Affichage des articles dont le libellé est William Lane Craig. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est William Lane Craig. Afficher tous les articles

vendredi 7 juillet 2023

The Theory of Biological Evolution is Evolving

 For this post, I am going to share a fascinating reflection by Dr. William Lane Craig about the evolution of the Theory of Biological Evolution. I found it to be insightful.

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I think one of the most important take-aways for laymen from my study of this subject is the realization that the theory of biological evolution has itself evolved. If we leave aside the theories of Charles Darwin’s predecessors, there are three major stages in evolutionary theory:
Stage I: Darwinism. This was Darwin’s original theory of evolution laid out in his book On the Origin of Species (1859). Darwin’s theory of evolution comprised two fundamental theses: (i) descent with modification of all living organisms from one or a few common ancestors, and (ii) natural selection as the explanatory mechanism for evolutionary change. Darwin’s theory was dead almost upon arrival. While his thesis of common ancestry quickly won the day, for seventy years following the publication of Origin of Species Darwin’s second thesis was widely regarded as explanatorily deficient. Ignorant of Mendel’s genetics, Darwin could provide no account of the sources of the variability of hereditary traits nor how such traits were inherited. It has been justifiably quipped that Darwin’s theory explained the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival of the fittest.
Stage II: The Modern Synthesis. Formulated during the 1930s and 40s, the Modern Synthesis represented the marriage of Darwin’s natural selection and Mendel’s genetics. Its chief contribution was the thesis that hereditary variability arises by random genetic mutations, which, when acted upon by natural selection, can be the source of new and advantageous traits over time. It thereby supplemented Darwin’s theory with a genetic explanation of the source of heritable variations. On this theory new species originated by rather small steps that accumulated over many generations. This theory, sometimes called “Neo-Darwinism,” rapidly became orthodoxy among evolutionary biologists and prevailed almost till the close of the twentieth century.
Stage III: The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Proponents of this theory indict the Modern Synthesis for its myopic focus on genetic inheritance as the source of evolutionary change. They contend that new data from adjacent fields such as developmental biology, genomics, epigenetics, ecology, and social science now demand a wider theory. The following diagram illustrates the relation between the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the Modern Synthesis, and Darwin’s theory: 
The fact is that the Modern Synthesis did not really offer much by way of explanation of the causes of how organisms change over time. The Modern Synthesis postulated correlations between an organism’s genotype (its genetic makeup) and its phenotype (its observable traits) but not causal mechanisms connecting them. As a result, the Modern Synthesis treated all mechanistic aspects of evolutionary change as a “black-box” and so was unable to explain how organismal change is actualized.
According to Pigliucci and Müller, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis thus prompts several reforms to the Modern Synthesis:
  • First is gradualism. Because the Modern Synthesis assumed that evolutionary change proceeds via incremental genetic variation, all non-gradualist forms of evolutionary change were excluded. But various new approaches show that non-gradual change is a property of evolutionary processes.

  • Second is externalism. Under the Modern Synthesis the direction of the evolutionary process results exclusively from natural selection. In the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, organisms themselves are determinants of selectable variation and innovation. Thus, in sharp contrast to claims of the Modern Synthesis, mutations may not be random but actually biased toward the benefit of the host organism in which they occur.

  • Third is “gene-centrism.” The Modern Synthesis’ focus on the gene as the sole agent of variation and unit of inheritance suppressed all calls for more comprehensive attitudes. In the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, extra-genetic (epigenetic) influences on developing embryos is increasingly emphasized, in contrast to genetic mutations.
J. B. S. Haldane
J. B. S. Haldane
Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design have long complained about the explanatory deficits of the Modern Synthesis but were uniformly ignored, probably because they were able only to poke holes in the theory without offering a credible alternative. J. B. S. Haldane once remarked that “Theories pass through four stages of acceptance: (i) this is worthless nonsense; (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; (iv) I have always said so.” Today contemporary textbooks already incorporate many of the new insights of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis without noting the explanatory deficiencies of the Modern Synthesis thereby exposed.
It should not be thought that with the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the evolution of the theory of evolution has come to an end, and we can breathe a sigh of relief that all is well. No, while the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis served to expose explanatory weaknesses in the heretofore prevailing evolutionary paradigm and so to open new avenues of research, many of the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis remain unproven, poorly understood, and controversial, so that the quest for a final theory must continue. The evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin observes that what follows in a “post-Modern” era is not a post-Modern Synthesis but a post-Modern state “characterized by a pluralism of processes and patterns in evolution that defies any straightforward generalization.” He opines that whether the directions currently being pursued in post-Modern research “can be combined in a new evolutionary synthesis in the foreseeable future, is too early to tell. I will venture one confident prediction, though: those celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Origin will see a vastly different landscape of evolutionary biology.”

