Apologetics Session 4: Questions of Morality

“Apologetics”????  “…but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence…”  1 Peter 3:15-16a NRSV  defence/answer/case = apologia Apologetics

 Conflict with science  Religious wars  Terrorism  “There’s so many religions – which is right?”  “It’s all about power”  “It’s all about money”  Problem of Suffering What keeps people from believing? Apologetics

From last time…  Denominations  The supernatural (demonination?)  Predestination  Revelation Apologetics

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C.S. Lewis:  “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” Supernatural

Christian unity vs. doctrine  Does doctrine – what we believe - have to be sacrificed for the sake of unity?  Why has this not been the case?  Is there ever an excuse for starting a new church? Denominations

What interests us?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  How many aliens can live on the planets of our galaxy?  Which is more important? Supernatural

In the news this week:  Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner take out ad in FT to promote alien quest Supernatural

God outside of Time GD  Sees the whole spacetime block universe  Past, Present, Future are the same thing  Can change the universe in answer to prayer  at the time of its creation Predestination

Some different approaches: 1. Preterism 1. it has no meaning beyond the time in which it was written 2. Futurist 1. it’s all about the end-times 3. Historicist 1. It’s about the whole of history 4. Idealist/Poetic 1. Expresses key theology not details Revelation

Some different approaches: 1. Pre-millenialism 1. 1 st coming 2. church age 3. 2 nd coming years (the millennium) 5. eternity Popular when things are getting worse Revelation

Some different approaches: 1. Post-millenialism 1. 1 st coming 2. church age years (the millennium) 4. 2 nd coming 5. eternity Popular when things are getting better Revelation

Some different approaches: 1. A-millenialism 1. 1 st coming 2. church age=1000 years (the millennium) 3. 2 nd coming 4. eternity Popular at various times! Revelation

video  Biola University promo  (American apologetics college)  Ravi Zacharias (of RZM) Apologetics

1. Are society’s moral values in decline? What evidence would you give for this? 2. Has the perpetrator become innocent and the victim guilty? 3. Are we ruled too much by “our hearts”? If so, then what about asking God to write all His laws in our hearts? questions

4. Do you agree with this statement from the video? “Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete. It is superseded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy, it is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics, and retreats before relativism.” questions

5. What is the basis for your morality? How would you defend that against someone who says “that’s OK for you, but not for me”. 6. Is there really an absolute right and wrong or does it always depend on other factors? 7. People can have great knowledge without knowing God: but can they have great wisdom? questions

8. Anything else? questions