About this Blog
Greetings and welcome to my blog!
I am a Christian, specifically a Protestant. I have believed in Jesus for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until my early teenage years, though, that I really begin to ask questions about my faith. And now, after years of study, I own 67 books on multiple subjects, such as belief in Jesus by reasoning from historical argument, understanding (and answering) other religions, and explaining apparent tension between verses in the Bible.
I am not an official person of any kind. I have received no formal theological training, attended seminary, or even graduated a college. But what I do have is 215 Bible verses memorized and expert credible resources (I only use books by authors who have attended school to know what they are talking about).
As a Christian, I believe that I should "...be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [me] to give the reason for the hope that [I] have. But [I should] do so with gentleness and respect." 1 Peter 3:15 God has given me answers. God wants people to come to Him. And so, here I am.
But I must say that I believe the best defense is a great offense. When someone asks me why I believe something related to God, I don't necessarily need to have an answer to their objection, but can just say why I believe what I believe. I bother to point this out because, I wish to answer questions posted on this blog. I have a lot of answers. But, I don't have them all, and so I must humbly admit my limits.
Below is like, well, a creed, I guess. These paragraphs contain my beliefs that I will and can defend. My reasonable goal is to publish one blog post every Monday afternoon about something down here. But, feel free to comment if you are interested. Who knows? Your question might be so big I respond by saying "I will answer this in a blog post." If that happens, I will try to publish it as soon as I can.
1. God is eternal (uncreated), all-powerful, and all-knowing. God existed before the beginning of time (which He created), and because He stands outside of time there can be no restraints on Him, and therefore whatever He is (for example, powerful), He is infinitely. God also exists at the end of time, and therefore has seen all that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Complete understanding of God's timelessness ultimately lies beyond, but not against, human comprehension.
2. God is all-loving (omnibenevelont). The Bible says, "...God is love." 1 John 4:8 God loves all His creatures, but His prime creation is mankind, whom He created in His image (Genesis 1:27), and God wishes for all of humanity to be saved from sin and enter eternal life with Him (John 3:16).
3. God is a Trinity. There is only one God, so monotheism is true. There are three Persons in the essence of God. Polytheism is not true because it has three individual separate gods. But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all equally His essence. When speaking of the individual Persons as relating to human discourse on earth, there is a hierarchy. The Father is not in the world and is the Mastermind agreeing with the Holy Spirit and the Son on what they are to do on earth. The Son is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the God-man. Jesus is God the Father's living Word, not to be confused with the written word of God, the Bible. Jesus has both a human nature and the essence of God. The Holy Spirit is not confined to any body, but in fact enters all bodies of those who profess Jesus, and is an active conscious witness on earth that tries to bring all humans to Christ. Humans are not equipped to fully understand the Trinity, but this doctrine is not contradictory.
4. God is the Source and Definer of all creation. He so closely identifies with His personal messages that the Bible says "...God is love." 1 John 4:8 and Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." John 14:6 To disagree with God is to make an improper judgement, as His nature is the judge between objective good and evil, and every word Jesus ever spoke aligned perfectly with truth because He, being God, is the Mind that has rooted the laws and essence of logic.
The Bible
1. The entire Bible, all 66 books, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inerrant word of God. Everything the Bible teaches is correct, meaning every claimed event actually happened, every doctrine is true, and the Bible does not contradict itself.
2. The main point of the Bible is that Jesus is God incarnate and He is the only way for humanity to have eternal life.
Sin and Salvation
1. A sin is any thought, speech, or action that God has condemned, i.e. it goes against His perfect loving nature.
2. God's original design was an earthly paradise with two humans, Adam and Eve. Both people listened to the Devil, Satan, a fallen angel who tempted them to sin. The two beings had to leave paradise and would eventually physically perish.
3. Adam and Eve spiritually died the day they sinned and received an evil heart that is inclined to sin, and this "fallen nature" has been passed down from them to be inherited by all of humanity (Psalm 51:5; Psalm 58:3; 1 Corinthians 15:22).