dimanche 6 janvier 2019

The Challenge: A Year In Review (2018)

Image result for year in reviewThanks to my parent, I have always believed in God and that Christianity was the way to correctly understand true spirituality and proper theology. When I entered University in South Africa learning Science and encountering a variety of perspectives and series of worldviews collusion with mine, that is when I felt the need to know and to understand better the evidences for Christianity. The result was quite unexpected and gratifying. That is when I fell in love with Apologetic, this is how I became interested in Christian apologetic and various theological themes.

In the same vein, I have always been a Catholic Christian for as long as I can remember and I have always lived in relative peace with my protestant brothers in the Lord save for some turbulent episodes throughout the past 3 decades where I have been placed in uncomfortable position to explain and defend some aspects of the Catholic faith here and there. But usually these 'hot seat' encounters were sporadic but never as gruesome as it could have been if my inquisitors would have wanted to make it unbearable. I need to point out though that the recurrence and onslaught against some aspects of my Catholic faith  had been growing in intensity and frequency since I returned from my studies to Rwanda. Despite the recurrent intellectual confrontation, which I always welcomed with cheerfulness over the years, I have always operated with the motto, 'Live and Let live' until December 2017.

As is the custom, during major feasts of the Church someone will come up with a good humor and provocative questions or statements against the Catholic Church. I would then go into defense mode trying to explain the ins and outs of it and my interlocutors would then hit back with counter-arguments which will elicit a response from me and then back to them and so on. I was already used to this comical ritual always done out of fraternal concern from their part. December 2017 was shaping up to be the usual re-enactment for the pros and cons about Catholicism with the usual indictment: 'December 25 is a pagan feast' or 'The Christmas Tree is pure idolatry', etc. As expected the usual suspect showed up and led to a series of dialogue with arguments and counter arguments from each sides. But what was not expected though was The Challenge.

I was not expected to be challenged to a formal debate about these issues surrounding the Christmas themes. Since I do not shy away from some good Socratic dialogue about my faith, I gave my consent. Unfortunately the debate never occurred. But inadvertently something else, something good, came out of it. From the moment I was challenged for that formal debate, I took every single free time I could find to educate myself about the subject that would have been part of the debate. I watched videos, I read articles and one thing led to another and by the time it became clear that the debate would never occur I was already 'hooked' by my research. I found myself sinking deep and deep in my research and drifting from the precise aspect of the Christmas related topic to a broaden world of Catholic history first and then Catholic apologetic. I found myself falling deeply in love with my Christian Catholic faith.

I think I owed this short explanation to my family and friends who have been wondering what happened to me last year (2018) as most of my social media posts, messaging and debates were structured around Catholicism. It is not that I became Catholic in 2018 nor that I started believing deeply about the Christian Catholic faith on that year, rather as my earlier encounter with Christian apologetic, it is the year that I wanted to understand best about the evidences under-girding my Catholic faith due to the incessant and increased frequency on the attacks to which I had been subjected to for the past recent years.

