(updated
05.06.08, 11:20 pm CST)
Spring 2008
Christian Apologetics (SWBTS #PHILO 4373)
<> New! Final Exam
(take-home): click here for rtf version and click here for pdf version. Due
Wednesday, 05.07.08 at 5:00 pm.
<> Sample
Critical Reviews.
<> Midterm Study Questions: click here for rtf version and click here for pdf version.
<> Syllabus.
Intelligent
Design – Doctoral Seminar (SWBTS #PHILO 7544)
<> Syllabus.
Fall 2007
Intelligent Design (SWBTS #PHILO 5483)
<> TAKE-HOME FINAL: click here for rtf version and click here for pdf version. Due
Thursday, December 13th by 12 noon.
<> WRAPPING UP THE COURSE: There is no class meeting Monday, December
10th. The last two assignments -- the review and the final -- will need to be
sent to me by email. The review is supposed to be in at 11:59pm on Monday,
December 10th. The final will be placed online by 12noon on Tuesday, December
11th and needs to be emailed to me, completed, on Thursday, December 13th by 12
noon.
<> Midterm Study Guide.
<> Sample of critical reviews.
Download the zip file at this link to see what I’m looking for in a
critical review.
<> Syllabus
for this course.
<> Syllabi for the upcoming academic year.
Note that some courses here are new to Southwestern Seminary and thus have yet
to receive an official course number.
Spring 2006
Critical Thinking (SWBTS #PHREL 5373 A)
<> Part I of final exam (due
12 noon on Wednesday, May 9, 2007): pdf
version and rtf
version. Use the rtf version if you wish to intersperse your answers among
the questions.
<> FINAL EXAM: The final exam
consists in two parts, both of which are due 12:00 noon on May 9, 2007: Part I
– a comprehensive take-home test that needs to be emailed to my grader
Jack Greenoe at JLGreenoe AT elearning DOT swbts DOT edu. The take-home test
will be appear on this webpage by 12:00 noon on May 8, 2007. Part II – a
1,000 to 1,500 word critical review of “A War on Science”; the
review needs to be emailed to me at wdembski AT designinference DOT com.
<> Solutions
to exercises 11 to 12.
<> Sample
Critical Reviews.
<> Solutions
to exercises 9 to 10.
<> Solutions
to exercises 7 to 8.
<> The midterm will be a
take-home exam in which you write a 1500- to 2000-word critical review of
Richard Dawkins’s two-part video series against religion/ Christianity
(For examples of critical reviews of books, go here,
here,
and here.)
The word limit is absolute. Try to
focus especially on Dawkins’s rhetorical moves to influence his viewers
against religion. How skillful and effective is he? Where is his approach weak?
The exam is open-book in the sense that you can use any books in the course as
well as any other materials that you find useful. There is one exception,
however, which is that I don’t want you looking at other reviews of this
series (on the internet or elsewhere) or talking to fellow classmates about the
exam. You can spend as much time working on this review as you like. But it is
due in class as hardcopy on March 20, 2007.
<> Solutions
to exercises 4 to 6.
<> Solutions
to exercises 1 to 3.
<> Syllabus.
Fall 2006
Christian Apologetics (SWBTS #PHREL 4373)
<> Final take-home
exam (due 10:00am Wednesday, 12.13.06): pdf
version or rtf
version.
<> For the Richard Dawkins vs.
David Quinn debate, go here.
<> Several points of business:
(1) Quizzes from now on will be in-class (this provides a better gauge of
whether you are actually reading and understanding the material, and it allows
me in good conscience to give you a more general essay-type final exam). (2)
The critical review/term paper will be due last day of class (for examples of
critical reviews, go here,
here,
and here;
see also reviews in Books & Culture
and First Things). (3) The final exam
will be a two-hour in-class closed-book essay exam. There will be some general
concept questions at the start (e.g., what is the difference between
metaphysical and methodological naturalism) and some case-study questions at
the end (for examples of the this type of question, go here).
<> Quiz_10.10.06: There’s an extended
footnote at the bottom of pages 178 and 179 of The Flight of Peter Fromm. Toward the end of that footnote Martin
Gardner, in the person of Homer Wilson remarks, “But today’s
Christians seem to have little curiosity about the early sources of their
faith.” By early sources, here, Gardner is referring to the New Testament
Apocrypha. How would you respond to Gardner’s criticism of Christians who
dismiss the New Testament Apocrypha? Are we right to reject these writings as
spurious and focus instead on the New Testament Canon as found in our Bibles?
Please write a paragraph or two in response to this criticism by Gardner.
<> Quiz_10.03.06 will be
in-class.
<> Quiz_9.26.06 was in-class. We
discussed the answers after the quiz.
<> Quiz_9.21.06, due at the
beginning of class: Imagine that you are engaged in a public debate at a
secular university with Thomas Nagle. Imagine further that Nagle has just
uttered the quote at the top of p. 127 of Victor Reppert’s book. In a
page or less indicate how, as a Christian apologist publicly debating Nagle,
you would respond to his quote. Think especially of what you would want to say
for the benefit of non-Christians listening in on your debate.
<> Quiz_9.19.06 answers: Ques1
(the argument from reason) – the argument from reason attempts to
undercut naturalism by showing that naturalism does not properly allow for
reason and thus becomes self-refuting when one uses reason to argue for the
truth of naturalism (with this argument, the devil is in the details); Ques2
(fideism) – fideism is the view that rational argumentation is
irrelevant, if not counterproductive, to genuine faith.
<> Quiz_9.14.06: pdf
version; rtf
version. Answer
key to this quiz.
<> Quiz_09.07.06 was in-class. Answer
key to this quiz.
<> Quiz_09.04.06: pdf
version; rtf
version. Answer
key to this quiz.