4. Beings who sin deserve to be punished, specifically to receive physical death and eternal separation from God.
5. Since humans could not save themselves, the second Person in the Trinity entered time and space to become a man in an event called "the Incarnation." This God-man was named Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life of pain and temptation, and ultimately was crucified. God allowed Jesus to die even though Jesus did not deserve to because the only way to forgive sins is if His sense of justice is satisfied and the price of sin is payed. Jesus took the punishment of sin on Himself to take away our sins.
6. Jesus then came back to life on earth and finally returned to Heaven, promising and proving that Jesus' death and resurrection is enough to give the same to all humans.
7. Salvation is not obtained by physical acts, but only an act of the will (Ephesians 2:8-9). To enter heaven at death, a person must believe in Jesus' sacrifice to take away their sins (John 3:16; John 5:24; Romans 10:9-10).
Veracity regarding the New Testament Historicity
1. The resurrection of Jesus Christ can be proven to be an actual historical event of the same nature as the fall of Jerusalem, the Islamic expansion, the Crusades, WW1, the Civil war, etc. In other words, His return to life from the dead is highly supported by historical evidence. The resurrection does not have to be believed "by faith," i.e. belief without evidence. The historicity of the New Testament (mainly Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts) has been verified to be an objective factual book by using methods such as determining unlikely early church inventions, discovering early dates for recorded material, discovering archaeological or written records of places and events in the NT, multiple independent attestation for a claim, and tracing written books back to an eyewitness.
I am a Christian, specifically a Protestant. I have believed in Jesus for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until my early teenage years, though, that I really begin to ask questions about my faith. And now, after years of study, I own 67 books on multiple subjects, such as belief in Jesus by reasoning from historical argument, understanding (and answering) other religions, and explaining apparent tension between verses in the Bible.
I am not an official person of any kind. I have received no formal theological training, attended seminary, or even graduated a college. But what I do have is 215 Bible verses memorized and expert credible resources (I only use books by authors who have attended school to know what they are talking about).
As a Christian, I believe that I should "...be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [me] to give the reason for the hope that [I] have. But [I should] do so with gentleness and respect." 1 Peter 3:15 God has given me answers. God wants people to come to Him. And so, here I am.
But I must say that I believe the best defense is a great offense. When someone asks me why I believe something related to God, I don't necessarily need to have an answer to their objection, but can just say why I believe what I believe. I bother to point this out because, I wish to answer questions posted on this blog. I have a lot of answers. But, I don't have them all, and so I must humbly admit my limits.
Below is like, well, a creed, I guess. These paragraphs contain my beliefs that I will and can defend. My reasonable goal is to publish one blog post every Monday afternoon about something down here. But, feel free to comment if you are interested. Who knows? Your question might be so big I respond by saying "I will answer this in a blog post." If that happens, I will try to publish it as soon as I can.
Creed
God1. God is eternal (uncreated), all-powerful, and all-knowing. God existed before the beginning of time (which He created), and because He stands outside of time there can be no restraints on Him, and therefore whatever He is (for example, powerful), He is infinitely. God also exists at the end of time, and therefore has seen all that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Complete understanding of God's timelessness ultimately lies beyond, but not against, human comprehension.
2. God is all-loving (omnibenevelont). The Bible says, "...God is love." 1 John 4:8 God loves all His creatures, but His prime creation is mankind, whom He created in His image (Genesis 1:27), and God wishes for all of humanity to be saved from sin and enter eternal life with Him (John 3:16).
3. God is a Trinity. There is only one God, so monotheism is true. There are three Persons in the essence of God. Polytheism is not true because it has three individual separate gods. But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all equally His essence. When speaking of the individual Persons as relating to human discourse on earth, there is a hierarchy. The Father is not in the world and is the Mastermind agreeing with the Holy Spirit and the Son on what they are to do on earth. The Son is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the God-man. Jesus is God the Father's living Word, not to be confused with the written word of God, the Bible. Jesus has both a human nature and the essence of God. The Holy Spirit is not confined to any body, but in fact enters all bodies of those who profess Jesus, and is an active conscious witness on earth that tries to bring all humans to Christ. Humans are not equipped to fully understand the Trinity, but this doctrine is not contradictory.
