tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115426912011-11-22T19:59:37.419-05:00Fides quaerens intellectum. Welcome to this theological safe space (tss) to think things through (ttt). You do not have to know a lot to think but you do have to think a lot to know. Discover the fabric of reality from a Christian perspective.Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-22129120544422334892011-07-28T07:30:00.002-04:002011-07-28T07:30:32.803-04:00

My friend, mentor, and inspiration to ministry is now with the Lord. Uncle John (Stott) passed away. We met 27 years ago in London at All Souls and 6 years later, he would commission me missionary envoy to the US, beginning my ministerial career to this day. Uncle John wanted me to give my mind to the Lord's service and despite all my excuses, he hounded me until I made the decision to leave the

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-87710525392181884202011-06-10T09:36:00.002-04:002011-06-10T09:36:49.675-04:00

Here are some thoughts about Hinduism and Buddhism. Both are concerned with satisfying karmic debt. The Hindu quest for the right guru and the Buddhist quest to be awakened for parinirvana, assume no relationship between creator and creation. The Christian Gospel announces the stunning news that at a moment in geohistory, God became man to reconcile man to God. The historicity of the incarnation

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-83731373663907413042011-03-24T17:19:00.001-04:002011-03-24T17:38:53.413-04:00

My dissertation - Do we sin because we are sinners or are we sinners because we sin?  Cognitive Nolition, Neuroscience and Kenotic Soteriology is an interdisciplinary proposal for a kenotic theological doctrine of moral cognition, one that accounts for the salvific status of amorals who suffer post-natal brain trauma resulting in declarative memory loss and false memory, infancy deaths as well as

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-53285310848018444182011-02-21T19:46:00.003-05:002011-03-24T12:43:23.384-04:00

As a Christian apologist, I am often asked if my job is to defend what Christians believe. Actually, not so.  My task is to affirm the Bible as the primary authority for the life of the Church. But I have to acknowledge that the Christian traditions around the world use slightly different collections of books to mean the 'Bible.' They range from 66 to 84 canonical books. Since the Protestant

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-28418311638056626232010-08-20T08:44:00.002-04:002011-02-21T22:30:45.622-05:00

Paperback - $25  6"X9" This is Project Timothy's Guides to the Old and New Testaments. Each book covers the different genres of writing and features biblical exegesis and hermeneutics in engagement with archaeology, the sciences, philosophy and historiography.  This is an ideal set of books for Christians as well as skeptics who seek a no nonsense examination of the Bible.  Written by an

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-26740180792384607772009-11-11T19:12:00.000-05:002009-11-11T19:13:30.894-05:00

www.ronchoong.comwww.act4u.wordpress.com

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-55688795039427224232009-09-07T14:39:00.001-04:002009-09-07T14:40:07.283-04:00

... it can help science and philosophy makes sense of the world.Theology’s confessional reflection distinguishes between synchronic[1] diachronic[2] and achronic[3] truths and can improve upon science and philosophy. This begins with a reasoned adoption of biblical authority, not as scientific knowledge or philosophical construct, but as tenseless diachronic or timeless achronic truth.

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-41872016649754451902009-07-23T12:22:00.003-04:002009-07-23T12:33:14.272-04:00

Sorry but I have so busy with running the ministry of www.actministry.org and completing my dissertation (I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation at Princeton on the topic, Do we sin because we are sinners or are we sinners because we sin?) is an interdisciplinary proposal for a kenotic theological doctrine of moral cognition, one that accounts for the salvific status of amorals who

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-3112302618392164422009-03-12T11:26:00.002-04:002009-03-12T11:39:48.643-04:00

I have been asked why I not posted for a while. The reason is that I have been tied up with a ton of research and I prefer to post when I am more sure than less.What I do want to share is that Christian belief ought to acknowledge that none of us belief is splendid isolation - we adopt the authorities of others only when it makes sense to us (however well we disguise this process). Even those of

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-9544287561172313562008-02-05T01:43:00.000-05:002008-02-05T01:44:00.670-05:00

A transformative, evolutionary doctrine of creation is a viable way to prepare for a doctrine of theological anthropology that accounts for findings in paleoanthropology, primatology and neuroscience. J. Moltmann and C. Gunton offer important correctives to traditional interpretations of the biblical creation story. Unlike strict process theology and panentheism, a transformative doctrine of