<> Quiz_08.31.06: pdf
version; rtf
version. Answer
key to this quiz.
<> Syllabus.
Christian
Faith, Knowledge, and Science (SWBTS #PHREL 7534)
<> Critical review
assignment: Write a 1,500- to 2,000-word critical review of the book or book
chapters about which you will be giving a class presentation (the word-count is
strict but excludes notes and bibliography, which you may not need). The skill
in these reviews is not to summarize the whole book point by point but rather
to uncover its essence -- its main argument and thrust -- and then to assess it
critically. For models of what such reviews, have a look at the following
reviews I’ve written here,
here,
and here
(in 1999 this last review won the Evangelical Press Association’s first
place award in the category of “Critical Reviews”). You can also
look at the reviews at First Things
and at Books & Culture.
As for references and other scholarly paraphernalia, keep a consistent style
that provides all necessary information (I’m not worried about you
following any particular style manual). Also, in an age of spelling and grammar
checkers, I will count off on such mistakes. The review is due the day of your
presentation.
<> Syllabus.
Spring 2006
Critical Thinking and the Art of
Argumentation (SBTS #28970)
<> Solutions
to exercises 11 to 12. Sorry it took so long to post these. Since exercises
13 to 14 were cancelled and since they won’t be figuring into the final
(at least not directly) and since I’m very short on time, I probably
won’t be posting these (as I had originally intended).
<> As indicated in class and in the previous note, the final is to be a
2000-word critical review of Richard Dawkins’s 2-part series “The
Root of All Evil?” (For examples of critical reviews see the previous
note below.) The word limit is absolute. The exam is open-book in the sense
that you can use any books in the course as well as any other materials that
you find useful. There is one exception, however, which is that I don’t
want you looking at other reviews of this series (on the internet or elsewhere)
or talking to fellow classmates about the exam. You can spend as much time
working on this review as you like. But it is due by midnight Eastern Standard
Time on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 as an email attachment sent to me at the
following email address: wdembski AT designinference DOT com (my SBTS email
account has in the past proven unreliable for such assignments). If you need to
view the series again and don’t have it readily available, Jiri Prochazka
is on campus and will be able to assist you (his email address is: chrochy AT
hotmail DOT com).
<> The final will be a take-home exam in which you will do a critical
review of Richard Dawkins’s two-part series against religion/Christianity
titled “The Root of All Evil?” (For examples of critical reviews of
books, go here,
here,
and here.)
We’ll view this series in class
on Monday, 4.24.06, at which time I’ll give you details about the exam. I
have yet to put up the remaining exercises to Murphy. I will do that as soon as
time allows, though it’s not so crucial given the focus of the final.
<> Solutions
to exercises 9 to 10.
<> Solutions
to exercises 7 to 8.
<> Midterm take-home exam (due at beginning of class Monday, 3.13.06): pdf
version or rtf
version.
<> Please print off my Primer
on Probability, read it, and bring it to class on Monday, 3.13.06.
<> The mid-term exam on will be posted on this page by 12:00 noon on
Friday, 3.10.06. I had intended to provide a study guide, but since this will
be a 1-hour open-book exam, I don’t see much need for this. Familiarity
with the readings and exercises, however, will be important because even though
it’s an open-book exam, unless you know what’s what and where,
you’ll be wasting an inordinate amount of time hunting for answers and
thus be unable to answer all the questions. Our main text is Nancey
Murphy’s book and you’ll want to know what’s there as well as
be able to do the exercises. The exam will only focus on chapters 1 to 6 of
that book. With regard to the Laws of Power, know Laws 1–18. With regard
to Corbett, focus on pages 1-141 but don’t worry about syllogisms (as I
indicated, these are best handled in a course on basic symbolic logic
[specifically, propositional and quantificational logic], e.g., Henry
Gensler’s Introduction
to Logic). Once the exam appears online, using the allotted space type
in your answers in the rtf version or else write in your answers in the pdf
version. Hand in your exams at class on Monday, 3.13.06.
<> Solutions
to exercises 5 to 6.
<> Solutions
to exercises 1 to 4.
<> Syllabus.
A Primer on
Intelligent Design (SBTS #28677)
<> Here is the final for
this course: pdf
document. It is due May 10, 2006 with Keith Goad (see first page of exam
for details).
<> The final will be an open-book take-home exam to be submitted
electronically to Keith Goad, my Garrett fellow (for the type of exam
you’re looking at, go here).
<> Study questions for midterm exam (closed book) that will be giving
Monday 3.27.06 at the beginning of class: pdf
document.
<> Paper assignment: Write a 2,000- to 2,500-word critical review
of Forrest and Gross’s Creationism’s
Trojan Horse (the word-count is strict but excludes notes and
bibliography). The skill in these reviews is not to summarize the whole book
point by point but rather to uncover its essence -- its main argument and
thrust -- and then to assess it critically. For models of what such reviews
might look like, have a look at the following reviews I’ve written here,
here,
and here
(in 1999 this last review won the Evangelical Press Association’s first
place award in the category of “Critical Reviews”). As for
references and other scholarly paraphernalia, keep a consistent style that
provides all necessary information (I’m not worried about you following
any particular style manual). Also, in an age of spelling and grammar checkers,
I will count off on such mistakes. This paper is due the last day of class:
April 24, 2006.
<> Syllabus.
Fall 2005
Christian
Doctrine and the Natural Sciences (SBTS #28960)
<> Final
Exam for Course #28960. This is an open-book take-home exam due midnight on
Friday, December 2, 2005.
<> Midterm
Exam Study Questions Fall 2005. Study questions for course #28960.
<> Syllabus.
Scientific
Approach: The World and Christian Faith (SBTS #85320)
<> Syllabus.