Several Christian thinkers, most notably, C S Lewis, John Hare, Robert Adams and William Lane Craig have argued that Theism provides a superior foundation for moral obligation than Naturalism does. Most of these thinkers defend this notion by developing and defending a divine command theory.[1] John W Loftus is aware of this and in The […]
Entries Tagged as 'William Alston'
John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I
May 7th, 2009 14 Comments
Tags: Atheism · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · John Loftus · Philip Quinn · Robert Adams · Stephen Evans · William Alston
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part I
April 18th, 2009 1 Comment
This is the first of a two-part series where I examine a recent argument criticising religious ethics by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. In many of his publications and debates William Lane Craig has defended the contention that if theism is true then there exists a sound foundation for moral duties. In a recent article, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Alston · William Lane Craig
The Problem of Evil: Why does God Allow Suffering?
April 12th, 2009 74 Comments
One of the most common objections to the Christian faith is the problem of evil. Of all objections mounted against the Christian faith, prima facie, it does seem the most compelling, one of the hardest things for us to get our heads around. How does a Christian reconcile the fact of evil and suffering in […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Apologetics · Philosophy of Religion · William Alston
Belief without Proof: Is Belief in God Rational if there is no Evidence? Part II
April 6th, 2009 3 Comments
In my previous post I criticised the rationalist objection to belief in God. In this post I want to sketch an alternative view of faith and reason defended by Alvin Plantinga. In my next post I will address two common objections to this conception.Belief in God as Properly BasicIn several of his works Alvin Plantinga […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Faith and Reason · William Alston
Does Pluralism Make Faith Arbitrary?
October 20th, 2008 2 Comments
Recently I have been reading Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. (This is not like me because I don’t typically read popular apologetics books, and it is even more rare that I would lead a blog entry with one.) One thing that interested me is that when Keller […]
Tags: Apologetics · Faith and Reason · Pluralism · Timothy Keller · William Alston
The Bible Tells Me So
July 25th, 2008 2 Comments
Suppose a person upon reading scripture and hearing the scriptures expounded through preaching from the pulpit believes that God has prohibited a certain class of actions. Suppose further that the believer is aware of no conclusive argument either for God’s existence or for the affirmation of the command in question. Nor is he or she […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Faith and Reason · Greg Dawes · William Alston
The Battle of the Bills: A Review of the Craig – Cooke Debate
June 18th, 2008 8 Comments
My small idea of getting Dr William Lane Craig to have a debate at Auckland University ended up being an event that far exceeded my expectations. Despite the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH) booking a larger lecture theatre at the last minute we still had to open up three additional lecture theatres […]
Tags: Apologetics · Atheism · Bill Cooke · Debates · Faith and Reason · NZARH · Philosophy of Religion · Rationalists · William Alston · William Lane Craig
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
