An Interview with Talbot's Dean, Dr. Clinton E. Arnold, and his son, Jeff Arnold, about their most recent book: Short Answers to Big Questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity.
This morning I was reading in Hosea 9:7-15 during my Bible reading time and was reminded once again why it is so important to be reading and learning the Bible. In those nine short verses are five allusions to places/events/things that someone who reads the Bible a lot should be able to recognize. Test your Bible knowledge and see if you know what Hosea is alluding to in each of these five cases ...
Greetings Dr. Craig, I'm a Yemeni Muslim, born and raised in Saudi Arabia, currently studying for a short term in Canada. I came across your work, and highly appreciate your contributions to modernizing and polishing, the scholarship from great men like Imam Al Ghazali and Thomas Aquinas. As a fairly conservative Muslim (perhaps because of my biases?), I find your arguments specifically for the Christian faith to be overall weaker than those generally for monotheism ...
Voice of the Martyrs has offered an excellent idea for those who may be travelling during this Thanksgiving season or who might be looking for some special activities to do while gathered with families and friends.
The national pastime has become a sacred holiday: shopping on “Black Friday.” The day after Thanksgiving has developed into a manic state of sales and spending as retailers, seeking bigger holiday profits, offer new bargains and longer hours to lure holiday shoppers to good deals and great values on amazing products. The spending hype reaches fever pitch as stores open earlier and earlier each year, replacing the day dedicated to gratefulness with unashamed greed and giddiness for a purchase that is meant to show our love for another, bought in rushes of grabbing items that has led to fights, stampedes and debt. Many justify this intense season of shopping with the value of the purchase – the money saved on an item they would buy at a higher price later indicates this was a good value-based purchase ...
¡Animo! Es una exclamación que todos necesitamos escuchar con frecuencia. A pesar de la presión popular que nos obliga a mostrar siempre nuestra mejor cara y a declarar que siempre estamos bien cuando alguien nos hace la tan común pregunta ¿cómo estás?, la realidad es que todos batallamos con diferentes circunstancias y siempre necesitamos que alguien nos muestre su apoyo y nos anime. Es importante que tengamos personas cercanas que nos alienten a seguir adelante. ¡Todos necesitamos a alguien en nuestro equipo! ...
Dear Dr. Craig, ... my question is regarding an argument against the existence of God that you have certainly heard before, however I have not seen the argument articulated in a way that I find satisfactory. The argument is essentially about the problem of whether or not God can commit evil acts (or whether or not it even is a problem). If God is all-powerful, and the ability to do that which is objectively morally wrong is contained within the concept of an all-powerful being, then there must be some possible worlds in which God does in fact commit evil acts. However, this seems to undermine God's perfect moral goodness, since a being who only does that which is morally good in every possible world is conceivable, and thus for there to be some possible worlds in which God commits evil acts would imply that God is not the greatest conceivable being ...
In part 2 of this blog series, I present the second biblical metaphor revealing the Holy Spirit: the wind. We need to discern what the metaphor is, and what its meanings are within the biblical and ANE framework. I will be drawing some details from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. My goal is to recognize patterns of meaning that may be intended to expand our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s presence and action in subtle ways hinted at through metaphors ...
There are times for all of us when we feel bruised and battered by the relentlessness of life. We long for respite, a chance to catch our breath before the next project or crisis consumes us. But often, life’s challenges are unremitting. They just keep on coming! ...
Dear Dr. Craig, Thank you for all your work in Christian Philosophy and Apologetics as it has influenced my walk with Christ tremendously. You're the reason I have decided to study Philosophy at my college (Miami University of Ohio to be exact!). My question for you concerns your proposed model of the Incarnation. The model you propose agrees with the principle "That which is not assumed is not saved." So, The Logos assumes a human nature and all that that entails. But, I'm a bit puzzled because it seems to me that an essential part of being human is also to be contingent. It is literally apart of the very essence of a human to be contingent. If this is true then it seems that Christ must also assume a contingency in order to redeem us since that too is apart of "That which is not assumed is not saved." But, this obviously seems incompatible with the nature of God which is to be necessary. So, how exactly does the Logos assume contingency? ...
... The well-known words suitable helper in Gen. 2:18 are so engrained in our English speaking culture that it’s difficult to think of Gen. 2:18 in any other terms, even though many translations have tried to adopt better wording to fit the original Hebrew (c.f., ESV, NLT, or the footnote in the NASB). These words come in the midst of the sentence, “I will make him a helper suitable for him” (NASB). Suitable helper might have been a suitable translation 50 years ago, but I suggest that the phrase suitable helper has become outdated and is now misleading in its translation ...
Every year, the week before Thanksgiving brings the annual scholarly conferences for biblical and theological studies. Like most years, Biola and Talbot professors and students are well represented at these meetings in a variety of ways ... The following list (mostly compiled by David Roberts) includes all those at Biola and Talbot participating in the meetings this year. As always, Biola professors and students are doing fascinating work in many different areas! ...
Classical Christian education programs are on the rise. I am heartened that so many parents want their children to get a strong education that draws upon all that is wonderful, winsome, and wise from the past. But Latin instead of Greek? Are you serious? Come on, teachers and parents. Feel free to add Latin later if you’re so inclined, but really you should start with Greek. Here are eight (well … sort-of eight) reasons why Greek ought to be the core language you teach in your Classical Christian education program instead of Latin ...