The research into the primitive Christian Church beliefs and practices was gratifying and I feel that many people would certainly enjoy any of the literature that I have been exposed to throughout the year. Allow me to share some selection of books that I have read and found eye-opening about the Christian Catholic faith during the year 2018. I can't list all that the documentation that I came across throughout the year but this list is pretty much a good representation of what was covered in one way or another in other documentations that I had access to. I am only listing those books that I found outstanding:
1. 'Four Witness: The Early Church in Her Own Words' by Rod Bennet
2. 'The Apostasy That Wasn't: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church' by Rod Bennet
3. 'Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church' by Steve Ray
4. 'Upon this Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church' by Steve Ray
5. 'The Protestant's Dilemma: How the Reformation's Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism' by Devin Rose 
6. 'The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ' by Brant Pitre 
7. 'Jesus and the Jewish Root of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper' by Brant Pitre 
8. 'Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah' by Brant Pitre
9. 'Jesus and the Last Supper' by Brant Pitre 
10. 'Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible' by Gary G. Michuta
Special mention to an non-Catholic book that I read but which inadvertently also bolstered some fascinating historical aspects about the Catholic tradition:
'The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus' by William Lane Craig
As I reflect about the year 2018, I can't help but be grateful for all those who have helped me think critically about my Christian faith once more and who by their incessant intellectual engagement pushed me to embark in this beautiful exploration of the origin of Christianity. It has made my faith even more alive than before and has even heighten my spiritual sensibilities on a day to day basis.

The Holy Catholic Church mandate seems to operate as the oracle given to the Jewish Prophet Jeremiah:
"Behold! I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." - Jeremiah 1:10 MKJV  
Some evidences uncovered have re-affirmed my faith and why I should still be a Catholic Christians (and hopefully everybody else too) and some other evidences have brought to the fore-front the reality that it is not always easy to learn something new regardless of the amount of evidences unless one is also open to unlearn some other prior views and relinquish some tightly held commitments. This later part was rather easy for me since I was already Catholic but I found it taking its toll on non-catholic who started considering the evidences and arguments being advanced for the Catholic christian faith. This reminds me of an excellent remarks by the beloved Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, which I paraphrase as, "An opinion is what you can change without changing who you are, but a conviction is that which if you change, you will have to change who you are." This brilliant distinction between an opinion and a conviction might explain what happens when a protestant Christian changes a denomination within Protestantism (change of opinion) with them moving from Protestantism to enter into full communion with the Church that the Lord Jesus Christ caused into existence, the Catholic Church (change of conviction).

For good or bad, this is the current state of affair with many considering Catholicism around the world. I can only wish them well and I will join the Church in praying for all separated brethren to one day find enough courage, good reason and good sense to come back Rome Home.

Happy New Year 2019 and my best wishes to all as we continue to serve the Lord Jesus with an unalterable love and with full commitment to the growth of His Kingdom here on earth.

samedi 15 décembre 2012

The Argument For God's Existence From Creation


This conversation started on a Facebook page where someone got stuck with logic in his effort to write a defense for God's existence. So with a lady acquaintance we exchanged a bit on that long post and this below is what i essentially told her.
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Hi A.,
Hope you doing well in this festive season. Well, this is an interesting argumentation but it is poorly done. It sounded more like an excuse for God's existence or a plea of exception for the existence of God than a well argued case for His existence. The mistake the writer made is easily found in his introductory statement: 
"Everything comes from something. Every effect has a cause. This is a law of logic and a fact of science." 
This isn't neither true nor a law of logic. The better formulation of it is found in premise one of the Kalam cosmological argument as presented by Dr. William Lane Craig: "Everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause for its existence". Now this makes more sense - it is true and logical since it is a recurrent observable fact.
Now that we have made this important correction, we can proceed. 
The first thing we need to prove is the claim that everything that we know of in the universe begun to exist. With the Big bang model and the evidence of physics from the cosmic microwave background radiation - it is believed now that the universe begun to exist. Hence if the universe begun to exist, it then needs a cause for its existence.
Step two. What could reasonably be its cause? Logic dictates that whatever the cause of the universe is, it should have properties that transcends those of the universe. For example, if the universe is made of matter, and that the universe begun to exist - then matter also begun to exist. And if matter begun to exist, then whatever the cause of matter and the universe is - it can not be made of matter. It is by necessity non material in nature/property. We call it spiritual because it is non corporeal and cannot be quantified like matter.
Second, Time and Space also came into existence at the Big Bang according to the logic of the model - hence the cause must then also be non-temporal and spaceless in its property/ by nature. We call it Eternal because it is not subject to time and space.
Third, since the universe Cause existed prior to creation in an eternal state as per the argument above and that the effect (creation) did not exist in the eternal state but begun to exist at a given moment 'in history' - it implies that the Cause chose to bring its creation at such a given moment - hence giving the universe Cause the property of choice making. Since the reaction of the effect is not automatic to the existence of the Cause, it means that the Cause is not an automatic entity. If the universe Cause was not imbued with a choice to cause to universe but was automatic, then the the universe would have existed simultaneously with its Cause for all time (infinite).  But the universe begun to exist - hence the universe existence is not a necessary effect of its Cause. The Cause of the universe hence has a personality to make a choice to make or not to make a universe. Hence, the Cause is a conscious entity and not an unconscious entity.
Fourth, by the engineering of the universe (including biological life) and the specific laws that govern it, we can deduce that the Cause of the universe is an intelligent entity.
If we only take these few line of arguments above, we can come up with these attributes for the Cause of the universe: 1) The Cause is eternal (spaceless and timeless), 2) The Cause is spiritual (non-material), 3) The Cause is a conscious being (with obvious capacity of choosing to create at any given moment), 4) The Cause is intelligent (this is also called the teleological argument of God's existence). 
These lines of arguments are far from being called a proof but it can be called evidences and reasons of God's existence.
All these evidences point to what theologians and philosophers refers to as GOD. We are far from proving the existence of the Christian God because these attributes above is shared by believers of other religions - monotheist religions that is.
However, the arguments above can also be equally applicable to the Christian God, but not exclusively applicable to the christian God. If we assume the existence of the christian God then these arguments are also valid. The follow up question would be how do we move from the God of natural theology to the God of Christian theology? 
The easiest books that helped me to understand the transition from natural theology to christian theology are the excellent books of Drs. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek 'I dont Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist" as well as the more technical one by Dr William Lane Craig 'Reasonable Faith - 3rd edition'. C.S Lewis also does have quite an insightful approach in his book "Mere Christianity". These literatures help make a case for the Christian faith from Natural Teology.

