Ben Joiner's Blog

  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 ...

  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...