Presuppositions:
People come at the text from anti-Trinitarian positions.
-Jehovah’s Witnesses
-Mormons
-Muslims
-Unitarians
For some, the Trinity is hard to fathom and use that lack of understanding in their exegesis. Be sure to check out my video to whether the Trinity is Illogical to help clear up misunderstandings about the Trinity.
 
John 10:25-33
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”
 
- “I and the father are one”.
- “You being a man make yourself out to be God”.
- Jesus would have corrected them if had meant something else.
- Stoning for Blasphemy (Lev. 24:16).
- Jesus would have known this because of his knowledge of the Jewish scriptures and law.
 
John 5:17-18
But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” For this reason, therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His Own Father, making Himself equal with God.
 
- “but also said that God was his father, makes himself equal to God”.
- Why would they conclude this?
- Jesus claimed to still be working since his father is during the Sabbath.
- No mere man could claim this, unless he is equal to the father.
- To be equal to the father is to share the same essence.
 
Matthew 5:20-22
“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Personal Relationships “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you”
 
- Any time Jesus says “you have heard it said, but I say to you”.
- Reference to the Law and Old Testament Scriptures.
- On what Authority would he have to change, expound upon, or add onto the law revealed to Moses by the Father?
- If only he is equal to the Father and has the same essence”.
 
Luke 4:8
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
 
- “You shall have no other God’s or Idols before me” (Exodus 20:3).
- Jesus excepted worship (Matthew 14:33, John 9:38, Matthew 28:9).
- Acts 14:11-15.
“When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us.”  And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.”
-Revelation 19:10 Angel denies worship from John.
-Jesus only should be worshiped if he has the same nature/essence as the Father, which is the essence of the Godhead.
 
John 20:28
Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
 
- Thomas makes clear that he thinks Jesus is God.
- Jesus does not deny this, yet embraces it and excepts this title.
- If he didn’t, then Jesus would have corrected Thomas.
- In the Greek, Θεός means God. 
 
Is the Trinity Logical?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G1FV8dtaLw&t=191s
​For further points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02HrIogiIrQ&t=8s

For Further Reading:
Evidence That Demands A Verdict: Pages 172-194
On Guard: 183-218
I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist: 327-354

J. P. Moreland in his forward writes, “In a recent Barna pool… They identified six reasons for the exodus (millennials leaving the church). (1) The church is overprotective and fails to expose people to anti-Christian ideas. (2) The church’s teaching is shallow. (3) The church is antagonistic to science and fails to help believers interact with scientific claims. (4) The church treats sexuality simplistically and judgmentally. (5) The church makes exclusivist claims. (6) The church is dismissive of doubters (13).”[1]
 
            Generation Z will be even worse with leaving the church than millennial's already are. Apologetics usually seen as just give arguments for the resurrection and God’s existence helps with some doubts and the apparent anti-scientific way of thinking in the church, but doesn’t deal with all doubts and reasons for why people leave the church. The shallow teaching of the church just sounds like any other religion and modern day people see Christ as another Zeus or pagan deity. Every person leaving the church may have similar reasons for leaving, but are always coming from different starting points. For example, many people may leave because they see what the church has to offer for the future, but not for the now. If the church mainly focused on the now of the Gospel instead of the future like Christ did, then less people in this area would see what Christianity has to offer for the now.
 
“The term “cultural apologetics” has been used to refer to systematic efforts to advance the plausibility of Christian claims in light of the messages communicated through dominant cultural institutions, including films, popular music, literature, art, and the mass media (20).”[2] The focus is literally on culture instead of the typical philosophical arguments given for God’s existence. William Lane Craig seems to argue that cultural apologetics focuses on the negative side of apologetics. For example, if God does not exist then objective meaning, value, and purpose do not exist. Francis Schaeffer would take this point in his one step apologetics (aka. Presuppositionalism) and argue that one cannot live life without out belief in Christianity.
 
I however agree with Paul Gould with how he defines cultural apologetics. “I define cultural apologetics as the work of establishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within a culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfying (21).”[3] Christianity is a message for all people and has a timeless message to it. The apologetics aspect of the Gospel comes into play when someone asks you about the hope you have within you. This is what Saint Peter writes in his second epistle, which his cultural context was persecution on Nero. Everyone is coming from a different culture, context starting point that we most likely do not share. Gould gives us some helpful tips as how to do cultural apologetics in these types of conversations.
 
“In addition, a cultural apologist operates at two levels. First, she/he operates globally by paying attention to how those within a culture perceive, think, and live, and then she/he works to create a world that is more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful and enchanted. Secondly, she/he operates locally, removing obstacles to, and providing positive reasons for, faith so individuals or groups will see Christianity as true and satisfying, plausible and desirable (22-23).”[4]
 
This will keep be emphasized, that everyone leaving or people you talk to about Christianity are coming from different starting points. Paul’s sermon at mars hill in Acts 17, comes from the starting point of worship. Paul does his homework and studied the Greek culture that he was in at Athens. Paul talks about the unknown God they worship as the Christians God and that he is knowable. Paul then provides the Gospels and points to the resurrections of Jesus to the Athenians.
 