4. God is the Source and Definer of all creation. He so closely identifies with His personal messages that the Bible says "...God is love." 1 John 4:8 and Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." John 14:6 To disagree with God is to make an improper judgement, as His nature is the judge between objective good and evil, and every word Jesus ever spoke aligned perfectly with truth because He, being God, is the Mind that has rooted the laws and essence of logic.
The Bible
1. The entire Bible, all 66 books, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inerrant word of God. Everything the Bible teaches is correct, meaning every claimed event actually happened, every doctrine is true, and the Bible does not contradict itself.
2. The main point of the Bible is that Jesus is God incarnate and He is the only way for humanity to have eternal life.
Sin and Salvation
1. A sin is any thought, speech, or action that God has condemned, i.e. it goes against His perfect loving nature.
2. God's original design was an earthly paradise with two humans, Adam and Eve. Both people listened to the Devil, Satan, a fallen angel who tempted them to sin. The two beings had to leave paradise and would eventually physically perish.
3. Adam and Eve spiritually died the day they sinned and received an evil heart that is inclined to sin, and this "fallen nature" has been passed down from them to be inherited by all of humanity (Psalm 51:5; Psalm 58:3; 1 Corinthians 15:22).
4. Beings who sin deserve to be punished, specifically to receive physical death and eternal separation from God.
5. Since humans could not save themselves, the second Person in the Trinity entered time and space to become a man in an event called "the Incarnation." This God-man was named Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life of pain and temptation, and ultimately was crucified. God allowed Jesus to die even though Jesus did not deserve to because the only way to forgive sins is if His sense of justice is satisfied and the price of sin is payed. Jesus took the punishment of sin on Himself to take away our sins.
6. Jesus then came back to life on earth and finally returned to Heaven, promising and proving that Jesus' death and resurrection is enough to give the same to all humans.
7. Salvation is not obtained by physical acts, but only an act of the will (Ephesians 2:8-9). To enter heaven at death, a person must believe in Jesus' sacrifice to take away their sins (John 3:16; John 5:24; Romans 10:9-10).
Veracity regarding the New Testament Historicity
1. The resurrection of Jesus Christ can be proven to be an actual historical event of the same nature as the fall of Jerusalem, the Islamic expansion, the Crusades, WW1, the Civil war, etc. In other words, His return to life from the dead is highly supported by historical evidence. The resurrection does not have to be believed "by faith," i.e. belief without evidence. The historicity of the New Testament (mainly Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts) has been verified to be an objective factual book by using methods such as determining unlikely early church inventions, discovering early dates for recorded material, discovering archaeological or written records of places and events in the NT, multiple independent attestation for a claim, and tracing written books back to an eyewitness.
Proper Christian Conduct
Evil and Suffering
1. God is not the source of evil. He created free will, the ability to choose to both good and bad actions. Evil and suffering entered the world because man chose to sin, and God is not responsible for the evil we experience.
2. The question "If God is good why do bad things happen to good people" is misplaced: there are no good people in the sense of this question (Mark 10:18), because all have sinned and turned away from God. God allows bad things to happen to humanity ultimately because He wants all people to see their need for Him and repent so they can enter Heaven one day and never suffer again.
3. We cannot know God's plan, i.e. the reason He lets some bad things happen and prevents others, works a miracle in one place and refrains from miracle-working elsewhere. But we can trust God because of objective evidence for His existence and plan (i.e. reasons to believe the Bible). On an intellectual level, the "problem of pain" - why a loving God allows evil to happen - can be answered with examples of humans able to trust Him even when they experienced horrible evil and with reasons explaining why God might allow evil to happen.
Science
1. Late naturalist astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle correctly summarized science: "A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature (1)." The creation of the universe, the nearly unbelievable accuracy of the fine-tuning of universal constants, the proper preparation for earth to support a biosphere, the creation of the first life, the creation of different species of life, and the creation of humanity shows convincing evidence of God's intentional design.
2. The mind, together with all other parts of a humans consciousness, whether they are blocked by a disability or present in a person's life, does not physically exist (is immaterial) and is therefore supernaturally connected to the human brain, which does physically exist (is material). Consciousness is only logically explained by an intelligent Mind, who is God.
