Bill Pratt | May 6, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt I have been asked, on occasion, why it is that human beings should obey the commands of God. After all, just because God created us does not mean that he has ultimate authority over us. We would never argue that a mother who gives life to her child has ultimate authority [...]
Bill Pratt | February 18, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt Critics of Christianity sometimes point to passages in the Bible where God takes human life, and they ask, “Isn’t God breaking his own commandment to not kill?” If God can ignore the sixth commandment, then isn’t it hypocritical for him to expect us to obey it? Does this argument really work, though? No. [...]
Bill Pratt | February 4, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt One of the teachings of Mormonism is that God the Father is only one among a multitude of gods. While God the Father is creator and ruler of our world, there are other worlds where other Gods are creators, worlds with which our God the Father has nothing to do. In [...]
Bill Pratt | January 28, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt The Bible teaches, and theology argues, that God cannot change. This is called divine immutability. But if God cannot change, then why do we pray to him? After all, when we pray, aren’t we trying to change God’s mind? Norm Geisler answers this question in his Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation. [...]
Bill Pratt | January 25, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt Picking up from part 2, we continue the narrative of God’s dealings with mankind. Recall that God has sent messengers which his people have killed. What will he do next? Finally, God says to himself, “They just don’t want to hear from these messengers, so I guess I will go myself.” [...]
Bill Pratt | January 23, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt Picking up from part 1, we continue the narrative of God’s dealings with mankind. Recall that God has given the humans a choice to obey him or betray him. In direct defiance of God, they do exactly what he asked them not to do. They reject his leadership and commit high [...]
Bill Pratt | January 21, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt So many people complain that God, if he exists, is a tyrant who expects too much of human beings. To ask that we trust only his Son for salvation is unfair and exclusive. How do Christians respond to these accusations? Pastor R. C. Sproul once spoke about God’s fairness in his [...]
Bill Pratt | January 13, 2013
Post Author: Bill Pratt The empiricist David Hume believed so. According to Hume, who is possibly the most famous skeptic in the history of modern philosophy, only ideas that are based on direct sense experience or are true by definition are meaningful. Hume famously said the following: If we take in our hand any volume — [...]
Bill Pratt | August 27, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt Christians claim that God is both merciful and that he is just, but how can both of these be true? Doesn’t mercy cancel justice, or justice cancel mercy? Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest church fathers, addressed this very issue in his monumental work, Summa Theologica. Thomas’s approach in Summa Theologica was to [...]
Darrell | July 23, 2012
I recently had a conversation with a Christian on Facebook regarding some of the passages in the Bible that refer to Mary. During the conversation, I referred to Mary as The Mother of God (Theotokos). This brought a rather stern reaction from him. He stated, “Mary isn’t the Mother of God. God is not born [...]
