TOPICS for Future Posts

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My favorite issues in the philosophy of religion are:

  • Does God exist?
  • Did God raise Jesus from the dead?
  • Is Jesus God?
  • Is the Bible inspired by God?

Recently, I have been working on critical evaluations of arguments by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA). I plan to continue my analysis and evaluation of their case for the resurrection of Jesus in Chapter 8 of that book. I also plan to analyze and evaluate their case for the divinity of Jesus in Chapter 7 of HCA. I think I have covered their case for the existence of God in Chapter 3 of HCA, but I plan to go back through those arguments and do the sort of careful analysis and evaluation that I have been doing on the arguments in their case for the resurrection of Jesus.

I also would like to critically analyze and evaluate some arguments for God presented by Edward Feser in his book Five Proofs of the Existence of God.

There are three key Christian apologetics arguments that I want to cover in depth, including different versions of these arguments from different Christian apologists (not just Kreeft and Tacelli):

  • The Trilemma: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic (Pentalemma, in the case of Kreeft and Tacelli).
  • The Resurrection of Jesus (as evidence for Jesus being God or a prophet).
  • Fulfilled Messianic Prophecy (as evidence for Jesus being God or a prophet).

Typically, I focus on finding and revealing serious logical and factual problems with arguments presented by Christian apologists. However, I would like to also provide some positive arguments against Christianity. Here are some such arguments I plan to develop over the next year or so:

OMNIPOTENCE ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is omnipotent.
  2. Jesus was NOT omnipotent.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.

OMNISCIENCE ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is omniscient.
  2. Jesus was NOT omniscient.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.

PERFECT GOODNESS ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is perfectly good.
  2. Jesus was NOT perfectly good.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.

SPIRIT ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is a spirit.
  2. Jesus was NOT a spirit.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.

ETERNAL ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is eternal.
  2. Jesus was NOT eternal.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.

CREATOR ARGUMENT

  1. Something is God ONLY IF it is the creator of the universe.
  2. Jesus was NOT the creator of the universe.
    THEREFORE:
  3. Jesus was NOT God.