3. The theory that organisms can evolve into different, more advanced species - macroevolution - is proven by scientific evidence to be incorrect. Furthermore, the belief that reasoning came from materials is self-defeating, as that claim is basing its logic on a source that is not logical.
4. The creation story in Genesis is true because Jesus testified to it (Matthew 5:17-18; Matthew 19:4-6). If the creation narrative only aligns with six twenty-four hour day periods, then the universe is extremely young when compared to the secular scientific claim of an age of about 17 billion years. However, complete proof of the age of the earth is not necessary for being a Christ-like Christ follower, and it is more important to know where humanity is ultimately going rather then the complete details of where we came from. But, Christians in academia should have at least some knowledge that scientific discoveries are best explained by God, whether or not the Christian bothers to fit the evidence into a Biblical narrative.
Citations:
1. Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Engineering and Science (November 1981): 12.
1. "And now, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Colossians 3:12 Christians are supposed to display these traits to both believers and un-believers. They are supposed to listen to others and not display aggressive conduct in times of conflict or insult other people.
2. Christians are supposed to respect members of other belief systems, even if they do not agree. A Christian may politely debate with someone of another worldview when appropriate, but may not dogmatically assert that Christianity is true and every idea opposed to it is false.
3. Christians are supposed to forgive those who wrong them, even if the person does not apologize (Matthew 5:43-45). If they do this, they display Christ's quality of love, which is that He is willing to forgive any human of their sins for all eternity if they accept His selfless sacrifice.
2. Christians are supposed to respect members of other belief systems, even if they do not agree. A Christian may politely debate with someone of another worldview when appropriate, but may not dogmatically assert that Christianity is true and every idea opposed to it is false.
3. Christians are supposed to forgive those who wrong them, even if the person does not apologize (Matthew 5:43-45). If they do this, they display Christ's quality of love, which is that He is willing to forgive any human of their sins for all eternity if they accept His selfless sacrifice.
Evil and Suffering
1. God is not the source of evil. He created free will, the ability to choose to both good and bad actions. Evil and suffering entered the world because man chose to sin, and God is not responsible for the evil we experience.
2. The question "If God is good why do bad things happen to good people" is misplaced: there are no good people in the sense of this question (Mark 10:18), because all have sinned and turned away from God. God allows bad things to happen to humanity ultimately because He wants all people to see their need for Him and repent so they can enter Heaven one day and never suffer again.
3. We cannot know God's plan, i.e. the reason He lets some bad things happen and prevents others, works a miracle in one place and refrains from miracle-working elsewhere. But we can trust God because of objective evidence for His existence and plan (i.e. reasons to believe the Bible). On an intellectual level, the "problem of pain" - why a loving God allows evil to happen - can be answered with examples of humans able to trust Him even when they experienced horrible evil and with reasons explaining why God might allow evil to happen.
Science
1. Late naturalist astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle correctly summarized science: "A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature (1)." The creation of the universe, the nearly unbelievable accuracy of the fine-tuning of universal constants, the proper preparation for earth to support a biosphere, the creation of the first life, the creation of different species of life, and the creation of humanity shows convincing evidence of God's intentional design.
2. The mind, together with all other parts of a humans consciousness, whether they are blocked by a disability or present in a person's life, does not physically exist (is immaterial) and is therefore supernaturally connected to the human brain, which does physically exist (is material). Consciousness is only logically explained by an intelligent Mind, who is God.
3. The theory that organisms can evolve into different, more advanced species - macroevolution - is proven by scientific evidence to be incorrect. Furthermore, the belief that reasoning came from materials is self-defeating, as that claim is basing its logic on a source that is not logical.
4. The creation story in Genesis is true because Jesus testified to it (Matthew 5:17-18; Matthew 19:4-6). If the creation narrative only aligns with six twenty-four hour day periods, then the universe is extremely young when compared to the secular scientific claim of an age of about 17 billion years. However, complete proof of the age of the earth is not necessary for being a Christ-like Christ follower, and it is more important to know where humanity is ultimately going rather then the complete details of where we came from. But, Christians in academia should have at least some knowledge that scientific discoveries are best explained by God, whether or not the Christian bothers to fit the evidence into a Biblical narrative.
Citations:
1. Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Engineering and Science (November 1981): 12.
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