As Christian Apologists, we need to know our “Athens” as Gould point out in his book. America’s “Athens” contains multiple worldviews like relativism, materialism, egoism, hedonism, secularism, and many other isms. Knowing these “Athens” will help us identify peoples cultural and contextual starting points. Doing this allows us to start the conversation and get to the core of why someone isn’t a Christian and employ the best reasons for why they should be a Christian is context to their starting points.
 
Gould gives us some more helpful tips and tasks as cultural apologists to help identify our “Athens” and people’s starting points. “First task of the cultural apologist-the task of understanding culture (24).”[5] For our first task, we must listen to what the culture we are living is saying about Christianity and what the culture itself believes. The previous list of “isms” is a good starting point for practicing this first task. “Worldview analysis is necessary but not sufficient for a cultural apologetics (24).”[6] This essential to cultural apologetics because to not understand competing worldviews is not listening and not understanding people’s cultural, contextual starting points.
 
“The cultural apologist works to resurrect relevance by showing that Christianity offers plausible answers to universal human longings (24).”[7] As Aristotle points out, humans are rational, social beings that seek the transcendentals. The transcendentals are Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, also known as Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Everyone’s starting points have hidden desires behind them associated with the transcendental in some way. The task here is to show how Christianity best offers relevance to people’s starting points that are associated with the transcendentals. “Cultural apologetics must demonstrate not only the truth of Christianity but also its desirability (25).”[8] This is where cumulative case apologetics comes in by taking pieces of evidence of Christianity that relate to many people desirable starting points. For example, the argument from beauty shows that the aesthetic truths point towards Christianity along with the case of course. Everyone has aesthetic truths they hold dearly, but if their worldview(starting points) can’t satisfy that desire, then this is where cultural apologetics comes in. Cultural apologetics is a necessary component to apologetics that needs to be utilized in modern day apologetics to help spread Christian Truth Through Apologetics.
 
Cultural Apologetics by Paul Gould: https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Apologetics-Conscience-Imagination-Disenchanted/dp/0310530490/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=


1. Gould, Paul. “Cultural Apologetics”, 13.
2. Gould, 20.
3. Gould, 21.
4. Gould, 22-23.
5. Gould, 24.
6. Gould, 24.
7. Gould, 24.
8. Gould, 25. 

There are two views that compete with each other over how one should attain happiness and live their life. Both views accept the premise that everyone’s end goal is happiness, but take different routes to get there. Ethical Egoism says that one ought to act and live according to their self-interests. Ayn Rand is a famous philosopher of the twentieth century that defended ethical egoism. She took the view of extreme individualism and ultimately argued that your being and self-identity is equivalent to your stream of consciousness and experiences. This is a buffed up view of Cartesian ontology of human beings.  “Man is a being of volitional consciousness (505).”
 
Aristotle took the view of the telos, that everyone’s goal is happiness and you should get there by living the virtuous life. Virtue can be defined as a habit that serves the higher good. According to Aristotle there are two different types of virtues, moral and intellectual virtues. Moral virtues would be examples like courage or justice. Using justice, rendering one one’s due shows virtue because you punish evil for the future good of maintaining order in the polis. Intellectual virtue includes having wisdom in both practical and theoretical knowledge.
 
Aristotle would argue that in our ontology we are both rational and social creatures, so to achieve happiness we must fulfill both of these types of desires that we have. “The definition of happiness; for it has been said to be a virtuous activity of soul, of a certain kind (59).” To practice virtue is to be in a state of “soulishenss”, which fulfills are rational and social needs. Doing this satisfies these functions of human ontology and builds the habit of virtue, which achieves our end goal of happiness.
 
The position that is most impressive with is living the virtuous life to bring about happiness. Firstly, Aristotle’s view of human ontology is correct as describing us as social beings. If this was not the case, then there would not be a strong need for community of each individual. Humans need to be social to fulfill this desire in us and to do this you must make friends. Friendship is a core aspect of the virtuous life, to maintain this requires habits of virtues. Love is one of these virtues that should be between true friends.
 
The second reason for why the virtuous life is better than an egoistic life is that virtue by definition helps out the greater good. An egoistic life doesn’t do good for the sake of good, but rather does good for self-interest and survival. There’s no real intrinsic good on egoism and it can’t ground intrinsic good. Many people have lived for self-interest and lived very easy lives. The ring of gyres shows that if one gets the ring, then they have power. If someone lives by self-interest, then with the ring can cause serious problems with those that have less capabilities.
 