Happy New Year in Jesus' name.
P.S: Don't forget to check out my book - Help Me Understand Jesus. Check My Book by clicking here or more here.

lundi 24 septembre 2012

What Should Homosexual Christians Do?

This is why i like listening to Christian thinkers of the like of Dr. William lane Craig or Dr. Ravi Zacharias. They speak with a lot of sensitivity and great objectivity with minimum bias or prejudice on the balance.
"So what should you do? First and foremost, you need to align your thinking with God’s. When you say that you consider being a homosexual to be “perfectly fine,” I’m not sure if you’re talking about your orientation or the activity. I agree with you that it’s no sin to have a homosexual orientation. That’s probably something you didn’t choose and aren’t responsible for. But you can choose and are responsible for how you act. The Bible is clear that sexual acts outside of marriage are immoral and therefore to be shunned. It’s impossible to resist engaging in a pleasurable activity if you consider that activity to be perfectly fine."
I am sure you'll like reading this by following the link by click here.

P.S: Don't forget to check out my book - Help Me Understand Jesus.

mardi 1 mai 2012

The Role Of Failure In Life

Early in 2009, i read this master piece of one of my best Christian apologist writer. Curiously the written work was not about apologetic. Here is what he had to say:
"I have been a Christian for over thirty years. I estimate that in my Christian lifetime I have attended upward of a couple of thousand church services, hundreds of chapels at Wheaton College, and scores of Christian meetings at retreats, conferences, and so on, held by Campus Crusade and other groups. Yet during this entire time I have never once—not a single time in the thousands of meetings over some thirty-odd years—heard a speaker address the subject of failure. In fact, I probably would not myself have reflected seriously on the topic if it had not been for a crushing failure that drove me to face the problem personally"
You can read this amazing anecdotal commentary by clicking here.


Why do i want to post about failure when the revival is so obvious among us? Just kidding about the revival thingy. But i am serious though about this topic of failure. Well, as much as i like success, i'm also a bit of a realist and not merely an idealist. Life being what it is, failure/hard time will certainly be our portion time to time. And by experience i have noticed that when people within a group are having a great time, others in the same group can have the worst time ever, and suffer silently for fear of being misunderstood by the overly undisciplined and unstoppable optimists. So this is addressed to those who feel like standing on the sideline and wonder what went wrong, and feel like they wanna rethink about their lives and future plans.


