Theology

First and foremost, I am a Christian. I am someone who believes ( based on evidence ) that God exists and that He raised Jesus from the dead. I also contend that if one claims to be a Christian, then they strive to follow the teachings, commands, and example Jesus Christ provided. Simply put: I love Jesus and try to live according to His teachings (John 8:31; 14: 21-24). I am also a proud patriot. In fact, I consider myself to be a "nationalist" (depending upon how one defin

The problem of evil (pain or suffering) is probably the number one argument against the existence of God. While it is definitely not a problem that can be answered quickly and simply, I’d like to offer 18 short, rapid-fire responses that can be used to begin deeper discussions about why God allows evil: 1) Free will - Freedom is a great good that God has granted us. But God can’t give us free will and then forbid us from using it. He can’t give us commands and force us to ob

Question: Dear Tim, On the framework of Molinism God possesses knowledge in different "logical moments" (natural, middle, and free knowledge) prior to creation. These logical moments are not to me confused with chronological moments. However,  if there are multiple "logical moments" of God's knowledge, then would this not imply that God knows and does not know a truth simultaneously? If so, is this not a contradiction nullifying the entire idea of middle knowledge and Molini

Regarding my Ring of Truth blog: Andy said, //You've not shown that Christianity being true would make objectively wrong, bad or evil.// I did write the following (you must have missed it): "Is atheism any better? Not really. According to logically consistent atheism, since God does not exist, then humanity was not created on purpose or for a specific purpose — we are nothing but a “happy accident” — nothing more than dust in the wind. If this is true, then it follows th

Question: Dear Tim, How do you lovingly tell your unsaved friends about their sin (especially their sinful sexual behavior)? Is it better just to spread Christ’s love, and hope they come to desire it as well? What if our friends don’t believe in God? - From a concerned teenager Tim's Response: This is basically a “Truth & Love” question. Christians are commanded to have both. Now truth and love (contrary to popular opinion) are not mutually exclusive concepts, so it is not

“Consult the Bible, and you will discover that the creator of the universe clearly expects us to keep slaves.”  1  This provocative statement by atheist Sam Harris is meant to cast shade on the God of the Bible. After all, if civilized humanity overwhelmingly condemns slavery, why should we worship a God who thinks it’s acceptable? The question of slavery and the Bible is a bit more complicated than Sam Harris makes it out to be. Unfortunately, Harris and others aren’t inter

"A righteous person who yields to the wicked is like a muddied spring or a polluted well." — Proverbs 25: 26 While there are a few points I agree with in the recent article 10 Reasons Reading the Bible Makes Me More Progressive  by Benjamin L. Corey, I respectfully think that Mr. Corey has made some big mistakes in his reasoning, and he basically “strains out gnats and swallows camels” here. If our differences were petty and had little significant real-world consequences, it

As you can tell, we at FreeThinking Ministries are huge superhero fans. Aside from being fun, superhero stories offer great learning opportunities about moral and even theological issues. Case in point, Stratton’s latest article on about the problem of evil. (If you haven’t read it yet, you should go do that before reading any further. And if you haven’t watched the movie, go do that first!) In and , we see a great example of middle knowledge at work, and how it can be used

In Isaiah 2, we are told of a vision in which the Messiah returns to reign on the earth. All the nations of the world beat their swords into plowshares. All war and conflict comes to an end. We should long for the day that this vision is made reality. But until that happens, what shall we do when faced with evil? Obviously it would be ideal to live in a world in which we did not need weapons because violence is non-existent. But that is not the world we currently live in, an

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!! Spoiler Alert!!! Seriously, if you have not yet seen the movie,  Captain Marvel , stop reading this and go to the movie theatre and buy a ticket! Then come back and read this article. Consider yourself warned! Captain Marvel has a consistent theme: Things are not what they seem. Just when you think that you have something figured out, the characters will discover more information that completely turns everything you thought knew upside down. T

Capital Punishment is a very controversial topic and navigating this tricky subject can be difficult. Because of this difficulty we must be humble when speaking on this subject. As I am studying ethics I have quickly come to find that there are very few simple and straightforward answers to many of the ethical problems we face and capital punishment (Hereafter CP ) is no exception. This means that we must have grace when speaking about these things and acknowledge where we ma

Question Dear Tim, I posted this quote as my status on Facebook last week by Mark Driscoll, "Not only did Jesus die, He came back from death to give us confidence that He alone can be trusted upon death. Therefore, the worst thing is not to die, but rather to die without knowing Jesus." With that question, I had someone ask me, "but what about those who have never heard about Jesus?" He and I got into a conversation about it, via chat, where I explained to him what my thoug

Since I have turned my research attention to the argument in favour of the resurrection of Jesus (simply called the ), I face the question as to which is the best (or at least a good) approach to take in arguing for the resurrection. The debate about the different approaches to the argument is an in-house debate among Christian apologists and, therefore, non-Christian’s might not find the debate (or this post about the debate) very interesting. A popular approach to the Resur

Knowing that to many, my defense of William Lane Craig will inevitably have my Calvinist card revoked, however, I cannot go by without saying anything about this issue any longer. Time after time, I see mind-numbing simplistic dismissals of Craig’s work for very silly reasons. This would encompass the first type of detractors that I see. The second, those who seek to find heresy under every bed of Christian apologetics and make video clips taking people out of context. The th

Whenever there is disagreement on an important topic, one often played strategy is to claim the moral high ground. Morality is like the trump card of debates and so every side is eager to show why their position is more moral than the other’s. Whether it is in philosophy, politics, or even whose turn it is to go next on the playground, morality plays a big part in the decisions we make. A common response to a moral argument, instead of addressing the moral grounds of a given

Question: Got a question for you guys after reading a recent article from Tim Stratton. It’s titled  Can God Create a Morally Perfect Creature.  Here goes… If God is free in the libertarian sense, and he cannot sin, why could he not create us to be free and yet unable to sin as well? I’m asking because the free will defense usually assumes that a being cannot be free without at least the possibility of doing evil. That is the point Tim stresses in the first half of his articl

I was talking with a skeptic about the solution of the classic Euthyphro dilemma - God’s commands are good because God is good - and the skeptic asked, “If God commands rape, would that make rape good?” I replied that rape is an objectively evil act and therefore a good God would never command it. The skeptic then responded that God had in fact commanded rape in the Bible and provided a reference, Numbers 31:17-18. God ordered the Israelites, Now kill all the boys. And kill

We expect people in positions of authority to have training and experience in their respective fields. For example, I want my pilot to have  knowledge  of the helicopter in which I am a passenger, just as I want my surgeon to be proficient, and to  know  what he/she is doing before I go “under the knife!” Guessing, flipping a coin, or relying on luck just doesn’t cut it. We expect people to have knowledge. This seems to be the expectation of all who are labeled as experts or

Objection: The Bible is a compendium of fire side tales and fables recounted orally for generations by goat herders and primitive tribes from the stone age, until writing was invented, and then again many different sources, transliterations, and versions were written down. There were no grand central universities to organise the many various versions of these origin stories. They were for entertainment, and to answer the questions of the many fears and mysteries of our unive

A recent  article  by Presbyterian Pastor Tim Keller calling for an openness to both American political parties by American Christians has gained a lot of attention. Writing in the  New York Times,  Pastor Keller argues that the legacy of the Christian Church’s position on social issues does not fit into our contemporary political situation today. Keller  writes : “What should the role of Christians in politics be? More people than ever are asking that question. Christians c