Met up with well-known Chinese scholar Dr Sam Ling of China Horizon today... He was in Malaysia to give a seminar on Puritan theology and spirituality, apologetics and Reformed theology in Mandarin recently.
I'm happy to see his seminar well-attended by 30 odd Mandarin-speaking youths (below 30) - eager, intelligent and zealous group. It's so encouraging bcos they are reaching the grassroots... (something I'm deeply passionate abt)
A local group called Right Path organised this event, so I contacted some leaders and hopefully will be able to network in joint projects in the future.. There will be a camp on Van Tilian apologetics next month or so.
(But, being more of a practitioner than methodologician, I hinted that we need to employ Van Til's approach in real-life situations, not within the safe walls of church...)
OK, Singaporeans may like to know Dr Ling will conduct a seminar
"Introduction to Reformed Apologetics"
Date: 31 Aug - 1 Sept 2005
Venue: Singapore Baptist Church - 1 Cambridge Road 219677 spore
Contact Sis Zheng 65 62993845 for details.
Wow, his Q&A session on Puritanism covers so much ground on Kant, Barth, Pietism, liberalism, deduction, induction I had trouble keeping up!
Basically he advised the Msian youths to read at least 3 solid books each year... develop the skill to read deeply and provide summary... be grounded in the basics and roots of their own evangelical heritage, before venturing out to read others.
He mentioned that those who go off the deep-end are usually those who were hyper-critical of others so much so that when they found out good stuffs about liberalism, for example... they freaked out and fell away. Good advice, i think...
He himself had spent time in non-evangelical institutions before doing his phd in Westminster, the bastion of reformed theology in US of A. So he knows the danger of 'worshipping' the lecturers' heroes.
Someone asked, "What's presuppositionalism?" As far as I can make out...
Historically, man has been on a philosophical quest to discover 'how we know what we know is true is true?'...
There is the 'deduction' group (is Descartes, Locke, Bacon) who move from some 'universals' like math, logic etc. to come to know the 'particulars'. For example, by reflecting, i know square circles are contradictory... so i know that square circles dun exist... i dun need to search the universe in order to know tat.
The 'induction' group (Hume, Berkeley) think that we know thru perceptions (5 senses)... we see that grass gets wet after the rain... This happens repeatedly in our life so tat's how we know.
Cornelis Van Til comes along and says all these methods are man-centered... Everybody has presuppositions i.e. we do not come to evidence with a 'neutral' blank mind... we have a pre-understanding thru which we see the world (a worldview?)
If we buy into a man-centered presupposition, no amount of evidence will change people.
Instead we must approach evidences (even science or history) from a "biblical" presupposition... ie we must presuppose that the Bible is God's Word, the ultimate standard of criterion on which we evaluate the 'evidences'... and so on...
Check out the SideBar links on John Frame...
I'm happy to see his seminar well-attended by 30 odd Mandarin-speaking youths (below 30) - eager, intelligent and zealous group. It's so encouraging bcos they are reaching the grassroots... (something I'm deeply passionate abt)
A local group called Right Path organised this event, so I contacted some leaders and hopefully will be able to network in joint projects in the future.. There will be a camp on Van Tilian apologetics next month or so.
(But, being more of a practitioner than methodologician, I hinted that we need to employ Van Til's approach in real-life situations, not within the safe walls of church...)
OK, Singaporeans may like to know Dr Ling will conduct a seminar
"Introduction to Reformed Apologetics"
Date: 31 Aug - 1 Sept 2005
Venue: Singapore Baptist Church - 1 Cambridge Road 219677 spore
Contact Sis Zheng 65 62993845 for details.
Wow, his Q&A session on Puritanism covers so much ground on Kant, Barth, Pietism, liberalism, deduction, induction I had trouble keeping up!
Basically he advised the Msian youths to read at least 3 solid books each year... develop the skill to read deeply and provide summary... be grounded in the basics and roots of their own evangelical heritage, before venturing out to read others.
He mentioned that those who go off the deep-end are usually those who were hyper-critical of others so much so that when they found out good stuffs about liberalism, for example... they freaked out and fell away. Good advice, i think...
He himself had spent time in non-evangelical institutions before doing his phd in Westminster, the bastion of reformed theology in US of A. So he knows the danger of 'worshipping' the lecturers' heroes.
Someone asked, "What's presuppositionalism?" As far as I can make out...
Historically, man has been on a philosophical quest to discover 'how we know what we know is true is true?'...
There is the 'deduction' group (is Descartes, Locke, Bacon) who move from some 'universals' like math, logic etc. to come to know the 'particulars'. For example, by reflecting, i know square circles are contradictory... so i know that square circles dun exist... i dun need to search the universe in order to know tat.
The 'induction' group (Hume, Berkeley) think that we know thru perceptions (5 senses)... we see that grass gets wet after the rain... This happens repeatedly in our life so tat's how we know.
Cornelis Van Til comes along and says all these methods are man-centered... Everybody has presuppositions i.e. we do not come to evidence with a 'neutral' blank mind... we have a pre-understanding thru which we see the world (a worldview?)
If we buy into a man-centered presupposition, no amount of evidence will change people.
Instead we must approach evidences (even science or history) from a "biblical" presupposition... ie we must presuppose that the Bible is God's Word, the ultimate standard of criterion on which we evaluate the 'evidences'... and so on...
Check out the SideBar links on John Frame...
Comments
But what I'd really like to see is not an apology on how to do apologetics...
Rather, more of examples how each approach works out in real-life situations, with atheists, agnostics, pantheists, non-trinitarian monotheists or whatever..
Now that's Champions League materials... :D
His thought is deeply influenced by Van Tililan (he he... now I am beginning to hear Van Til a lot more) apologetics which stands for presupposition worldview that this world is created by God, hence there is no such thing as 'neutral' facts, but every fact is revelational and pre-interpreted by God Himself. Meaning, ultimately all points to God. This is opposed to evidentialist which consciously or subconsciously look at facts as 'neutral' ground to talk and reason with unbelievers, which according to the Van Tilian apologetics, is a compromise of Christian doctrines.
He also establishes the fact that there is no escape to using circular reasoning because without doing so it is impossible to be consistent. Everyone has their own presuppositions, just that some admit it and some don't. Some are aware and some are blurred. The role of apologetics then, is to help people realize their own presuppositions, to expose the fallacies, and to ultimately take every thought captive to Christ. While wading through all the evidences and even trying to understand other faiths and beliefs, we never give up our position but should always stand at the presupposition of sola scriptura because the Holy Spirit has regenerated our hearts.
The sharing is very God-centered. I love it!