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Owned by Aaron
Tennessee Apologetics gives you training, community, and access to experts so you can learn to defend your faith.
33 contributions to Tennessee Apologetics
2d •
Islam Apologetics: Mark 13:32 - Does the Son Know the Day and the Hour?
Let's start discussing Islam apologetics here. It would be good to share what we've encountered. Let's try to keep each thread on a single topic, and then we can organize the threads into the Islam category to find them later. Let's also try to be mindful of how dense a single comment is. Try to be precise and focused. I will go first because I have something on my mind that I want to work through with you guys. Mark 13:32 "But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, except the Father." So the question I am asking is does the Son actually know in some sense? If so, what sense? And how would we defend that from the Bible? I will tell you upfront that right now I am exploring what it would mean if He actually did not know. I think a plain reading is that He does not know. The fact that His knowledge is lumped with the angels leads me to believe that over other explanations (since we would not try to reconcile the angels knowledge in the same way). So the question is what follows if it's true that the Son doesn't know? The OT passage he's alluding to is Zech 14:7 "And it will be a unique day which is known to Yahweh..." @Tim Tant asked me if I believe the Son can learn a fact. That was a good question and my gut reaction was no. The problem is I don't know why. I think our first instinct is to say God knows everything, so if Jesus is God he must know everything exactly as the Father does. But is that true? Which made me ask why is omniscience rooted in the being of God? So I looked into it. That idea comes from the classical doctrine of divine simplicity, developed through Augustine and later systematized by Aquinas. It's a product of classic theology. Scripture clearly teaches that God knows all things, knows hearts, knows the future, and possesses knowledge in a way creatures do not. But Scripture does not say: 1) God’s knowledge is identical to his essence. 2) Every divine person must therefore possess every item of knowledge identically.
0 likes • 2d
The reason this belongs in the Islam discussion is because the Muslim argument is usually: Jesus does not know X God knows everything. Therefore, Jesus is not God. Classical theology accepts the crucial premise in that argument and effectively agrees that, for a person to be fully divine, that person must individually know every truth. So now we're trying to explain to a Muslim why Jesus actually does know the day and the hour when he clearly said he didn't. And that seems backwards to me. I'm not saying it is backwards, I'm saying it seems backwards. Maybe there's another way to reason through this.
1 like • 1d
@Al Perea Al! How are you doing? Thanks for commenting! At the last fellowship night (well, I guess fellowship morning) we were talking about this. And this is a harmonization I'm familiar with, but if I'm being honest it never really sat right with me. That's probably the main reason I'm exploring this. But I have several objections that made me start thinking: It's true that the Son is divine and took on a human nature. So Jesus is both divine and human. And he did grow in wisdom as a human. Not denying any of that. But the disciples also say to Jesus "Now we can see that you know all things." So why don't we appeal to that verse over the other when we talk about his knowledge as a human? I would also push back and say "the day and the hour known only to Yahweh" from Zech 14 doesn't seem like the kind of wisdom you grow in as a human. But that's really just my intuition about that. When I'm talking to Muslims about Jesus, I don't like flipping between his human and divine natures to explain things. I'm looking for a more consistent methodology. Hey, maybe the divine nature/human nature limitation metaphysic has development, and I just need to find that. Now the part I do agree with is that there is a real order. Sending and being sent is a great example. There's unbegotten and begotten. The Father gives and Son receives. The Son does nothing on his own, but only does what he sees the Father doing. There's definitely a real, realtional order there. So why do stop at knowledge in that relational order? Could it be that the Father knows and the Son does not, and yet Yahweh still knows all things? And I'm not just asking this questions. I'm actually saying that's the way I'm leaning right now. I know that's a break from classical theology. I guess the implicit questions I'm not stating out loud are is that wrong? Am I crossing some boundary? Can that be boundary be demonstrated from scripture?