Hello dr. Craig! I would like to thank you for your work,you really helped me a lot! I write you in time of great doubt and spiritual struggle. For years, my faith is going up and down and it is really exhausting. I do find your arguments very persuasive but this is where I hit the wall- the problem of evil ...
I came to Christ as a last resort after a year-long quest to find God back in 1975. With two thriving evangelical churches just a few blocks from my doorstep, why did I explore the Christian faith last instead of first? The cool factor, of course! I was a long-haired, pot-smoking keyboard player in a rock band. Eastern and New Age religion were “spiritual” and cool — Christianity definitely was not ...
What Did the New Testament Authors Really Care About? The easiest way we know to answer that question is to pick up Matt Williams’s and Ken Berding’s (editors) book: What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Their Writings. The second edition has just been released by Kregel in an attractive full-color format with some added materials ...
... Deeper than the recent history, we seem to be pushing against the same thing that Martin Luther identified as the theology of glory. Luther recommended to us the contrast of the theology of the cross ...
Hello Sir, I have read a big deal of your work and I am really inspired by you and your work. But there is this one question that greatly troubles me; I always had it in mind since I was very young but having solved a lot of questions, I am concerned about this simple question that I am not able to solve or find a satisfactory answer from a scholar. I need your views on why God will send people to hell on the basis of their Religious beliefs. A person who sincerely researches on Religion and Theology trying to find if a God exists and if so, what Religion and fails to identify the right Religion, why is he to be punished? A person arrogantly denying the right Religion while knowing the truth might deserve to be punished somehow but what about the one trying his best but failing ...
When speaking to seminary graduates from all across the U.S., I’ve been noticing an increasing discomfort in students regarding their ability to preach and teach effectively from the Old Testament. Part of this is because the Old Testament comprises so much of the Bible, and there just isn’t enough space in a degree program to adequately cover all of the Old Testament (especially a degree that doesn’t concentrate solely on the Old Testament). The Old Testament is packed with a wide variety of genres and covers such an expansive amount of history ...
El gran pensador cristiano, Francis Schaeffer afirmó que el cristianismo como sistema de pensamiento no empieza con Cristo como Salvador sino con el infinito y personal Dios quien creó el universo. Dios es la explicación de la realidad y la fuente de todo lo que existe. Por lo tanto, en Dios, y en su revelación, la Biblia, encontramos las respuestas a las más grandes preguntas de la vida y un testimonio claro de la grandeza de Dios ...
You know that part of your Bible where the gold leaf on the pages still looks pretty fresh? Some of the pages might still even be stuck together. Or, more au courant, the portion you rarely scroll to on your phone or iPad … That’s right, for most of us it’s that part of the Bible starting right after Psalms and going all the way to Matthew. A lot of prophets big and little, and a good bit of Israel’s Wisdom tradition—but it just doesn’t get a lot of air-time in most evangelical churches or personal Bible-reading. Now, I’m the first to admit that last claim stems from my own highly subjective internal polling data, and I’m glad to be proven wrong; but I don’t think I am, because I know a good bit of it’s true in my own life ...
Hello Dr. Craig First of all I apologize for my English, I'm French and it may be that you are obliged to decode some of my sentences. Thank you for the work you do, I'm studying neuropsychology and I especially like your site resources. Furthermore, when you come to France? You must know that here, many university students are becoming interested in apologetics and your work are not for nothing. I am writing because I am interested much in free will and I currently work on the implications of the B-or-A theory of time. I agree with you that joining the A theory is a prerequisite for free will ...
I believe that we are at a place in the history of the church where we need to have a vision for what we are seeking to produce in people through the ministries of the church. It can be increasingly difficult to maintain a simple focus on our main purpose to “make disciples” in light of the diverse needs of any church body and, therefore, it is easy to get caught up in the “monster of ministry” activity. I believe that we need to think more strategically in terms of what we are seeking to produce in a person and make this a focus for the church. Our biblical mandate is to present every person complete in Christ. What would this look like? Where should our sights be set? What should the life of disciple look like? ...
Seminary students are among the busiest people I know. Church + Family + School + Work makes for a challenging time of wise prioritizing. A Talbot professor back in the early 1980s gave his busy seminarians some pointed advice. He instructed us not to spend a lot of our time in local church ministry. “This is your training time,” he asserted, “and seminary is where you need to focus for this season of your life.” At the time it sounded like good advice. Now I’m not so sure ...
Dear Dr. William Lane Craig, I would like to first off thank you for all the work and encouragement you brought to me when I was a Christian. It's only been about two days since I openly claimed to be agnostic and I guess it's weak and fresh enough to be torn away, but Dr. Craig, something destroyed my faith. As a former Christian who loved science, I made it my goal to show that Christians were not scientifically illiterate, so I began reading books by Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, then I ventured into evolutionary biology. I knew about Richard Dawkins and how anti-theist his views were, but I assumed that as long as he was writing biology it wouldn't do any harm. In a very slow and progressive way, I began to simply accept Darwin's Theory of Evolution and Human Evolution. But then I realized a HUGE problem with Human Evolution and Christian theism ...
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