Theology
This paper was originally presented at the ISCA in 2018. It has been somewhat shortened, checked over for grammatical errors, and published with the permission of the original authors, Dr. Doug Bookman and Dr. Russ White. Modern Western culture is obsessed with progress. The desire to find faster, more efficient ways to create, produce, find,…
You’ve placed your faith in Christ, and now you are trying to live your life as a Christian, but you just committed a horrible sin. “Did I just lose my salvation? Am I condemned to eternal damnation because I doubted God?” A first reading of Paul’s letter to the Colossians certainly seems to say just…
Eighteen times people either changed God’s mind or resisted God’s will. These things are only possible if humans have free will. Genesis 4:6 –God tells Cain: “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” Genesis 4:13 –God marks Cain to prevent his death when Cain complains about the scope of his punishment Genesis 12…
Perhaps the most common view—widely considered the orthodox view—of God in modern Christianity is God is outside time. Divine timelessness is generally taken to mean: God does not experience nor recognize any sequence of moments in time God experiences every event in what humans call “history” as eternally present More formally, God is atemporal. One…
Dignity is seemingly a little thing. We rarely discuss dignity in theology other than as a minor anthropological category. We rarely discuss dignity in Christian living other than as something we should somehow “respect in others.” Almost every religious worldview throws “dignity” around, from atheists to Muslims, and we all just kind of assume we…
If God is all good, and God is all power, then why does evil exist? This problem, called the logical problem of evil, is widely recognized as countered by the free will defense, which states: If any creature God creates will necessarily go wrong (or sin) at some point, and the result of such sin…
Progressivism everywhere—even and especially Christian progressivism—agrees with the Fabian Socialist Window, saying: Hammer stoutly, pray devoutly … [to] remake [the world] to thy desire. The grounding principle of progressivism is humans can “remake the world” by “hammering stoutly” to make the world a better place. Societies can be mended so people can flourish by “hammering…
A typical discussion about philosophy in theological circles often sounds something like this: “Philosophy precedes theology!” “No … manmade philosophies should be discarded, and we should follow the Scriptures only!” “No! Natural law is our foundation. What we can learn from nature inevitably leads us to God!” The relationship between philosophy, theology, and natural law…
What is Death? What do you think of when you hear the word “death?” According to the Merriam-Webster’s eleventh edition, death includes: death \ˈdeth\ noun a: a permanent cessation of all vital functions: the end of life—compare BRAIN DEATH . . . . a: the passing or destruction of something inanimate 〈the death of vaudeville〉[1]…
Imagine you have a child around 6 or 7 years old (you might already have one or have older children, making this exercise much easier). Your child receives twenty dollars from a relative as a gift, and you promise to take them to the store to spend the money on something they would like. You…