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-4987342677853408142007-11-12T06:21:00.000-05:002008-12-09T20:27:46.692-05:00

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-47665637773605996452007-11-02T20:50:00.000-04:002007-11-02T21:25:11.439-04:00

On September 21, the Work Research Foundation of Canada, which publishes COMMENT, invited me to respond to an article by Professor Anthony Kronman of Yale University in the Boston Globe. The following are the original article, my response, followed by Kronman's rebuttal.Why are we here?Colleges ignore life's biggest questions, and we all pay the priceBy Anthony Kronman | September 16, 2007In

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-39582545792827354402007-10-23T19:55:00.000-04:002007-10-23T22:09:33.519-04:00

Have you wondered about why matter exists at all? In fact, why do we exist? Scientists, philosophers and theologians before them have had to deal with such questions. How did they originate? (scientific question) Why did they originate? (philosophical question) Who intended for it to be so? (theological question) These three questions of origins continue to tease our curiosity. In my series of

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-4731871750281441712007-07-09T02:47:00.001-04:002007-07-09T02:47:48.498-04:00

1. Paideia: The ancient Greeks used a term to denote instruction in a course of study for the cultivation of intellect and character to produce an educated citizen. It seeks the ‘formation’ of a person, physical, intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual. By the time of the New Testament, the term was widely used to refer to children in need of good instruction. Both Jesus and Paul referred to

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-31605706282987731712007-07-09T02:44:00.000-04:002007-07-09T02:46:25.011-04:00

At ACT, we seek the ideals of paideia. Our mandate is to Teach, Disciple, & Proclaim the Gospel faithfully according to the Christian Bible handed down through the Church.1. ROMANS 12:2 Be transformed - thinking things through in the cultural spheres of influence: commerce, academia, media, politics and sports (CAMPS). We desire security and significance (SS). Leadership and success must be

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-89877609023627791142007-07-08T21:48:00.000-04:002007-07-08T21:57:27.741-04:00

I shall be launching Project Timothy Tutor-Training in Malaysia in August/September and offer a couple of seminars as well. The topics are TBA. Please contact Community Baptist Church in Petaling Jaya for details.

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1165871517176003192006-12-11T16:11:00.000-05:002006-12-11T16:11:57.226-05:00

This is a brief explanation of how science helps us understand the Bible. The full ACT seminar in New York will be delivered in 2007. This lecture was delivered at the December 2006 session of Project Timothy at City University of New York’s Hunter College in Manhattan. Archaeology is the study of antiquity by examining material remains of past human life and activities. It uses modern scientific

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156305002752298672006-08-22T23:50:00.000-04:002006-08-23T00:08:24.140-04:00

A brief history of 'Palestina' during the period between the Old and New Testaments.Introduction What happened in the biblical lands during the period book-ended by accounts mentioned in the Old Testament and the New Testament writings? In the Prostestant canon of 66 books, which excludes tha Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, not much is stated regarding events after the return of some of the

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156283523009084442006-08-22T17:52:00.000-04:002006-08-22T17:52:03.013-04:00

In my Q1 seminar (see http://www.actministry.org/eventDetails.php?event_id=95), I have shown the philosophically coherence and scientific unobjectionability of the Christian doctrine of creation. There is no philosophical or scientific ground to deny it. The Big Bang Model can be reconciled with a theological explanation of the universe that began with a creatio originalis ex nihilo, continues to

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156283107563809862006-08-22T17:45:00.000-04:002006-08-23T22:37:05.126-04:00

To know is to engage in the process of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge comes from the Latin word scientia, from which we derive the modern English word, science. Such is the success of the scientific project to explain phenomena in the process of gaining knowledge that we commonly think of science as the most manicured form of reliable knowing. But science is not the only way of acquiring

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156283062094558272006-08-22T17:44:00.000-04:002006-08-22T20:10:47.983-04:00

One of the most important and influential creedal statement today is the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), a 17th century document. However, its dated view of the creation account has made it an obstacle for fruitful science and theology conversations. Here, we shall examine a few important points in which the creedal confession is not supported by the very biblical references it stakes its

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156282841511789862006-08-22T17:40:00.000-04:002006-08-22T23:51:01.106-04:00

1 If Adam & Eve did not sin, would they have moral knowledge (image of God)? Since Adam and Eve acquired moral knowledge and therefore the image of God from eating the fruit, does this mean that they were never intended to have such knowledge? Not necessarily. God could have given them such knowledge by another means. The problem was that they acquired moral knowledge through direct disobedience

