Thoughts on ethics, society, politics, religion, philosophy, theology, and everything in between
In my previous two apologetics posts, I defended the biblical accounts of creation and primeval human history found in the early chapters of Genesis from criticisms that they are unscientific. These are not the only parts of the Bible that have been criticized as unscientific. There are numerous other aspects of biblical teaching that skeptics … Read more
Human Origins According to scientific theories widely accepted today, the human species evolved from pre-human ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, through a process of evolution involving much pain and death. This contradicts what many Christians believe to be the teaching of the book of Genesis: that God directly created an original human pair … Read more
The Coherence of the Biblical Creation Account(s) It is sometimes argued that the Bible contains different creation accounts which contradict one another. The Psalms and the prophets sometimes speak of God establishing order by defeating a mythological chaos monster, Rahab or Leviathan (Job 26:7-13; Ps 74:12-17, 89:10-13; Isa 51:9-10); this resembles creation stories of other … Read more
In a previous apologetics series on this blog, I have defended the coherence of the Christian concept of God from a variety of criticisms and attacks. However, even if antichristian skeptics acknowledge that the Christian concept of God is coherent, they will often claim that the God of classical Christian theism is not actually the … Read more
One of the most common arguments made against Christianity is the argument from Christian immorality: the frequent failure of Christians to live according to their own moral teachings makes it hard to believe that Christianity is true. Throughout history, and down to the present day, many Christians have lived in ways that are seriously incompatible … Read more
It is an undeniable fact that there are many times when Christians ask God for things in prayer and do not receive them. This fact is often referred to as the problem of “unanswered” prayer. Antichristian skeptics try to use this problem to argue that the Christian God is not real. Why Are Many Prayers … Read more
Christians believe that one day Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. The righteous will experience eternal life in God’s new creation. The wicked, on the other hand, will experience eternal death away from God’s presence in “Hell.” The doctrine of Hell is by far one of the most disliked aspects … Read more
The problem of evil is the difficulty of reconciling belief in the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly good God with the reality of the existence of evil in the world. Previously on this blog, I have done a four part series on the problem of evil, addressing the problem with reference to the biblical story … Read more
Christians believe that salvation and eternal life come through faith in Christ alone. Apart from Christ, no one can have a true, saving relationship with God. Apart from Christ, good works can do nothing to earn salvation or eternal life. Skeptics have raised a number of objections to this Christian understanding of salvation. Exclusive and … Read more
One of the most basic and important Christian theological beliefs is the doctrine of the resurrection. Christians believe that when Jesus comes again to fully inaugurate God’s Kingdom and to make all things new, every human being who has ever lived and died will be raised from the dead. Then, we will all experience God’s … Read more