Today, Norman Geisler expanded on his short Facebook defense of Ergun Caner with a lengthy piece at his website:In Defense of Dr. Ergun Caner: A Response to His Critics, By Dr. Norman L. Geisler
James White has done a detailed 4 part analysis of Norm Geisler’s statement in defense of Ergun Caner:
Of Joseph Smith and Ergun Caner (Part 1)
Of Joseph Smith and Ergun Caner (Part 2)
Of Joseph Smith and Ergun Caner (Part 3)
Of Joseph Smith and Ergun Caner (Part 4)
TurretinFan has also responded to Geisler in 3 parts:
Responding to Norman Geisler’s Defense of Ergun Caner – Part 1
Responding to Norman Geisler’s Defense of Ergun Caner – Part 2
Wrapping Up Geisler’s Defense of Caner
While there is, predictably, a lot of overlap between the two series, each talks of things not mentioned by the other.
4 comments:
Fitting train wreck graphic.
He's like Dave Hunt to some degree. Dave lost all credibility as an apologist when he took the risk and went head long in the dark after Calvinists. It exposed him as being a fraud all along.
Geisler is wrong about a lot of his theology, but there has always been much usefulness with the areas where he was sound. Regrettably, this foolish defense of the indefensible makes him to appear weak minded and undiscerning.
Fred Butler wrote: "Regrettably, this foolish defense of the indefensible makes him to appear weak minded and undiscerning."
Dr. Geisler's reasoning is very poor but do not overlook how much of an advance this statement represents. EC's defenders and his critics are closer to having a common set of facts that they were before. Dr. Geisler is left to argue that it's OK for EC to say he always lived in majority Muslim countries, because he was a citizen of a majority Muslim country though he did not actually live in one, and besides his dad had actually lived in a majority Muslim country though he was not doing so when he lived with Ergun. He is not claiming EC actually ever resided in any majority Muslim country. That's progress. What would be triumph would be for the detractors and defenders to share the same time line in detail.
If they did, a lot of the controversy would just go away, because it is a hall of mirrors. There is a dispute about prayers in the bathroom: could a true Muslim pray in a high school bathroom? But if you select the earliest from the multiple menu selections of conversion ages that EC has offered, ranging from 15 to 18 plus, then you realize he wasn't a Muslim for very much of high school if any. If he was held back a year so he could learn English from Sesame Street, as he somewhere claims, then there were no high school bathroom prayers because he was not a Muslim in high school. The hall of mirrors collapses on itself.
Good post, great comments! Stormin' Norman needs to study his Bible a little more.
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