Apologetics

Faith and Integration of Knowledge. Part 4. Christian Foundation of Modern Empirical Science

Faith and Integration of Knowledge
Christian Foundation of Modern Empirical Science

Part 4. Question: Christians have argued that the emergence of modern science is premised on presuppositions of the Christian worldview. What are some of these unique features in the Christian worldview that contribute to the emergence of modern empirical science?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Dr. Rodney Toh.

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Part 4. Christian Foundation of Modern Empirical Science

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Faith and Integration of Knowledge. Part 3. How Do We Integrate Science and Christianity?

Faith and Integration of Knowledge

Part 3. Question: How do we integrate science and Christianity?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Dr. Rodney Toh.

There are six ways to relate science and Christianity: conflict, independence, complementation, dialogue, integration and transformation.

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Part 3. Question: How do we integrate science and Christianity?

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Faith and Integration of Knowledge. Part 2. What is the Relationship Between the Bible and science?

Question: If there is no conflict between Christianity and science, does this mean that the Bible is scientifically reliable? What is the relationship between the Bible and science?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Dr. Rodney Toh.

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What is the Relationship Between the Bible and science?

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Faith and Integration of Knowledge. Part 1 – Alleged Conflict between Science & Christianity

Part 1. Alleged Conflict between Science & Christianity

Question: If Christianity is based on faith in the supernatural world, whereas science is based on facts in the natural world, then they are incompatible. To what extent is this correct?

Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Dr. Rodney Toh.

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Alleged Conflict between Science & Christianity

A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 3/3

Faruqi sharpens his critique of the Christian doctrine of God by asserting that Christianity,

eternalizes the revelation of Christ not as a system of ideas that may be God’s will, but as the Christ-event. . . Christianity consistently argues that Christ (i.e. his significance) is not the will of God, nor his command, nor His idea, but God Himself, or rather God co-eternal with God. Christianity is driven to this deifying hypostasis because it eternalizes a real person and a real event. A person may be co-eternal with God, but not derivatively eternal without violating the law of identity. But to violate the law of identity in this instance is to lapse into polytheism (CE 228).

Unfortunately for Faruqi, his objection is only hitting at theological strawmen since Christians are not asserting that Christ is identical with God without remainder in his incarnate state. Indeed, Faruqi’s objection is self-defeating. If he accuses Christianity of eternalizing a historical person, his religious philosophy commits the same logical move by eternalizing the Quran which was revealed to its messenger in 7th century Arabia. Continue reading “A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 3/3”

A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 2/3

II. Methodological And Doctrinal Distortions

A. Jesus’ Interiorization of Law
In part 1/3, I highlighted some problems with Faruqi’s methodology as its premises give a distorted reading of Christianity and skew the evidence in favor of Islam. The distortions become evident when Faruqi seeks to rewrite the history of the mission and ministry of Jesus through the lens of his metareligion. Faruqi, like all Muslims, maintains a respectful attitude towards Jesus. At the same time he is persuaded that the “real” Jesus is not that of historic Christianity. For Faruqi, the real Jesus should be based on results of German historical critical method and Quranic sources. One cannot help but notice the irony when Faruqi (and other Muslim apologists) unreservedly appropriates the skeptical results of the historical critical method to critique the bible while at the same time eschewing any application of the same critical method in the study of the Quran.

Faruqi has taken considerable effort to familiarize himself with the works of critics like Joseph Klausner and C. H. Dodd. Unfortunately, his appropriation of historical research is selective and subordinated to an overriding and debatable presupposition that Jesus’ pristine religion was solely aimed at effecting an internal correction of the Jewish legalistic religion. This presupposition allows Faruqi to dismiss any Biblical teaching which he finds personally unpalatable to the corrupting influence of Jewish racialism. Jewish racialism was undeniably a harsh reality in Faruqi’s personal experience. After all, he had to abandon his role as governor of a Palestinian district when the Jews won their War of Independence in 1948. But one wonders if Faruqi has in this matter allowed his unfortunate experience to color his judgment when he analyzes the Bible. Continue reading “A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 2/3”