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156282327631963352006-08-22T17:32:00.000-04:002006-08-22T20:10:01.863-04:00

What is the point of philosophy? We are unable to scientifically theorize or theologically test, any proposal regarding such an origin without the rigor of philosophical speculation. If part of the scientific and theological enterprises includes rigorous philosophy, Christians should learn to get it right so that responsible philosophy can discipline both science and theology (theology

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1156281478234216072006-08-22T17:17:00.000-04:002006-08-22T20:15:55.916-04:00

What is the Christian teaching (doctrine) about creation?The triune God created and made all that exists apart from God. Strangely, to understand the beginning, we have to first understand what to expect at the end. So although genealogy is about the beginning of existence, it can only be fully understood with reference to the final purpose at the end of creation, its teleological eschatology.

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1143234774649962692006-03-24T16:12:00.000-05:002006-10-22T09:07:56.643-04:00

The Academy for Christian Thought (ACT) is presenting a Darwin Symposium in conjunction with the Metanexus Institute (Funded by the John Templeton Foundation). It will be hosted at Calvary Baptist Church located at 123 W57th Street, NYC on April 22nd from 9am - 1pm. Guest speakers will be Jeannie Drew (Head of Science of Riverdale Country School), Charlie Drew (Pastor), and Ron Choong (

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1139462765939049402006-02-09T00:26:00.000-05:002006-02-09T00:26:05.986-05:00

This is an executive summary of my seminar on the origin of life. The full text will soon be available on my minsitry website www.actministry.orgWhy should we care about understanding this strange phenomenon called life? It began only once almost 4 billion years ago and we use the term life to describe a state of being when chemicals grow, reproduce and ... think about themselves, like we are

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1138665982725786102006-01-30T19:06:00.000-05:002006-01-30T19:06:22.776-05:00

If you are in New York on these dates, do check out the website (www.actministry.org) and join us for our series on the Doctrine of Creation and the Natural Sciences.2006 Areopagus Semnars on the Question of OriginsJan 14Q1: Where Did It All Come From? - Origin of the UniverseThe seminar surveys what philosophy, science and theology has to say aboutthe origin of matter. This is crucial for our

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1138131240930640172006-01-24T14:34:00.000-05:002006-01-24T14:38:09.966-05:00

CONTROL BELIEFSWe do not think in a vacuum.Even freethinkers are not as free as they think they are when they are thinking, or when they think they are thinking.This is because thinking is an active exercise of the will. More importantly, all thinking begins with prior beliefs. We call these foundational assumptions control beliefs.1 DATA, THEORY, AND CONVICTIONS The quest for human knowledge is

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1118427479938734032005-06-10T13:42:00.000-04:002005-06-10T14:17:59.950-04:00

American movies are the most successful purveyors and evangelists of classical Hinduism packaged for western and wanna-be-western minds.From the Star Wars Sextet of movies to the Matrix trilogy we find echoes of pantheism pervading the media culture. Buddhism, which is reformed version of Hinduism, has come to be the dominant philosophical culture of sports personalities and movie moguls (BTW,

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1118424908362095772005-06-10T13:33:00.000-04:002005-06-10T13:35:08.366-04:00

Meaning of Evolution To evolve simply means to change. As far back as Aristotle, philosophers have noticed that time is related to change, i.e., in time, all things change. (We shall not discuss an even more important issue, whether time exists when matter does not change at all, or does time necessitate change in matter). Aristotle calls birth and death generation and corruption. Today, the

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1118424778833465932005-06-10T13:29:00.000-04:002005-06-10T13:32:58.833-04:00

All sorts of problems arise when we do not take care in making arguments. Our topic here is what Darwin means and what he implied. Let us call Darwin’s own proposal ‘Classical Darwinism’ and the contemporary variations of evolutionary theories either Neo-Darwinism or Non-Darwinism. Most Neo-Darwinian models of biological evolution maintain Darwin’s argument that ‘natural selection’ is entirely

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1118424558393028112005-06-10T13:27:00.001-04:002011-03-24T18:56:46.121-04:00

Let us begin at the beginning. It is important for the purpose of this seminar to limit all meanings of evolution to biological evolution. We do not refer to all manner of evolutionary ideas now adopted by many fields of inquiry. Biological evolution states that all living things share a common ancestor by descent with modification. Charles Darwin did not discover evolution (but he proposed

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1116649349503846322005-05-21T00:21:00.000-04:002005-05-21T00:22:29.513-04:00

Life begins with the acquisition of knowledge - the knowledge that we exist! Even before the baby’s first cry as she gasps for air to her lungs, the fetus lives in a dependent relationship with her mother. We do not know that she knows anything, but she at least knows that she is, even if she cannot remember such knowledge. After birth, knowledge accumulates rapidly as the baby learns to survive.

