Bible, Theology & Philosophy

Within involuntary societies, tolerance is generally a virtue. Not that every idea or action can be tolerated—far from it! Nevertheless, within an involuntary society, presumption should be on the side of tolerance. In any given instance, people who wish to deny tolerance must be required to provide clear and compelling reasons.

Does Ecclesiastes teach Epicureanism? In a word, no. Despite certain passages in Ecclesiastes that “sound” Epicurean, if we take the message of Solomon as a whole and the message of Epicurus as a whole, we discover that the two views of life under the sun are quite at odds with one another. The philosopher known for “vanity of vanities,” in the final analysis, is life-affirming, and the philosopher known for “eat, drink, and be merry” actually sucks the joy out of life.

In chapter one of John Goetsch’s [1] book, Homiletics from the Heart, he wrote,

^{The following notes were presented by Dr. Kevin Bauder, president of Cental Baptist Theological Seminary of Plymouth, MN, at a workshop at the 2006 National Leadership Convention at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, Lansdale, Pennsylvania. They were originally published at SharperIron on March 8, 2006.}

I. Definitions.

A. Professing Brother.

A few people have asked me what I thought about Dr. Thomas M. Strouse’s paper, “The Geocentric Cosmology of Genesis 1:1–19.” After I read the paper, I thought it would be helpful to provide a brief critique of Strouse’s paper. His paper caught my attention because he claimed to examine Genesis 1:1–19.

In any human society some patterns of conduct will be tolerated and some will not. Societies differ over the degree to which they tolerate ideas: Western democracies (especially the United States) try to tolerate the expression of all ideas. Other societies sharply restrict the sphere of ideas that may be expressed.

^{Originally published at SI on March 1, 2006}

Christian apologetics is the discipline or practice of defending and commending Christianity. Christianity as a worldview competes with a host of other worldviews to accurately represent things as they are. Imagine with me a Christian engaging a non-Christian in apologetics. By what criteria will he judge the arguments? Ah, but here is the kicker: The debate is about the criteria themselves.

Tolerance means to allow the expression of ideas or the performance of acts with which one disagrees. It does not necessarily imply any measure of agreement or affirmation. On the contrary, where complete agreement exists, tolerance is neither necessary nor possible. Tolerance is essentially a form of abstinence. Tolerant people abstain from bringing force or other coercion to bear against ideas or conduct that they find offensive.