Posts

Were the Apostles Insane?

  Did the Apostles experience a Hallucination of the Resurrection? Or were they simply insane? First, the insanity question. First, we can establish that they couldn’t simply be insane in a normal way. When persecution arose, they would “crazy” their way out of it. They would simply come up with some other craziness. Instead, they had to be what psychiatrists call “delusional.” This is when a person holds a crazy belief and will not let it go. Second, we can say that they were united in a commonly held crazy idea, if they were crazy. There had to be something to unify them. Insanity is like lying to yourself and believing it. It’s unlikely that multiple independent sources would invent the same exact lie. So something had to unify their delusions. Third, we can say that they were not simply committed to the Resurrection. They were committed primarily to their own personal experiences of the risen Jesus. Whatever drove them insane ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Molinism: Understanding Free Will and Predestination

  Why Molinism matters The Bible is clear in saying that God knows the future. Jesus knows ahead of time that Judas will betray Him. Jesus seemed to know before Judas had even decided to do this. And what if Judas had changed His mind? Jesus knew beforehand that Peter would deny even knowing Him. Peter was in total disagreement about this. How does God know future events like this? Some Calvinists are actually Molinists!  But other Calvinists argue that God cannot simply look ahead in time and observe the future. They say that God must be in control of the future. I would say it like this. God possesses the essential attribute of Aseity. This means that God is in no way dependent on anything outside of Himself. This includes God’s own knowledge. God doesn’t simply know what happens in the world by observing it. Rather, God’s knowledge of the future comes from Himself. If you think about it, the doctrine of Aseity means that God controls what we do at any t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Old Testament Law and Slavery

  The Mosaic law has many requirements regarding workers. These workers are more like a servants instead of a slaves. This becomes clear in the details of the law as we look past the word “slave.” The people of this time and region did not have the ability to sail to far away lands and obtain slaves. Slaves were the result of conquest and war. There was also a form of servitude often called “debt slavery.” Here a person had borrowed money and could not pay it back. So he sold himself as a servant for money that paid off the debt. He would then be required to work as repayment. As we read the Mosaic law as well as the law code of Hammurabi, this form of being a debt servant becomes obvious. But it confuses modern readers because we are unfamiliar with it. Debt Servitude, Not Slavery 1: Servants are paid money up front for work. This is because the person owed a debt that could not be paid and becoming a servant was a way to pay it off. I should...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brief refutation of the Flavian Hypothesis

  Under the Flavian Conspiracy theory, Christianity was invented by the Flavian emperors (Vespasian, Titus, & Domitian 69 - 96 AD).  They supposedly did this as a way to control people by inventing a false religion. Emperors are well known for creating religious movements as a way of controlling people, but  this was primarily a matter of declaring an emperor to be a god. For example, Domitian had Titus declared a god. But this worked within paganism.  Augustus was said to be secretly fathered by Apollo while his mother was at the temple.  The imperial cult boasted temples across the empire.  Cities without a statue of Augustus were rare.   A primary problem with the Flavian Conspiracy is that Christianity is subversive of Roman morality.  While it is not openly rebellious, it is harmful to Roman values in other ways.  Christians would not make sacrifices to pagan gods or praise the genius (divine right to rule) of the emperor.  T...
Post a Comment
Read more