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          The Epistle to the Romans is Paul's literary masterpiece on the doctrine of salvation. It is the most elegant of his extant writings. The apostle begins his treatise by presenting the issue of man's depravity, the righteousness of God, and his resultant condemnation. Paul shows that both Jew and Gentile have violated God's righteous commandments, making them wholly worthy of divine condemnation. He strips away every layer of man's hubris. Everyone stands guilty before Him, without any ability to challenge that divine verdict, but with the positive side being that God has presented a means of reconciliation for us through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.           Paul makes an argument by example when he mentions Abraham, who lived prior to the Law being given to the people of God. He does this with the intent of showing that his teaching is compatible with the Old Testament. A system of works righteousness would result in boa...

          The Book of Habakkuk is a classic example of what we would call a theodicy. It serves as a defense of the goodness of God in the midst of evil. A theodicy aims to solve the paradox of His general providence in a world of pain and misery. How could an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God allow us to go through bad things? Why do evil people seem to prosper while the righteous suffer, being continually trampled on? Why is perfect justice not always inflicted on evildoers in this world? Questions of this nature undoubtedly plagued the mind of Habakkuk. Countless people throughout history have pondered and debated at length about such issues. Habakkuk was troubled deeply by the corrupt society in which he lived. The laws of the prophet's own nation were not being enforced. Justice was nowhere to be found in the land. Rebellion toward God abounded. Habakkuk wondered how a righteous God could be silent and allow these things to come to pass. Why do...

Should Apologists Jump on the Moses’ Inscriptions as Evidence of the Biblical Moses? Given my tendency to post about archaeology (which I find fascinating), I am both surprised and not surprised to find that I have not posted very often about the Exodus over the years. For those who are not familiar with the Bible, the Exodus refers to the same story that many non-Christians would identify with the movie The Ten Commandments . It was the time that the Israelites were held in Egypt as slaves to an unnamed Pharoah for what appears to be around 400 years. Finally, God called Moses, an Israelite who had been raised in Pharoah’s house, to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Unfortunately, the Israelites did not make a beeline between Egypt and the land that was promised to them by God. Rather, due to their stiff-necked ways, God had them wander in the desert for forty years before they finally made it to what is now known as Israel. The fuller account of this forty-year journey can be ...

Today, two children were killed and multiple other children and adults were injured during morning mass at a Roman Catholic church/school in Minnesota . The perpetrator was a trans woman who had transitioned from male to female in approximately 2019. The news also reported that the perpetrator had apparently attended that school. I don’t know why the perpetrator chose to shoot children. According to the news report I saw, he had posted a video manifesto either last night or earlier in the day saying how much he enjoyed shooting children. Having been a father to four children, and now being a grandparent to even more, I am heartbroken for the families of the victims – both the two young children who were killed as well as the other adults and children who were hit in the hail of bullets. We don’t yet know why the perpetrator acted in this way. I do know that if it is true that he just liked shooting children, he was a very evil individual. People who want to harm children are evil, p...

Just over a week ago, I received a phone call from a woman in Texas. I didn’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail. The voicemail the woman left told me that Joe Hinman, a man who posted on the Internet under the Pseudonym of Metacrock, had graduated to be with the Father in Heaven. I was asked to come to the funeral and share some memories about Joe. I don’t plan to go to the funeral – it is a long way from where I live, and I have other obligations on the day in question – but I didn’t want to pass up on the moment to share a few thoughts on Joe. I never met Joe face-to-face. We did talk on the phone a few times, but never for very long. And I haven’t talked to him either over the phone or on the Internet for 10 years - not because I didn’t like him, but because my interest in doing apologetics online had waned for a number of reasons I won’t recount in this post. (I am still strongly Christian, so please don’t take my loss of interest in online Christian apologetic...

I began to engage in Internet apologetics back in the early 1990s and continued to engage skeptics multiple times weekly until the late 2000s. If you are like me, you may remember those days: it was the time of the rise of the New Atheism led by Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins (two of whom have now died). Its proponents used harsh rhetoric against Christianity. These New Atheists believed that theism generally and Christian belief in particular deserved mockery. They argued that it was irrational for someone believe in the “big sky daddy,” and they somehow thought that the counter-example of the “flying spaghetti monster” somehow made Christian belief foolish. (Hint, it didn’t.) It was difficult and required both study and imagination to respond. But respond Christian did, and as we responded, it seemed to make no difference. Those who were adamant New Atheists clung to their non-belief. (Of course, they would say that those of us arguing for Christianity were the ones who clun...

christianity is a personal relationship with God https://metacrock.blogspot.com/2025/02/christianity-is-personal-relationship.html,

The argument says simply that the universe must be structured in very exact ways to produce life. It's so exacting as to be totally improbable. Because it's so improbable that gives us a good reason to think the game is fixed. This differs from the ordinary design argument because we have something to compare it to, all that is not the target level, A. Universe Displays purposive order Max Planck (1858-1947), Nobel Prize winner and founder of modern physics. 5 "According to everything taught by the exact sciences about the immense realm of nature, a certain order prevails--one independent of the human mind . . . this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe to which both man and nature are subservient." ......(1)laws have simplicity and elegance. "The equations of physics have in them incredible simplicity, elegance, and beauty. That in itself is sufficient to prove to me that ...

Discussion:           -James Bishop created a series of  posts  explaining what he thinks is problematic with traditional defenses of God commanding the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. The second installment of this series continues on the work of the first by answering a few other objections to this narrative. Following are a few excerpts from the author along with a critique:             "...If we swapped “Canaanites” with “Jews” in the Old Testament, and Joshua with Hitler, we would have Archer defending Hitler on the basis that the Jews cancerous, including their infants and children. If we swapped “Canaanites” with “Jews” in the Old Testament, and Joshua with Hitler, we would have Archer defending Hitler on the basis that the Jews cancerous, including their infants and children."           This is a false analogy. Israel was a theocracy, not a dictatorship. Classes of people were not b...