Critics of Christianity often ask how can a good and loving God command the extermination of the Canaanites as is taught the Old Testament? A clear assumption behind this question is that the Old Testament teaches that God did in fact command the extermination of the Canaanites, an assumption which is based on a straight-forward […]
Entries from June 29th, 2010
Wolterstorff, the Canaanites and Hyperbole: A Response to Ken Pulliam
June 29th, 2010 47 Comments
Tags: Canaanites · Divine Command Theory · Genocide · Ken Pulliam · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics
Auckland Bloggers Drinks – This Thursday
June 29th, 2010 10 Comments
On the first Thursday of every month bloggers who happen to be in Auckland gather for the B3 (Bloggers Bar Bash). What: Auckland Bloggers Drinks When: Thursday 1 July from 6.30pm Where: Galbraiths, 2 Mt Eden Road, Mt Eden, Auckland The B3, as it is coined by regulars, is open to anyone who writes for, […]
Tags: Bloggers Drinks · Events
Putting Down my Pen
June 18th, 2010 16 Comments
In an exam room somewhere on the campus of the University of Auckland I just put down my pen. (Thanks to the wonders of blog post scheduling I can both blog and write an exam contemporaneously). Unlike every other time I have put down my pen at the end of an exam during the long […]
Tags: Law Studies
Contra Mundum: Secularism and Public Life
June 1st, 2010 63 Comments
Legal scholar Stephen Carter stated, One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will. In […]
Tags: Christopher Eberle · Contra Mundum · Doctrine of Religious Restraint · Investigate Magazine · Michael Tooley · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Philip Quinn · Religion in Public Life · Richard Rorty · Robert Audi · Stephen Carter · Terence Cuneo
Myth, Truth and Genesis 1-11
May 24th, 2010 44 Comments
In Naturalism Defeated, Evan Fales attacks the biblical teaching that man is made in the image of God. One reason he gives is, “How seriously, then, should one take the testimony of Genesis 1:26-27? … There is the generally mythical character of Genesis; many of the themes in the first 11 chapters are borrowed from, […]
Tags: Evan Fales · Genesis · Gordon Wenham · Greg Beale · Hermeneutics · Inerrancy · Peter Enns · Selection
Auckland Bloggers Drinks – This Thursday
May 11th, 2010 5 Comments
On the first Thursday of every month (except for this month because the first Thursday fell on a quiz night that Peter, Maria, Matt, myself and others wanted to go to) Auckland bloggers gather for the B3 (Bloggers Bar Bash). What: Auckland Bloggers Drinks When: Thursday 13 May from 6.30pm Where: Galbraiths, 2 Mt Eden […]
Tags: Bloggers Drinks · Events
Contra Mundum: Richard Dawkins and Open Mindedness
May 6th, 2010 146 Comments
The bold statement “Richard Dawkins opens minds” leaped out at me from the newsletter sitting on the University of Auckland’s Law Library counter. The article went on to sing the praises of Richard Dawkins and mentioned his book The God Delusion. On reading the piece one could be forgiven for concluding that Dawkins’ works are […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atheism · Contra Mundum · Faith and Reason · Investigate Magazine · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Peter Van Inwagen · Richard Dawkins · Richard Swinburne · Science and Religion · The God Delusion · 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.