Just remember that whatever you are passing through is meant to be temporal and somehow educatif. If you learn your lessons fast, you'll probably be an asset to the kingdom of God.


Have a blessed day and week in Jesus' name.
You Can Also Check My Book here.

lundi 19 mars 2012

Relationship and marriage advice

There are times when we mess so bad in life that we wish that someone would have told us things ahead of time before the great blunder was experienced.

This is a bit the role of the evangelist when he talks to the unbelievers so that they won't have to say one day: "If i only knew!" However, we forget often that Eternal life is not the only thing that if we miss we will be hurt. There are other things that hurts us so bad in this life and Marriage is among them.

So i took liberty to bring some links from Dr. Bill where he gives his advices about relationship and marital life. Since he has decades of experience and he is quite a good storyteller and writer, i suspect that what he has to say will be most valuable for our married couples and those who will be so in the near or far future.

First, this link will be quite a revelation if you hold diverging views about how to live long and peacefully with someone else in your life. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7344

Second in this link, he does explain through a simple story what a woman's role could be in the life of her man. Not long ago (last week) i spoke with two lady-friends of mine about what could be the role of a woman for in her husband life. Mostly, the husbands role is often clear as most preaching revolve around him, however for the ladies it is usually simply summarized under this word "submission" without further concrete example save the usual housekeeping expectation. In this link, you'll find how one woman gave us through her diligence one of the best analytical christian thinker and apologist of our time. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6727

Thirdly, this link answers or should i say, clarifies some important issues about the core value of the coveted marriageable lady or gentleman. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5795

I hope you find wisdom, knowledge, direction and valuable advices as you read those links above. Remembers, he is just sharing his life and conviction. If you disagree, remember you have the right to do so. After all it is your life.

Best Regards and have a nice and productive day in Jesus' name.
Check My Book here or here

mercredi 9 novembre 2011

William Lane Craig - Reasonable Faith U.K Tour 2011

The year was 2003 and i was struggling with some form of skepticism. I then tried to figure out some answers by perusing the web, that's when i found a series of written debates - transcripts - between an eminent Christian philosopher and a prolific Atheist philosopher - namely Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Quentin Smith respectively. The discussion was a bit high level for me to follow with any degree of mental ease, but i could nevertheless notice that the Christian Philosopher - Dr. William Lane Craig was making more sense to me. Forward few years in the future, Dr. Craig became a household name in my apologetic learning. I was even honored to have received from him a free copy of his Textbook on apologetic for a review - Reasonable Faith 3rd edition in 2008.

Early this year, Dr. Craig had announced an apologetic tour in UK. The event was extremely publicized, especially given that he would have cross sword metaphorically with high profile atheists at academic settings. Today, i am here to report that the Reasonable Faith U.K Tour have been successful. God has heard our prayers. Dr. Craig has been sustained by the Lord once again as he went from place to place defending the Glorious Hope that is within him. In his November newsletter he gave quite an extensive detail of what happened in his trip to U.K. I am going to share with you only one of those amazing events where divine provision did not disappoint.


Thursday, was the second debate of the tour and a very unusual one! This was a British parliamentary style debate at the Cambridge Union Society, the oldest debating society in the world. I was partnered with Peter S. Williams, a very capable British apologist who works for the Damaris Trust. Our opponents were Andrew Copson, whom I mentioned previously, and Arif Ahmed, a philosopher at Cambridge University whom I had debated on a previous trip to the U.K. Peter and I were “the House,” and Copson and Ahmed were “the Opposition.” The proposition for debate was “This House believes that God is not a Delusion.” In a parliamentary style debate, people in the chamber can shout out, “Point of order!” during your speech, and you are expected to recognize at least some of them and answer their objections. Peter and Copson were to open the debate with 15 minute speeches. After that anyone in the audience can get up and speak either for or against the proposition. Finally, I and Ahmed would present the closing arguments for each side.

During the afternoon we visited the chamber to get a feel of the setting. It was pretty awe-inspiring. The chamber was divided in two halves, with maroon leather benches facing each other along a central aisle and rising toward the walls. At one end of the central aisle was a raised dais where the President of the Society sat and in front of him a desk with two lecterns where the secretary of the Society was seated. At the other end of the aisle were two doorways marked “AYES” and “NOES,” along with a central, unmarked doorway. Students registered their votes by exiting the chamber through the appropriate doorway, the unmarked door being for abstentions.

