This task has been exacerbated in the past century and half by evolutionary theory that makes us acutely aware of the long-ages past filled with animal suffering. Developing a theodicy is of particular interest to the Christian theologian who seeks to make Christianity credible in the mental environment and requires the analytical tools of the Philosophy of Religion.

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Roger Nicole, 1915 – 2010

Evangelical scholar and reformed theologian Roger Nicole passed away yesterday at the age of 95.

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Audio from the Evangelical Philosophical Society Apologetics Conferences

The EPS website has released all of the great teaching from their popular apologetics conferences.

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Two New Books about Christianity and the Life of the Mind

Crossway has just published two helpful new books on the place of the mind in the life of the Christian and how believers should think about thinking.

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Does God hate the sin but love the sinner?

Don Carson, Research Professor of the New Testament, discusses the popular claim that God hates the sin but loves the sinner.

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Harry Potter, Wandlore and the Imago Dei

Here I look at another reason why Christians can appreciate Harry Potter: the symbolic meaning of Harry’s wand and what it means to be truly human.

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