Tag: God
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How Do We Respond to Calls to Discuss Justice in the Church?
How do we respond to calls to discuss justice in the church? Not only is this a hot issue right now, but it is a critical issue to discuss. Because it is crucial, we need to address it in the church. Approaching the Conversation Primarily, we need to be intentional about how we approach the…
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Where did all of humanity’s problems begin? Simple!
If someone can make you second guess the very words of God, they can justify just about anything. For many people who wrestle with doubt or ongoing sin, the problem lies not only in temptation but in questioning God. A perfect example of this can be seen in the Garden of Eden, where Satan approached…
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Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
In this post, I explain what is my current view of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the life of an individual believer (sanctification) and in the life of the church (ecclesiology). I defend my position exegetically, theologically, and historically, where appropriate. Baptism When it comes to baptism, my view is baptism should be practiced…
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The Allure of Home
I investigate ways by which one can employ cultural methods to make the gospel appealing. I concentrate on one piece of culture and express a few ideas on how it can be used in the defense of the faith. Is the pandemic over yet? If we can count the fact that the U.S. has lifted COVID-19…
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A Christian Perspective on Guns
In respect of the gun control debate, there are both common goods and competing goods. The common goods are safety, a decrease in violence, and death reduction. The competing good is protecting the Second Amendment rights of the United States Constitution. However, I do not think these goods ought to be competing. In this post,…
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Don’t Follow Your Heart!
The culture today has moved over to complete relativism on a great number of things. Identity, morality, and purpose have all been divorced from objective reality and are based largely upon one’s feelings. But theprophet Jeremiah warned us, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9). What did Jesus have to…
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Taking a Deeper Look at the Problem of Evil: The Cross
Finally, I end by covering the cross and our eschatological hope as Christians. Jesus agonized the nastiest evil that can be thrown at him: denial by his own adored people, in the streets of their capital city; abhorrence from the authorities in his own religion; unfairness at the hands of the Roman court; unfaithfulness…
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Taking a Deeper Look at the Problem of Evil: The Greater Good Principle
Concluding the free will theodicy, I will delicately move to the greater good principle or defense. I say “delicately” because this defense may not help a questioner much if they have been a victim of a seemingly very unwarranted evil, and/or if they are still carrying anger or bitterness. The principle supports certain evils…
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Taking a Deeper Look at the Problem of Evil: The Free Will Defense
My last post hinted at the one last, ethical, principle of Leibniz’s best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy: God’s creation includes human free will (capacity of free will is shown in biblical examples like Deuteronomy 30:11-19, Isaiah 30:1 and Joshua 24:14-15). For Leibniz, this idea was just a principle of his theodicy. For Augustine, CS Lewis, and Alvin Plantinga…
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Taking a Deeper Look at the Problem of Evil: The Best of All Possible Worlds
From the last post, I want to move to the best of all possible worlds theodicy. One of the strengths of this theodicy is how straightforward and precise it is. It is also traditionally recognized as one of 18th-century philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s highly essential contributions to philosophy of religion. The place to start is…
Surrendered and Free 