General

Is It Rational To Believe That Humans Are Purely Physical?

By Elias Ayala (MDiv & M.A.T.) The idea that human beings are merely physical entities with no spiritual or immaterial component is known as physicalism. Interestingly enough, there are some professed Christians who hold to this idea, but I think the biblical teaching clearly expresses the reality that man is both a body/soul composite. I think the difficulties with this position is legion, however, I will focus upon one important difficulty that renders physicalism irrational. This is the issue of “personal identity through time”. If human beings are reduced to … Read More »

Why Think Christianity Is True? Grace.

By L. Alfred James We are currently in a series of blog articles that provide an intellectual pathway for moving someone (or yourself) all the way from hardcore atheism to Christianity. We first saw reasons to move from belief in materialism to belief in the supernatural; then from belief in the supernatural to belief in a personal God; then from belief in a personal God to belief in Christianity. Today I want to make another argument for Christianity being true while the other major religions of the world (I simply … Read More »

Ishmael and Jesus – Part 6

By Elysia McColley In this series about Ishmael and his descendants, one thing that we looked at was how the pre-incarnate Christ appeared to Ishmael and his mother on two separate occasions. Here, I want to look at the ministry of Jesus and how He healed those who were likely descendants of Ishmael. In Luke 4:27, Jesus said, “And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed–only Naaman the Syrian.” In other words, miracles do not come … Read More »

Apologetics Mental Checklist

By Elias Ayala (MDiv & M.A.T.) When doing apologetics there are important things to remember prior to and during our interactions with unbelievers. First, we do not want to forget our spiritual and intellectual commitments. Remember that Jesus Christ must be sanctified as Lord in our hearts at all times. Never within our apologetic interactions are we to defend the Christian worldview from some other foundation. Jesus Christ the Lord is to be sitting on the thrones of our hearts and mind. This commitment should be assumed at the very … Read More »

Christianity, History, and Verification

By L. Alfred James “How do you know the stories in the Bible weren’t just written by some dude in a cave who was on drugs, or hallucinating, or just made them up?” I have been asked this question more times than I can count. It is a reasonable question, and it has been thoroughly addressed elsewhere. (For instance, Josh McDowell’s book He Walked Among Us or Holden and Geisler’s Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible are both excellent starting points.) It is not a subject I can adequately … Read More »

Ishmaelites in the Old Testament – Part 5

By Elysia McColley So far in this series about Ishmael, we have looked at two prominent Old Testament figures – Job and Jethro – who were not Israelites and may have actually been Ishmaelites, or descendants of Abraham through his oldest son, Ishmael. There are several other Old Testament figures who may have been Ishmaelites, such as Agar and Lemuel, two kings who contributed to the book of Proverbs. Here, I want to look at someone who was possibly the most significant Ishmaelite in the Bible because of her role … Read More »

Scoffing as a Substitute for Sound Argumentation

By Elias Ayala (MDiv & M.A.T.) A scoffer is someone who jeers or mocks or treats something with contempt or calls it out in derision. Notice that sound argumentation has no part in this definition. The ability to scoff at an argument is not equal to a logical and rational argument against someone’s position. Often times scoffing is a cheap substitute for rational argumentation. As Christian apologists and rational thinkers we need to be careful not to be persuaded by cheap emotional debating tricks. When we present arguments in favor … Read More »

Demonic Phenomena and Christianity

By L. Alfred James “I’ve got a spirit that appears to me almost every night. It takes on the form of my grandma. It totally pretends to be my grandma, and I used to actually believe it was my grandma,…for, like, 20 years. But now I’m pretty sure it isn’t, and I want it to go away. But I don’t know what to do.” The guy sitting in my office was very intelligent, level-headed, and admitted that his whole story probably sounded utterly bizarre. Nonetheless, he was as serious as … Read More »

What Is The Bible?

By Elysia McColley If you are somewhat new to Christianity, or even if you have been a Christian for most of your life, you may have some questions about the Bible. It is a massive book, with approximately 800,000 words! Just for comparison, War and Peace has about 587,000 words, and Les Miserables has about 655,000 words. Many people spend their entire academic lives, all the way up to doctorate degrees and postdoctoral research, trying to understand the Bible, and there is plenty left for them to figure out. If … Read More »

The Usefulness of Identifying Self Refuting Statements

By Elias Ayala (MDiv & M.A.T.) Anything self refuting is false and so I would imagine it is easy to see why being able to identify self refuting statements would be important not only to apologetics but clear thinking in general. Suppose a skeptic objects to Christianity, but his reasoning for doing so is logically incoherent. It would be very helpful to be able to identify the logical incoherency or self refuting nature of the objection and address it from a more logical standpoint. This would at least help the … Read More »