"Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. Thus, without Scripture, which has Jesus alone for its object, we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of God, and in our own nature."
Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.): One of the most famous philosophers of ancient Greece. Although Aristotle had been a student of Plato, he rejected Plato's doctrine of transcendent Forms in favor of the claim that universal properties exist immanently in particulars, which he saw as a synthesis of form and matter. Aristotle invented logic as a formal discipline and wrote on a wide range of topics, including metaphysics, ethics, and much that would today be classified as natural science, including biology and physics. Aristotle's followers are sometimes called Peripatetics because of his habit of lecturing as he walked on the grounds of the Lyceum, his philosophical school in Athens.1
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 13.
Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.
Socrates (c. 470-399 B.C.): One of the most important Greek philosophers, executed by the Athenians on the charge of corrupting youth with his philosophy of undermining the religion of the city by refusing to recognize its gods and introducing new ones. Socrates wrote nothing himself, but he has exercised an incalculable influence on the history of philosophy through his depiction by Plato in a series of dialogues. In daily conversations with Athenians, Socrates challenged and questioned prevailing wisdom, holding that he was wiser than his contemporaries only in recognizing that he knew nothing. True wisdom, said Socrates, was a possession of the gods. He regarded his philosophical work as a divine calling and refused to cease his activity even to save his life. The critical Socrates is regarded as a hero by contemporary secular philosophy, but the religious Socrates (who apparently heard voices and was confident that "nothing can harm a good man in life and death" because "the gods are not indifferent to his fortunes") is not so widely hailed.1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), pp. 108-109.
, Kindle Locations 1276-1279
Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.
William of Ockham (c. 1285-1349): English medieval philosopher known as "the subtle doctor." Ockham was a Franciscan who clashed with the pope and was forced to flee to Pisa and finally Munich because of his criticisms of arbitrary papal power. He is known for his rejection of real universals and is often called the father of nominalism, although many scholars claim that he was really a conceptualist. Ockham is also famous for "Ockham's razor," or the principle of parsimony, which says that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." Though that phrase is not actually from Ockham's writings, it is associated with him because of his characteristic style of philosophizing.1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), pp. 83-84.
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Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.
Tim Rennie of the Christian Meets World podcast presents a series of interviews with believers and skeptics exploring the question, “How would the Gospel look different if …?” You can download the interviews below or subscribe to the podcast here.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): German philosopher whose radical views on human thinking as perspectival and shaped by the "will to power" have had a profound impact on thinkers who came after him. Nietzsche announced the death of God, and as a consequence he affirmed that moralities are human creations. Previous human history has seen the "slave revolt" in morality, in which the "herd morality" of good and evil (Judaism, Christianity, socialism) has overthrown the earlier "master morality" of good and bad (the warrior culture of Homeric Greece) that was the work of the natural aristocrats. Nietzsche himself proposed that the "Overman" may now go beyond good and evil and invent a new form of morality. Nietzsche saw the virtues of herd morality as a disguised form of envy, in which the weak express their resentment of the strong by affirming that the poor and the meek are blessed. See also nihilism.1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 81.
Brian Brian Godawa is a professional screen writer with successful movies like To End All Wars, The Visitation, and Change Your Life to his credits. He is also an evangelical Christian with a passion for teaching biblical discernment in regard to films. In Hollywood Worldviews, he writes that “God loves movies”[1] because seventy percent of the Bible is communicated through creative genres like narrative, stories and poems. It follows that God uses drama as a powerful means to teach truth. It also follows that the secular world uses them to promote a different agenda. Whether one is aware of it or not entertainment mediums are promoting a worldview. Accordingly, Christians should cultivate a sophisticated understanding of how those mediums are employed in our culture. Godawa states his goal succinctly, “to help the viewer discern those ideas that drive the story to its destination and see how they influence us to live our lives-to understand the story behind the story.”[2] He examines two equal but opposite errors: cultural desertion (anorexia) and cultural immersion (gluttony). The book is divided into three sections Act 1: Storytelling in Movies, Act 2: Worldviews in Movies, and Act 3: Spirituality in Movies. The paper will attempt to show that the book is valuable for developing a discerning eye. 
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