Evan Minton's Blog, page 31

Q&A: Why Does God Consist Of Only Three Persons?

Evan, thank you for taking the time to post my letter and reply in detail on your blog. I think we're both in agreement that a defense of God's morality requires more than just an appeal to his sovereignty, and so you've explained some other arguments for why God is good and my hypothetical "Bad God" cannot exist. I appreciate the thoughtful response.

I have some questions about The Ontological Argument as applied to the Holy Trinity.

I assume you would agree that it is metaphysically possible...

Rhetorical Points That Internet Atheists Need To Stop Bringing Up

Recently, I posted a screenshot of an old Tweet by Lee Strobel where he said "To continue in atheism, I would need to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason. I simply didn't have that much faith." which was just another way of saying that The Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Local Fine-Tuning Argument, T...

Q&A: What If We Lived In A Universe Ruled By An Evil God?

Evan,
I see a gaping hole in the argument from God's sovereignty in your post, "Answering Two Common Objections To The Author Of Life Argument." First, let me be clear that I am an atheist, but I won't be drawing on my personal belief in zero gods to address your argument.
Suppose, hypothetically, instead of inhabiting a universe created by a (loving, just, and whatever other morally positive attributes) Good God, we inhabited a universe created by a morally Bad God. For example, this Bad God d...

Answering Two Common Objections To The Author Of Life Argument

When atheists accuse God of being immoral, they usually point to nasty Old Testament accounts like the conquest of Canaan, God sicking two female bears on a group of youths for harassing Elisha, or destroying humanity in a massive flood (Genesis 6-9). In addition to various other considerations regarding these specific incidences, one factor I always bring up is that God does no wrong in ending the life of an individual human being. Why? Because He is the author of life and therefore He can t...

Colossians 2:8 Does Not Condemn Philosophy

Some well-meaning but very misinformed Christians discourage the study of philosophy on the basis of a verse in Colossians chapter 2. In Colossians 2:8, the apostle Paul wrote: "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits[a] of the world, and not according to Christ." This verse has become the chief proof-text for anti-philosophy Christians. In fact, even the famous reformed preacher John MacArthur ar...

The Case For Nero Caesar Being The Beast Of Revelation

Note: This paper is available as a downloadable PDF. Click Here. 


Abstract: The beast mentioned in the book of Revelation has garnered much attention from Christians. Speculation abounds regarding the identity of this evil creature who makes war against God and His saints. Most Christians just assume that whoever The Beast is, he's some future person or entity that will reign on Earth for 7 years prior to the return of Christ, and he will put the number 666 on their foreheads and hands an...

The Case For The Preterist Reading Of Matthew 24

Note: This paper is available as a downloadable PDF. Click here. 


Abstract: The Olivet Discourse given by Jesus in Matthew 24-25 has been the source of much speculation regarding the end times and when Jesus said he would return. In this paper, I will make a case that the things Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24-25 are not prophesying of things to occur in our future, but rather these things were fulfilled from 64 A.D to 70 A.D. I will first look at what Jesus said in scripture. After that,...

Why Does John 1 Lack The Definite Article?

This article is a guest post written by my friend and fellow blogger Johnny Sakr of FreeThinking Ministries (www.freethinkingministries.com). He has allowed me (Evan Minton) to post this here with permission. In this post, Sakr refutes the argument of the Jehovah's Witnesses that the lack of the definite article in John 1 proves that Jesus is merely "a" god rather than God. 

New International VersionIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
New Living...

Who Were The Nephillim?

"When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.' The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the her...

If Molinism Is True, Why Doesn't God Use His Middle Knowledge To Save Everyone?

If you've been following this blog, then you probably know what Molinism is. If you haven't, you probably still know what Molinism is if you're a reader of FreeThinking Ministries' blog posts or if you are a big William Lane Craig fan. If you're none of the above, see Tim Stratton's blog post "What In The Possible Worlds Is Molinism?" for a quick introduction. In the rest of this blog post, I'll assume you have a basic knowledge of this theological system.

An objection to Molinism I frequently...