"A Christian disease"

John W. Loftus said:

“ I'm not defending her. Let her defend her own views.

But many of you Christians accept the Kalam Cosmological Argument which was first proposed by a Muslim. Why the double standard?”

i) To begin with, the Kalam argument was first proposed by a Byzantine theologian—John Philoponus. It was also favored by Bonaventura.

In addition, it made it’s way into Islamic philosophical theology. But that’s not where it got off the ground.

As a student of William Lane Craig, you ought to be more conversant with the history of this argument.

ii) But supposing, to play along with your objection, that we Christians did adopt and/or adapt an argument of non-Christian origin, in what sense is that a double standard?

One of the problems with Murdock is the quality of her sources. And where historical sources are concerned, the provenance of the source is often quite germane to its reliability, or lack thereof.

“Many influential philosophers and scientists have had stupid ideas too.”

I simply find it highly ironic that a satellite of the Secular Outpost which incessantly assails Christian believers for their alleged gullibility would invite a New Age quackster like Ms. Murdock to be a member of your team.

But, hey, that’s fine by me. Water seeks its own level. In this case, the gutter.

“Oh, and one more thing. I do not want to be like Christians who will distance themselves, excommunicate and shun people who do not believe exactly like I do.

That's a Christian disease I've left in the dust.

You, however, can have at it. I see it daily on this Blog, where you debate with your fellow believers over minutia when you should have a concerted intellectual attack against those who do not believe.

But then, that's Christianity for ya........”

There are several things wrong with this diagnosis:

i) The T-bloggers are very selective about what theological traditions we critique.

ii) We do two things at Triablogue: (a) we warn fellow travelers against taking various wrong turns, and (b) we point them in the right direction.

We don’t merely focus all our fire what is wrong with this or that path, but we also present and defend a positive alternative.

iii) Secularism has its orthodoxies too. To dissent on matters of evolution or abortion or feminism or affirmative action or homosexual rights, and so on and so forth, will get you blacklisted and banished to the liberal equivalent of Siberian exile as well.

iv) There is no party line at Triablogue. We are all social conservatives and theological conservatives (mostly Calvinist), but beyond that, I have never told my team members what they can write about. I didn’t make them fill out a questionnaire before I invited them to join.

I have no idea what position they take on a whole host of issues.

I did happen to know, even before I invited them to come on board, that some of them don’t see eye to eye with me on certain issues.

I’m a theonomist whereas Vestrup is a libertarian.

I incline to the presuppositional end of the spectrum whereas Jason inclines to the evidentialist end.

I’m an amil, but I suspect that Jason is a premil.

I invite people to join who have (a) talent and who (b) share some of my axial concerns.

We have an overlapping vision and mission.

But by the same token, we disagree on certain issues while some of them also have areas of concern that are of little or no concern to me. That’s their business. Their prerogative. And they’re free to talk about whatever they care about, whether or not that happens to intersect with my primary areas of concern.

v) My blogroll is also quite ecumenical, within the bounds of Evangelicalism. It is by no means restricted to the Reformed.

It is because all Bible-believing Christians belong to the same family of God that we can disagree without disowning each other.

vi) There is also a great deal of networking and fellowshipping that goes on between conservative Christians of varying theological traditions.

Oh, sure, you can tick off some horror stories, but that’s a very one-sided picture of the totality.