The final reason for why one should live the virtuous life is to look at the greatest human to have ever lived. This being Jesus of Nazareth who lived a very virtuous life. Whether he was God is a different question, but clearly he has had the biggest impact on human history. The beatitudes in the sermon on the mount shows the basic virtues that people should live by. Examples like peace-keepers and the merciful are virtues that Christ taught to live by. The second greatest commandment is the key to friendship and the virtuous life, which is to love thy neighbor as you love yourself. Love here is the greatest virtue that brings about friendship and truly serves the highest good. Any Rand’s view of ethical egoism does not fit the need to fit human ontology, our need for community, and love as a server to the highest good. The end goal of happiness is to live the virtuous life and love as the central habit that you live by. 

Sources:
​A defense of Ethical Egoism
Nicomachean Ethics

Opening Questions:
 
            What does God know? What is Aquinas’ answer? Is it the best model of God’s omniscience? These main question will be answered and some thoughts will be given. Does God know actual infinites? Does God have knowledge of contingent things and future events? Does God have knowledge of particulars and universals? These are some more interesting questions that will be answered with the text.
 
What does God know and how does he know?
 
            God knows things from himself, which is inferred from the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. Aquinas answers also that God has knowledge of things that are not. “God knows all things whatsoever that in any way are. Now it is possible that things that are not absolutely should be in a certain sense (143).” God’s knows all absolute things by their final causes, which Anselm would say by a thing’s rectitude since that is the highest truth.
 
“Whereas things, which are not actual, are in the power either of God himself or of a creature, whether in active power, or passive; whether in the power of thought or of imagination, or of any other kind whatsoever. Whatever therefore can be made, or thought, or said by the creature, as also whatever he himself can do, all are known God, although they are not actual (143-144).” It’s implied that God knows things based on what potentiality they have or what their actuality is.
 
Objection 3 of the ninth article, argues that since God’s knowledge of the cause of what is known by him that things that are not cannot be known by God. Aquinas replies that his knowledge of the things not to be are necessary. “Hence, it is not necessary that whatever God knows should be, or have been or is to be; but this is necessary only as regards what he wills to be, or permits to be (144).” The things that God will’s to be are necessary, but things that are not are things that are possible, not necessary. God knows things from himself, by his will and the essence of other things, whether it be actual or potential.
 
Does God know evil?
 
            It is argued that God cannot know what is evil, since evil is the privation of the good. Evil is not part of the essence of God or of things that are good. How can God know evil? Since God is not the cause of evil, how can he know it? Aquinas answers: “Whoever knows a thing perfectly must know all that can occur to it (145).” God can know the opposites of evil by knowing the good perfectly. God knows the negation of his will, so he knows what evil is since he knows that humans can violate the will of God. Even humans know the opposite of good since the law shows us this. Surely, the lawmaker knows how is law can be broken.
 
Does God know singular things?
 
            God knows universal things by his pure act and essence of his being. However, the objector will argue that singular things are known by material things, which is unlike God. “Therefore, God cannot know singular things since these are potential and not actual like universal things. God cannot know singular things because they are potential and not actual like him. “God knows singular things through universal causes (147).” This is true, since God can know singular things that may make universal or by knowing what universals causes singular things. This objection simply makes a fallacy of division by arguing that we cannot know the part from the whole.
 
Can God know Infinite things?
 
            If I was Aquinas, I would simply argue that mathematical infinites are not things, since they are contradictory when applied to real world examples. Herbert’s hotel paradox shows this to be the case. According to Augustine, infinite cannot be numbered but can be comprehended by him whose knowledge has no number. God’s knowledge would know all infinites since his being is infinite. “God knows not only things actual but also to himself or to created things, as was shown above, and since these must be infinite, it must be held that he knows infinite things (149).” These “infinite things” can’t be actual number of things since every example you could try to give would be a potential infinite, not an actual infinite. Therefore, the only actual infinite thing God knows is himself.
 
Does God have knowledge of contingent things and future things?
 
            All three objections argue that all of God’s knowledge has to be necessary since God’s knowledge comes from the necessary being himself. Every conditional statement would have to be necessary, both antecedent and consequent. The future propositions cannot be known by God since these are not necessary things since they can change.  The knowledge of men are necessary propositions Aquinas seems to imply, but future choices by them are contingent things. “Now the works of men are contingent, being subject to free choice. Therefore, God knows future contingent things (152).”
 
            Aquinas argues that God knows all actual things but things possible to him and to the creature. “Since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things (152).” God knows these by knowing his creation and creatures. He would have to know what free creatures would do since God knows these creatures in their potentiality and actuality. “Now God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself (152).” Now, man’s things are contingent upon himself, but man is contingent on God for his existence. Based on Aquinas’s reasoning, God knows his creatures that are contingent on him so God knows these contingent propositions.
 
Conclusion:
​
          God knows things from himself, the causes of his will, and the causes of what he created. He knows particulars by knowing the universals from his essence. He knows the evil by knowing the good. He knows the only actual infinite, which is God. He knows all contingent things because they are either contingent from him or from the things contingent on him. God’s knowledge comes from God’s necessary being of knowing himself and what comes from him. 

Book Used:
​ https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Saint-Thomas-Aquinas/dp/0075536536