A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 1/3

I. Methodology

Ismail Faruqi (1921-1986) is regarded as one of the most trenchant scholarly critics of Christianity in recent times. This estimation is attested by his post-doctoral project on Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas (1967). Its 333 pages indicate detailed familiarity with Christian thinkers ranging from Augustine to Barth and Reinhold Neibuhr. His later books on Divine Transcendence and Its Expression (1983), Al Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life (1982), Islam and Other Faiths (1998) and Selected Essays (2018) demonstrate that he is well-versed in matters of Western philosophy and they are replete with sharp criticisms of Christianity. Undoubtedly, his sustained engagement with Christianity is a product of his life experiences, as a Palestinian Arab in Lebanon and subsequently as an American scholar in Harvard University and McGill University. Perhaps he also felt compelled to respond to the vigorous intellectual enterprise among Christian missionary scholars in his time. We shall analyze critically Faruqi’s work as it provides a rare opportunity for Christians to respond to Islamic misunderstanding of Christianity at the level of sophisticated scholarship. Continue reading “A Critique of Ismail Faruqi’s Metareligion and Ethical Analysis of Christianity. Part 1/3”

Kairos Seminar on Modern Philosophy and Christian Thought. Part 1

Modern Philosophy Part 1: From Descartes to Hegel
Lecturer: Dr. Ng Kam Weng

The scientific revolution in the 16th -18th century created a radically new conception of the world which challenged the traditional worldview based on Aristotelian philosophy and medieval Christian thought. This seminar examines how European philosophers represented by Rene Descartes, David Hume, Kant and Hegel reformulated philosophy in response to the increasingly dominant scientific worldview of their times.

Class Schedule – 27/05; 24/06; 29/07; 26/08; 30/09; 28/10 (bonus week, to be confirmed).
The seminar will be conducted every last Saturday of the month from 10.00 am to 12.00 noon. Class begins from 27 May 2023, if the minimum number of registered students is satisfied.

Venue:
Kairos Research Centre, 19B, Jalan SS 22/19, Petaling Jaya 47300. [Revised on 27 Jan 2023]. Continue reading “Kairos Seminar on Modern Philosophy and Christian Thought. Part 1”

Leibniz On The Problem of Evil and the Best of all Possible Worlds

Reading Voltaire’s satire Candide as an impressionable young man led me to think lowly of Gottfried Leibniz as a philosopher. In this satire, Voltaire mercilessly ridiculed Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism embodied by Pangloss, the mentor of the protagonist of the tale, Candide. Pangloss’ mindless muttering of the mantra, “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” is plainly absurd when against the backdrop of an unrelenting series of gross injustices, cataclysmic natural disasters like the Lisbon earthquake (1755) and overwhelming personal tragedies that befall the naïve Candide and his love interest Cunegonde.

In Candide, Voltaire was reiterating an objection to theism which was first formulated as a trilemma by the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, which goes as follow:
1) “If God is willing to prevent evil but is unable to do so, then he is not omnipotent.”
2) “If God is able to prevent evil but unwilling to do so, then he is not perfectly good.”
3) “If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil in the world?” Continue reading “Leibniz On The Problem of Evil and the Best of all Possible Worlds”

Buddhist (D.T. Suzuki) Critique of the Cross

Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the cross as evidence of the love of God which engages with the suffering of the world head-on provides a decisive answer to the Buddhist allegation that Christianity is a world-negating religion. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki claims that the cruelty surrounding the crucifixion of Christ negates the simple realities of this life and does not compare well with the Buddhist sense of peaceful transition from this life to the next.

Christian symbolism has much to do with the suffering of man. The crucifixion is the climax of all suffering. Buddhists also speak much about suffering and its climax of all suffering is the Buddha serenely sitting under the Bodhi tree by the river Niranjana. Christ carries his suffering to the end of his earthly life whereas Buddha puts an end to it while living and goes on preaching the gospel of enlightenment until he quietly passes away under the twin Sala tree… when Buddha attained his supreme enlightenment, he was in his sitting posture; he was neither attached to nor detached from the earth; he was one with it, he grew out of it, and yet he was not crushed by it./1/ Continue reading “Buddhist (D.T. Suzuki) Critique of the Cross”