Seeing this situation, I realized that Peter and I were really up against it. The format gave opportunity for anyone to get up and speak, no matter how uninformed, and we would have little chance to respond. One could expect the atheist students to be vocal and aggressive, and the Christian students to sit on their hands and say nothing. Our opponents would have the last word and would probably wait until their closing speech to address our arguments. I said to Peter, “We’ve got to expect to lose the vote, so don’t be discouraged by it. We’ve got to just do our best in addressing the arguments and let the chips fall where they may.” Well, that night things began to unfold just as I expected. Peter gave a fine opening speech. Copson then followed with a speech which, though thin on substance and largely unresponsive to Peter’s arguments, was emotionally engaging, funny, and winsome. His speech was punctuated numerous times by applause. The open debate from the floor which followed was disastrous, a dreadful display of ignorance and hostility. One student, for example, refuted Peter’s ontological argument by observing that if the argument were correct, then it would prove the existence of the stupidest conceivable being. Another raised the old chestnut, “If God created everything, then what created God?,” which was followed by great applause, as though he had actually said something significant. You could just feel the emotional tide turning against us.

When the time for my closing statement finally came, I thought, “I’ve got to do something to right this ship.” Prior to the debate, the bursar of the debating society Bill Bailey had advised me that the speakers who do best are those that have a sense of theater, use the whole floor for their speech, and make eye contact with the audience. Jan then said to me, “Remember: ‘All the world’s a stage!’” So when I rose to present the closing arguments for the House, I tried to keep in mind their advice. I strode back and forth along the central aisle, turning to speak to the audience on every side. I emphasized that Peter’s arguments had gone unaddressed by the Opposition and that by reserving their replies to Dr. Ahmed’s closing speech, they had precluded our responding to any objections they would raise, contrary to the rules of debate. Walking directly over to Ahmed and standing before him, I emphasized all that he needed to do in his closing speech if the Opposition were to defeat the proposition. I closed with these words, which I had committed to memory:
In a few minutes we shall walk through one of two doorways to register our view on tonight’s question. Which door you choose is really a profound statement about yourself personally. Through the one door will walk not only theists of various sorts—Christians, Muslims, Jews, others—but also agnostics, who think it’s an open question whether God exists, as well as many, if not most, atheists, who may disagree with their theistic friends but aren’t prepared to judge them as deluded. They recognize that the question of God’s existence is a difficult one on which rational people can, and do, disagree. By voting with the House you show yourself to be open-minded, tolerant of differences of opinion on hard questions, and respectful of the views of others. By voting for the Opposition you, in effect, declare all your believing friends and professors to be literally deluded and irrational. Are you really that judgmental? Are you so cocksure of yourself? I hope not. I hope that you will instead join with your believing friends in agreeing that belief in God, whether true or false, is not a delusion.
The speech was greeted with loud applause! In my life as a public speaker, I think I have never enjoyed giving a speech more than I did this one. But was it enough? Ahmed was yet to follow. Would he undo us? To my surprise, Ahmed’s final speech was dull, uninspired, and not at all substantive in his responses to Peter’s opening arguments. I don’t think he even understood the ontological argument, having no apparent grasp of the difference between broad and strict logical necessity. It was striking that in contrast to Copson’s opening speech, Ahmed’s closing speech was not once interrupted by applause. The debate thus came to a close, and students began exiting though the two doors. We were told that the vote would be announced later upstairs in the student bar. We made our way into the bar area and began interacting with students about the issues raised in the debate. After some time the secretary of the Society came in and, loudly ringing a hand bell, proclaimed at the top of her voice, “We have a house divided!” I held my breath. “Ayes: 243; Noes: 229; abstaining: 129. The House wins by 14 votes!” A narrow victory! We’ll take it! In one sense it didn’t mean much; but if the other side had won, we’d have never heard the end of it.

I have mixed pictures of the Reasonable Faith U.K Tour from different locations, to help capture what could have been the real mood at that venue.

Check here to know more about the tour.

Yours in the Master's service,

Gatera I. Eric