A couple of years ago I visited Canada to record television interviews about my book Christian Endgame. Prior to the recording, some of the Christians in the green room told me to be cautious about saying that Christianity is the exclusively true religion. When I inquired why, I was told that it is considered intolerant in Canadian society to claim…
There seems to be a tendency in human beings to draw the logical conclusion that each of us prefers to be true. So when it comes to evaluating arguments for reasonableness and explanatory power, preference tends to weigh heavily in our final assessment. Preference can even at times trump solid evidence that points to the truth of an alternative conclusion.…
Imagine if there was one argument for the truth of Christianity so convincing that everyone who heard it immediately embraced the gospel. Imagine evidence so persuasive that all you had to do was share it with your unsaved friend, and she’d instantly leave her unbelief behind. Imagine a proof that could overcome all obstacles to Christian faith. Almost sounds like…
Are Christians well known for their careful thinking, or does faith do damage to reason? While skeptics sometimes question whether historic Christianity comports with a vigorous logical outlook on life and the world, the truth of the matter is that many advancements in the area of logic have come from the work of Christian scholars. In Patrick Hurley’s popular college…
Do you know that it’s possible to engage in a vigorous argument without your face turning red, your jugular vein popping out, or raising your voice? Lots of people think of arguments solely in terms of verbal fights, but there is another kind. The kind of argument of which I speak is, of course, a logical argument (instead of…
What’s the point? That is the essential question to ask when critically examining arguments. In logic, the point is always what the argument’s conclusion indicates. Thus, the conclusion is also called the central point of the argument. It is what the arguer is attempting to prove and encourage others to accept. The sooner you identify the point of the argument,…
Jewish scholar and radio talk show host Dennis Prager often says, “Clarity is more important than agreement.” And when it comes to reasoning, clarity carries its own persuasive power. Clutter and excessive complexity in an argument frequently stand in the way of the argument’s understandability and credibility. Since being clear in one’s reasoning is advantageous, keep clarity in mind as…
Learning to think for oneself is one of the most important intellectual duties in life. Truth needs to be pursued and apprehended by each individual person. And one of the great benefits of being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27) is that human beings have been given the faculties to hunt and gather the truth. As a logic…
Are professional sports on the up and up? Do the “better” teams win by genuinely defeating the “lesser” teams? With the NBA playoffs having just finished, it’s a good time to mention one of the conspiracy theories that was making the rounds a few years ago. According to many sports fans at the time, the NBA’s league officials were conspiring…
If you want your thoughts on any given subject to be clear and careful, it usually requires engaging the topic more than once. To think again about something means that you want to get it right. Before I came on staff at Reasons to Believe (RTB), I spent almost ten years teaching courses in logic, philosophy, and world religions at…
