Free Downloads.

If you are looking for lectures to download, try the Christian Heritage site. It has a number of lectures and debates that look interesting. I listened to the lecture by the former Zen Buddhist and it was worthwhile. The lecturer has some interesting things to say concerning Buddhist "monergisms" and Christian trinitarianism.

I also listened to the debate on the existence of God, which was pretty interesting on both sides. I'd score it a win for the theist on the grounds that the atheist allowed his contempt for the intellectual bona fides of his opponent to get the better of him. Also, I take off points for gratuitous sneers at American presidents.

On the other hand, I have to wonder why theistic debaters never understand that the cosmological argument doesn't prove the existence of all the characteristics that are understood to be inherent in the Christian idea of God, i.e., a God who is all knowing, all loving and all powerful. It proves the existence of a God who is simply the "First Cause", which may be a "slice" of the characteristics of the Christian God, but only a slice. The proof of the other qualities are found elsewhere, such as in divine revelation.

The only people who I have seen really get this distinction are Peter Kreeft and, not surprisingly, St. Thomas Aquinas. I didn't get the point when I read Aquinas' Summa, First Part. I kept wondering what the "...and this everyone understands to be God" business was all about. Frankly, it seemed to be quite a leap from a non-contingent First Cause to the loving and merciful Christian God.

The answer was that it is quite a leap. Aquinas doesn't purport to describe God's mercy and love in the sections on the proofs of God's existence; that discussion comes later.

Yet, theistic debaters inevitably frolic on ground where Aquinas sensibly never went, and then they get mowed down on the issue of God's existence with non sequiturs generated from the problem of evil. Professor James Hall plays on a similar confusion in reaching his agnostic conclusion, which in retrospect seems distinctly unfair in that Professor Hall never tells his students the limited "slice" of God's characteristics that Aquinas is attempting to prove.

Another good site is provides three lectures on early Byzantine history.

All free.

Enjoy.