12d •
Problem of Evil
There had been an earthquake that led to a dam breaking causing massive flooding and loss of life not too long ago in China or India or on the border not sure. Anyway you could see the videos on social media of people getting swept away. Not sure of the numbers but many died. I’ve heard often claimed that natural disasters, as well as suffering, get lumped into the problem of evil. But are these things really evil? Something that can be levied against God or something to discredit his goodness? Of course we as Christian’s apologists deny this. I personally have used the butterfly effect. What’s evil or bad here may be the cause of great good elsewhere and we could never truly know but I admit this is nebulous and may not be a sufficient answer for many. But the thought occurred to me, I don’t think natural disasters can be categorized as evil. They are a part of a natural cycle of the world we live in. Yes sometimes people get caught in the crossfire so to speak but to use people dying in natural disasters as a discredit for a good God to me seems no different from using death in general as a contention against God since it too is a natural process. That is to say there is no morality behind nature nor death itself. They are simply processes thus they cannot be evil. Idk if this idea has been fleshed out more deeply anywhere else but I wanted to throw it up here to ask what y’all think and if there is any errors in my thinking.
0 likes • 2d
@Tyler Brinkman Yeah I don't like "morally sufficient reason" either. That sounds like a standard outside of God that he has to satisfy in order to be good.
0 likes • 2d
@Tyler Brinkman I don't think God has to have any explanation for what he does.
11d •
A Conversation with Amed
@Amed Maksut made the following comment in a longer thread with me. I am moving it here in hopes that everyone can follow along, including me. Lol My reply will be in the comments. Link to his original comment: https://www.skool.com/captive-thought-college-prep-8580/new-video-uploaded?p=7fafa205 @Aaron Yost We can throw out the verdicts of all these early big church figures and also the 5th, 6th, and 7th ecumenical councils which eventually condemned and anathematized Origens teachings. It wasn’t only him that was condemned as a heretic but there was a whole following of people who were labeled origenists who all preached the same thing, that the son and Holy Spirit are creatures. -But first may I get an answer to my previous question, “do you agree that if someone holds the belief that the Holy Spirit is created, which means He isn’t co-equal or co-eternal with the Father is considered a heretic?” (Which you’ve agreed to be Origens beliefs) -Also if you want to focus on a single quote of his and explain it to me we can, but if we agree on my previous question of him being a heretic for believing the Holy Spirit to be created then we can move to a different Church father I mentioned to prove my original point if you still disagree. -If not we can continue and choose the quote from Origen which states, “But we are persuaded by the Savior who says: “The Father whom sent me is greater than I” (John 14:28, see 6:44) and for this reason would not even bear to have the epithet “good” (see Mk. 10:18) applied to him in its proper, true, and perfect sense, but graciously referred it to the Father, finding fault with the person who wished to glorify the Son too much. We say that the Savior and the Holy Spirit transcend all generated beings, not by comparison, but by an absolute transcendence, but that he is transcended as much and more by the Father, as he and the Holy Spirit transcend other beings, not just ordinary ones. How is it possible even to say what great praise belongs to one who transcends thrones, dominions, rulers, powers, and every name named, not just in this age, but in the age to come (see Eph. 1:21), and in addition the holy angels, spirits, and souls of the righteous? But even though transcending by his being, dignity, power, divinity – for he is the living Word – and wisdom being so many and so great, he can in no way be compared to the Father. For he is the image of his goodness and the emanation not of God, but of his glory and his eternal light, and the exhalation not of the Father, but of his power, and the pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, and the spotless mirror of his activity (Wis. 7:25–6; Heb. 1:3), the mirror through which Paul and Peter and those like them see (see 1 Cor. 13:12) God, because he said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me” (John 14:9, see 12:45).”