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1113457261866155662005-04-14T01:41:00.000-04:002005-04-14T01:52:46.136-04:00

areopagus2005The next ACT seminar on April 16th [What Every Christian Ought to Know About Science and Christian Theology] at the Empire State Building will be delivered by Ron Choong. This 3 hour seminar will consider the philosophical commitments intrinsic to the natural sciences and Christian theology. Each field of inquiry assume the significance of metaphysics to shape its ontology. The

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1112489362353905432005-04-02T19:46:00.000-05:002005-04-02T19:49:22.356-05:00

Thinking Things ThroughThe Academy for Christian ThoughtBulletin #1 - March 2005What we look forward to in 2005Paideia Bible Studies for international students and scholars will reflect the Old Testament theme with a global perspective, asking after the relevance of the Hebrew-Jewish-Israelite experience for a universal faith. These studies engage contemporary issues prevalent on the campus and

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1112488505208751722005-04-02T19:33:00.000-05:002005-04-02T19:35:05.216-05:00

What follows is very brief summary of an essay I wrote some years ago at Yale for a seminar rethinking Kant's posture with respect to the Christian doctrine of atonement. John E. Hare had just been appointed to the Noah Porter chair in philosophical theology to replace my other teacher there, Nicholas Wolterstorff (who retired). Hare is both an internationally recognized Kant as well as

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1112484623854380152005-04-02T18:29:00.000-05:002005-04-02T18:30:23.860-05:00

Who wrote the Bible? The world’s all time bestseller, the Christian Bible, has been translated in part into over 3000 languages. A closer examination reveals that none of the writers of the 66 ‘books’ claim authorship, i.e., they acknowledge penmanship without claiming to be the authors of the material. While most contemporary books identify their authors by name, the Holy Bible makes its own

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1111504917457066442005-03-22T10:09:00.000-05:002005-03-31T01:10:34.690-05:00

One the great unanswered questions is why evil and suffering exists.It is commonly assumed that the two words are related and sometimes, they are used synonymously.However, evil is often the name we use to describe a cause and suffering is used to describe the consequence.Hence, while not all evil results in suffering, and not all suffering a result of evil, their relationship may be stated as

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1111205840794284082005-03-18T23:17:00.000-05:002005-03-18T23:17:20.793-05:00

Some 2500 years ago, Socrates wondered about gods and goodness. In ancient Greece where he lived, many of the gods indulged in behavior which even mortals felt were bad, killing, stealing, commiting incest, destroying etc. He posed the question to Euthyphro about whether the gods love what is holy or holiness is what gods love. Socrates's student Plato wrote about. Today, this is known an

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1111185354245922592005-03-18T17:31:00.000-05:002006-08-26T09:35:16.150-04:00

Denominations! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.Denominations are collections of churches which form collectives and share common practices and beliefs. They have common denominators such as (i) the limitation of baptism to adults (Baptists, Anabaptists); (ii) the baptism of infants as well (almost everyone else); or (iii) the type of church government (Presbyterianism,

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1111182343005780722005-03-18T16:28:00.000-05:002005-03-18T16:45:43.006-05:00

They say it is hard to believe that God exists.In fact, it is probably harder to sustain a belief that God in fact does notexist. To start with, there is no one to blame when things go wrong (for me thatis). It seems that when something goes wrong for one person, it is almostnever the case that it also goes wrong for another or all persons.For example, if I miss my train it means that someone

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542691.post-1111179356490444022005-03-18T15:47:00.000-05:002005-03-18T17:37:23.276-05:00

Hello Cyberworld!Just joined the blog community so please be patient as I learn the ropes.This serves as my opportunity to share my thoughts with the you folks in cyberspace.I live in downtown New York City and am presently working on my dissertation in philosophy, science and theology. I love all three subjects and have been bothered by the fact that they don't seem to account for the existence

Ron Choonghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09686599929666485384noreply@blogger.com1