Functional Gnosticism

As Christians we believe the fact that we exist as embodied creatures is not inconsequential. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always upheld the sacredness of the physical world. Attentive thinkers from Paul to C.S. Lewis have argued that, contra the notion that our bodies are unfortunate barriers and irrelevant to our identities, matter matters to God. The Gnostic philosophy that offered an alternative reality unencumbered by the physical world where we can we find our true selves, was one that Christians took head on in the early church. Could one be both a Gnostic and a faithful Christian? No. Against Gnosticism, the church draws upon its rich resources from the creation narrative itself in which God makes Adam from the dust of the ground to the early creeds which confess that God “was incarnate and was made man,” as we (try to) answer the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Moreover, it is on the grounds that we think our bodies matter that Christian ethics calls for a strict stance on sexual practice, for example. But of course, the necessary presuppositions in place in… Read More »Functional Gnosticism

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What’s Wrong with Apologetics?

I’ve been an apologetics enthusiast ever since I watched William Lane Craig as a sophomore in high school. Like many, I grew up a little Craig-disciple echoing the oft repeated arguments I heard. I loved watching the debates, the conferences, the panels. (In fact, I wrote my high school senior thesis on the moral argument for God’s existence.) That love persisted throughout college as I chose to major in philosophy. At one point I wrote a post titled “4 Reasons Not to Dismiss Apologetics,” and the very first entries I wrote for this blog (six years ago now!) are titled, “Why I Believe in God” where I rehash a few of the standard theistic arguments. After graduate school, I even taught Apologetics at a Christian college. And through my current work, I still desire to engage in the task of defending and explaining the truth of the Christian faith. All of this to say, I have a deep appreciation for apologetics. But something has gone wrong in modern day apologetics, and I think it has something to do with the absence of a sapiential approach… Read More »What’s Wrong with Apologetics?

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