0 likes • 6d
@Amed Maksut I didn't say you're not sincere. I'm saying you're not acknowledging history. But maybe you're just not aware. The most straightforward example of tawheed development is the created vs uncreated Quran debate. Is Allah’s speech (the Qur’an) created, or is it eternal/uncreated? The Qur’an itself never simply says “The Qur’an is uncreated.” Nor does it straightforwardly state the later Sunni metaphysics of divine speech. The Muʿtazila argued that the Qur’an must be created. Why? Because if the Qur’an is eternal alongside Allah, you have introduced another eternal reality alongside God, compromising absolute divine unity. The Ahl al-Hadith went the other direction. They said the Qur’an is the speech of Allah and uncreated. They thought calling God’s speech created compromised a divine attribute. And this was not a minor disagreement. During the Miḥna in 833 the state imposed the created-Qur’an position. People were being killed over this issue. Both sides thought they were deriving their position from revelation. The Trinity isn't a paradox. And it's only a "mystery" in so far as every single metaphysical detail isn't exhaustively revealed. It also doesn't go against any logic. Neither your claim nor the book’s claim holds any water for exactly the reasons I exposed in our methodology discussion. Essentially, the book demonstrates that the pre-Nicene fathers do not consistently satisfy the six-point Nicene framework the author chose to judge them by. Well, duh. They’re pre-Nicene. The author himself defines Trinitarianism by those six later criteria and then excludes anyone who fails one of them. But his argument only holds water if I accept his framework as the proper standard for determining whether the Trinity was taught or was present before Nicaea. I don’t accept that. Why should I? So I don’t have to refute 585 pages of quotations. I simply challenge the framework that goes from “doesn’t satisfy my six-point definition” into “therefore the Trinity wasn’t taught.”
0 likes • 5d
@Amed Maksut You just skipped past my tawheed comment. We can't just move on, man. I'm sorry. Maybe you can do that, but I have to resolve one issue at a time. I don't expect you to respond to my critique of the book's methodology. You don't have to defend him. I do think you should acknowledge the history of the development of the doctrine of tawheed, though. I need to know we're acknowledging what happened. And then I'd like to know how that relates to your methodology. It seems clear to me that if we apply your methodology consistently, we have to admit that tawheed isn't an original clear, plain, straightforward teaching, but a later theological development. Which I have no problem with. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing for Islam. I believe doctrinal development is necessary for imperfect creatures like us. I would be suspicious of a doctrine that didn't have development. But for your list. I, too, can create a 6 point list that summarizes the later development of tawheed and then call Muslims who didn't agree with that list heretics. Big whoop. The methodology is what I'm stress testing first. Because you aren't evaluating with equal scales. You know the funny part is? We're 20-something comments into this and I've just been asking the same question over and over and you haven't responded to it. We could be evaluating evidence if you'd just agree on a fair system.
24d •
New Video Uploaded
Hey guys, I just posted my interaction with Ahmed Ragab. It's under the Fundamentals of Islam course. I would love to get a conversation going about that conversation
0 likes • 15d
@Amed Maksut Amed, I'm sorry but I have to draw a line. This is not how you establish what Origen thought: Epiphanius says Origen taught X. Jerome says Origen taught X. Theophilus says Origen taught X. Photius says Origen taught X. Therefore, here's what Origen believed. If we're discussing what Origen believed, let's discuss Origen's argument in context and demonstrate your conclusion from it. I'm not going to chase quotations from four other authors about what they thought Origen believed. Let's stick to one Origen text and discuss it. Pick the passage you think best demonstrates your claim. Let's read it in context, establish what Origen is actually arguing, and see whether your conclusion follows from it. Once we've settled that passage, we can move to another one.
1 like • 11d
@Amed Maksut I am going to move this to a new thread so people can follow along. and from there we will be specific.
0 likes • Jul 21
@Austin Erlandson You are correct when you say we have a revelational epistemology (we only know what God reveals to us). But when you say logic can't prove or disprove things outside our current subset of knowledge, that means there could be contradictions somewhere out in the world that we don't know about. But is that true? For example, there may be creatures God has never revealed to us. We cannot reason from our present knowledge to a detailed description of them. But we can still know that no creature can both exist and not exist in the same sense simultaneously.
0 likes • Jul 21
@Austin Erlandson If there can be real contradictions “out there” that we simply do not know about, then it could be true that God exists and God does not exist in the same sense at the same time. In that case, theism and atheism could both be correct. But then your argument that atheism is false collapses, because on your view “God exists” would not exclude “God does not exist.” The law of non-contradiction is what allows you to say one position rules out the other. Or taking your original position reality is non-locally real. If genuine contradictions can exist, then reality could also be non-locally real and not non-locally real at the same time and in the same sense. So why should your claim exclude its negation?
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@aaron-yost-8300
Founder of Tennessee Apologetics. We prepare Christians for their faith to be challenged.
Active 20h ago
Joined Aug 19, 2025