Think Well

• How Christianity Answers Life's Biggest Questions (Worldview Study Part 5)

  Why is there anything at all? How can we know for sure? How did we get here, and what are we here for, anyway? Why have things gone so badly wrong? Is there any hope of fixing them? What should I do with my life? And where will it all end? These are the foundation questions that all worldviews attempt to answer. "Many factors contribute to our worldview, not all of them the product of our own thoughtful reflection...Our family background, life experience, economic circumstances, educational pedigree, cultural context, national heritage, linguistic community, physiological characteristics, psychological makeup, and historical situation all have an influence on the way we see the world." And because our worldview informs how we live, act, and hope, it is important that we evaluate these contributing factors and ground ourselves in the worldview that accurately describes reality. Philip Graham Ryken (DPhil, University of Oxford) is the eighth president of Wheaton College. He has lectured and taught at universities and seminaries worldwide, and is the author of more than 30 books, including "Kingdom Come!", "Grace Transforming" and "Loving the Way Jesus Loves." Join the conversation as we see how the Christian intellectual tradition has shaped the Christian worldview. As always, bring your questions! I will be taking questions and calls after the teaching.

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• Why "Be True to Yourself" Is Breaking You (Culutre Study Part 5)

  Expressive individualism has become the central ethic that guides our society's thinking. "The idea that a person should be limited by an authority outside of him- or herself—whether a tradition, religion, or parent—to do or experience whatever he or she wants amounts to one of the worst offenses an authority can commit." The problem is that expressive individualism cannot be consistently lived out. The focus on satisfying the self above all has led to an age of coddling, fragility, and moral confusion. Come join this important conversation and bring your questions! Today's show will take a look at identity as we walk through chapter 6 of Andrew and Christian Walker's new book, "What Do I Say When...?: A Parents' Guide to Navigating Cultural Chaos for Children & Teens."

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• The Universe Had a Beginning... So What? Apologetics Study Part 3

  "Conceptual analysis of what it is to be a cause of the universe enables us to recover a number of striking properties which this ultramundane cause must possess and which are of theological significance." - William Lane Craig In part 1 on the Kalam, I discussed the scientific evidence in support of premise 2 with James Sinclair. Today's show will begin with a quick look at the philosophical arguments for premise 2, and then will focus on how Christians arrive at God based on the Kalam Cosmological argument. Here's the argument: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. 4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful. From (3) and (4), it follows that: 5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful. Come join the conversation and bring your questions! Content Discussed: 0:00 Intro 4:09 Upcoming shows 7:15 The argument from the impossibility of an actual infinite 15:26 The impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition 21:21 Whatever begins to exist has a cause 30:25 Live Question: What did God do before he did the first thing? 31:19 Live Question: Infinite regress is something you have been through. 33:00 Live Question: Must all things have a cause? 34:15 The theological implications of the Kalam Cosmological argument 47:18 Live Question: There's no logical reason why you can't have an infinite regress 49:51 Caller: Abstract objects, a personal God, God and time, defining supernatural, and if we can choose our thoughts 1:18:05 Caller: Is an infinite regress possible?

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• What If the Resurrection Really Happened?

  1 Corinthians 15:17 says, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." This means that either the tomb was empty, or Christians have an empty faith. Dr. Timothy Paul Jones (vice president for doctoral studies, professor of Christian family ministry, and chair of the department of apologetics, ethics, and philosophy at Southern Baptist Theological Studies) wrote the short book, "Did the Resurrection Really Happen?" as part of the TGC Hard Questions series. The goal of his brief book is modest. He writes, "I simply want you to recognize that the first followers of Jesus didn't claim their leader rose from the dead because of gullible ignorance or blind faith. They knew dead people stay dead." Today's show will look at his main argument as I make an evidential case for the resurrection of Jesus. Content Discussed: 0:00 Intro & Update 5:22 What's the point of the book? 8:05 Why does it matter whether Jesus resurrected or not? 10:44 Christian faith should not be blind 14:02 A resurrection is only implausible in a world where miracles are impossible. 18:42 Did the disciples copy the story from other dying and rising Gods, or did they have a Jewish expectation of a resurrection? 24:35 The resurrection is traceable to a time and place where it occurred. 39:50 What impact does a resurrection have? 43:52 CALLER: Should we live according to "What ifs"? How does God speak? Do we have souls that continue living? 1:07:12 CALLER: Is the resurrection just a story? When was the New Testament written? 2:05:07 The unrivaled power of the resurrection to explain the historical data.

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• Does Science Prove the Universe Had a Beginning? Apologetics Study Part 2 (James Sinclair)

  "The Cosmological argument is a family of arguments that seek to demonstrate the existence of a Sufficient Reason or First Cause of the existence of the cosmos... The kalam cosmological argument traces its roots to the efforts of early Christian theologians who, out of their commitment to the biblical teaching of creation ex nihilo, sought to rebut the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the universe." The argument is extremely simple: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. This is part 2 of our apologetics study as we work through "The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology." James Sinclair, co-author of the chapter on the kalam cosmological argument with William Lane Craig, joins the show to discuss the scientific evidence in support of premise 2. We look at the FRW mode, astronomical evidence for the Big Bang, the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems, the BVG theorem, quantum gravity approaches, and the exceptions to each of these approaches. Come join the conversation and bring your questions! James D. Sinclair (MS Physics Texas A&M, BS Physics Carnegie-Mellon) is a senior anti-air warfare analyst for the United States Navy with a specialty in the constructive (digital only) modeling of air-to-air combat. Some career accomplishments include analytical support for the fielding of the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, combat utility evaluation of the F-35 Lighting II, and presentations at public symposia such as the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) and the Combat Identification Systems Conference (CISC). He began to interview cosmologists in the early 2000s on the topic of the beginnings of the universe, bringing Navy knowledge integration methods to the formulation known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This ultimately led to a collaboration with philosopher William Lane Craig and two co-authored articles: “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and “On Non-Singular Spacetimes and the Beginning of the Universe,” in Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion. He also co-authored the article "Fine-Tuning and Indications of Transcendent Intelligence" with Robert Spitzer.

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