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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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defeater

Do the hard sayings of Jesus constitute defeaters for his moral excellence?

August 8, 2012 by Randal

In the thread of my essay “What if I stumble? Arguing against Christianity from the lives of Christians” Mike Gantt commented on the moral excellence of Jesus as follows: the moral excellence implied by his conduct, and made explicit by his teaching, were so elevated when compared to typical human behavior that even unbelievers will […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, ethics, hard sayings of Jesus, hermeneutics, Jesus, morality

If a child can do it, why can’t John Loftus?

March 5, 2012 by Randal

Here is John’s latest response, titled “Even a child can do it,” in full: “Let’s say a recognized expert on cats claims one of them talked. People do not have to be experts in cats to say they need to see the evidence. Nor do any of us need a theory of knowledge to doubt it. But […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, epistemology, faith, internalism, John W. Loftus, rationality

Are Arminians better off when it comes to assurance? Why I’m not so sure.

January 10, 2012 by Randal

Andy Derksen offered an interesting comment on my blog post “Compassion Reformed?” in which he sought to extend the argument from compassion for others to assurance of one’s own salvation. He wrote: Ironically, not only must the Calvinist–*IF* he’s logically consistent with his theology–hold merely “provisional” compassion toward the suffering, he must also hold only […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: arminianism, assurance, Calvinism, defeater, epistemology, falliblism

Morriston on the evil god hypothesis

October 29, 2011 by Randal

Earlier this week Walter forwarded the link to a 2004 article by Wes Morriston which nicely summarizes the problem with Stephen Law’s evil god argument. Before we get to that however, let’s recap the argument.  Law argued against the existence of God (or what we can call “good god”) by pointing out that the believer in a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, evil demon, evil god, problem of evil, skeptical theism, Stephen Law, theodicy, Wes Morriston

Where Stephen Law goes wrong with his evil god argument

October 20, 2011 by Randal

The Atheist Missionary asked me to respond to Stephen Law’s evil god argument. His challenge came with an extended quote from Law. I’ve quoted the most important parts below: “Most people will happily conclude there’s no evil god purely on the basis of the evidential problem of good (whether or not there are other reasons […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, evil god, problem of evil, Stephan Law, The atheist missionary, theodicy

Beliefs that are forever justified?

August 26, 2011 by Randal

El Bryan Libre takes issue with my critique of William Lane Craig. He writes “I think the doubt he’s talking about is strictly whether Christianity (or even just theism) is true.” “Out of the different ways you could have interpreted him what made you choose to go with the most negative (and easiest to knock […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, doubt, epistemology, faith, justification, rationality, reason, William Lane Craig

Dealing with Doubt? On William Lane Craig’s rather bad advice

August 26, 2011 by Randal

Last week The Atheist Missionary made us aware of the following five minute piece of advice on dealing with doubt from the world’s foremost Christian apologist, William Lane Craig. Go ahead, take the five minutes to watch it. I’ll still be around when you’re done to share my opinion.   Craig offers three points in response […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, doubt, epistemology, faith, William Lane Craig

Can we rationally believe in an atonement we don’t understand?

August 18, 2011 by Randal

Having surveyed Ken Pulliam’s discussion of the PST, I have now been asked by Robert: “How do the other theories fare?  I’m guessing they have problems too, since men like Luther and Calvin rejected them in favor of PST.” First off, Luther actually is associated with the Christus Victor model rather than PST, though Calvin […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atonement, defeater, doctrine, faith, rationality, reason, theology, theory

John W. Loftus and a Swede named Mario

August 12, 2011 by Randal

Torgo has requested clarification on one point of my critique of John Loftus’s essay on the alleged improbability of Christianity. Torgo begins by quoting a section of my critique which was summarizing the core problem with Loftus’s argument: “From the perspective of a Christian John is like that analyst calculating the enormous implausibility of the ostrich riding […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, atheism, Christianity, defeater, John W. Loftus, probability, The End of Christianity

Belief in tooth fairies is dumb and belief in god is dumber

August 9, 2011 by Randal

My village atheist alarm started going off this morning so I checked the blog and discovered that somebody was comparing God to the tooth fairy. This is part of what “Contararian” wrote: “If I wish to claim that either being [a tooth fairy or God] exists, it is for me to demonstrate that to an “outsider” […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: defeater, epistemology, God, justification, knowledge, tooth fairy, warrant

Committing moral horrors in God’s name revisited (yet again)

February 6, 2011 by Randal

In “The mutilation of Isaac” I argued that it would have been wrong for Abraham to kill and mutilate his son as a burnt offering. This was in response to Matthew Flannagan’s argument that there is nothing inherently wrong with God commanding a father to kill his child if the father does so knowing that God […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Abraham, defeater, human sacrifice, justification, Matthew Flannagan, warrant

Ad Maitzen: On “What must I believe to be saved?”

December 31, 2010 by Randal

Steve Maitzen’s response to my critique is brief and to the point: “Your proposal invites the same generic reply I gave on p. 182 of my article: You make belief in God (or belief in Jesus) out to be of no particular importance for salvation, a view that’s hard to square with much of the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Christianity, defeater, divine hiddenness, naturalism, Stephen Maitzen

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