The first issue of the Thinking Matters Journal will be published once construction of the new Thinking Matters site is complete. The theme for our inaugural edition is “Introducing Apologetics”. We’ll focus on what apologetics is, what it involves, and why it’s important. We’ll also briefly cover the various apologetic approaches, and expand on these in the next issue.
Recently, Dr John Lennox (Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and author of God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?) and Christopher Hitchens (social commentator and author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) debated whether the new Europe would be better off jettisoning its religious past and welcoming the new atheism. A report from an attendee summarizes the discussion at the Edinburgh event.
The relationship between science and theology is a question that has attracted much thought and controversy. For anyone interested in this discussion and particularly how it is evinced in the creation account of Genesis, two upcoming events in September are being held, one at Auckland university and the other with L’abri.
On Wednesday, June 18, Dr William Lane Craig spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Tauranga Thinking Matters group. Bnonn reports on the event, and the impression it made.
The Auckland debate between Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig, and atheist historian, Bill Cooke is now up on YouTube (HT: MandM). Commentary has also been available from some of those that attended the debate: Ian Wishart, Dale Campbell, and organiser Matthew Flannagan have offered their reflections on the proceedings (I particularly recommend Matt’s excellent summary). The consensus of their thoughts (and even of those without theistic sympathies) accords with the reaction of most that I talked to on the night: Craig clearly emerged as the better. He offered and defended a more rigorous case for his negation of the moot - that belief in God is not a delusion but a reasonable conclusion from the evidence.
The argument for God’s existence from design in the universe has a biography of vertiginous highs and lows. Its roots travel as far back as Socrates and the ruminations of ancient thinkers such as Cicero, who wrote in De Natura Deorum; ‘What could be more clear or obvious when we look up to the sky and contemplate the heavens, than that there is some divinity of superior intelligence?’ Since its early forms in ancient philosophy, the argument held particular favour through the middle ages and the modern world before it fell victim to the metaphysical blade of David Hume and the evolutionary theory in the twentieth century. In more recent times, with deeper scientific insight into the elegance and reliability of the laws of nature and the finely tuned physical constants necessary for life, the argument has been recovered and even responsible for swaying some of its most ardent critics.
The perils of proximity always make it difficult to assess contemporary trends in society. However it seems difficult not to argue that, at least for the West, our age is increasingly a secular age. There has been a shift within most areas of society, such that religion has largely become irrelevant and marginalized. This transformation has not always been homogeneous. In fact, since the late 1960s, the field of philosophy has resisted this sweeping trend and exhibited a remarkable growth and influence of Christian philosophy. William Lane Craig, research professor at Talbot school of Theology, has been one of the intellectual luminaries apart of this minor resurgence.