Theology Corner

Addressing commonly asked questions about Christianity from the perspective of a non-theologian

Theology Corner

1.)  AREN'T ALL RELIGIONS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME?

2.)  WHAT IS YOUR THEOLOGY?

3.)  WHAT ARE THE CORE BELIEFS OF CHRISTIANITY?

4.)  IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT THE ULTIMATE ACT OF LOVE?

5.)  WHAT IS THE GREATEST OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY?

6.)  IS THERE AN INTERMEDIATE PLACE?

7.)  WHAT ARE THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT?

8.)  WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO AFTER YOU DIE?

9.)  WHAT IS THE APOSTLES' CREED?

10.)  WHAT IS THE NICENE CREED?

11.)  WHAT ARE THE DECREES OF GOD?

12.)  WHAT WILL YOU DO IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE?

13.)  WERE THE OT TEN COMMANDMENTS REPLACED BY THE NT GREAT COMMANDMENT?

14.)  WHEN DOES GOD MAKE HIS DECISION ABOUT YOUR FINAL DESTINATION?

15.)  WAS JESUS TEMPTED IN EVERY WAY?

16.)  SHOULD WE ASPIRE TO UNBROKEN COMMUNION WITH GOD?

17.)  WHAT WERE THE ATTRIBUTES OF JESUS DURING HIS INCARNATION?

18.)  WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS LAW OF RESERVE?

19.)  CAN CHRISTIANS DEFEND THE TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION?

20.)  WHY NOT CALVINISM?

21.)  WHO WAS JAMES ARMINIUS AND WHAT DID HE DO?

22.)  WHO WAS JOHN WESLEY AND WHAT DID HE DO?

23.)  IS JESUS CHRIST THEANTHROPIC?

24.)  WHAT IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST?

25.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT?

26.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT THE TRINITY?

27.)  WHAT WERE THE ORIGINAL FIVE POINTS OF THE REMONSTRANTS?

28.)  DO INTELLECTUAL CHRISTIANS MINIMIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRINITY?

29.)  DID JESUS DESCEND INTO HELL?

1.)  CAN GOD'S WILL BE THWARTED?

2.)  DID GOD ELECT ONLY A FEW FOR SALVATION WHILE CONDEMNING THE GREATER PART OF MANKIND TO HELL?

3.)  FAITH OR SALVATION: WHICH COMES FIRST?

4.)  DID GOD THE FATHER BEGET JESUS CHRIST?

5.)  WHAT ARE THE TWO NATURES OF CHRIST?

6.)  WHAT IS ANTINOMIANISM?

7.)  WHAT IS SABELLIANISM?

8.)  WHAT IS PELAGIANISM?

9.)  DOES LOVE REALLY WIN?

10.)  IS YOUR WILL REALLY YOUR WILL?

11.)  CAN TWO THEOLOGIES BE TESTED FOR COMPATIBILITY?

12.)  WHAT IS THE FRAUD OF FIDEISM?

13.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES THEOLOGY?

14.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THEOLOGY?

15.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH MORMON THEOLOGY?

16.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS THEOLOGY?

17.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENTOLOGY THEOLOGY?

18.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH UNIFICATION CHURCH THEOLOGY?

19.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH THE WAY INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGY?

20.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD THEOLOGY?

21.)  IS REPENTANCE REALLY NECESSARY?

22.)  WHAT ARE SOME MUSINGS OF A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN ON LIMITED ATONEMENT?

23.)  WHAT ARE SOME QUESTIONS FOR THOSE WHO TEACH A LIMITED ATONEMENT PROVIDED ONLY FOR THE ELECT OF GOD?

24.)  WHAT WERE CALVIN'S ACTUAL WORDS?

25.)  WHAT IS GNOSTICISM?

26.)  WHAT IS THE UNPARDONABLE SIN?

27.)  IS CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY?

28.)  CAN CALVINISM BE SENT TO THE DUST BIN?

29.)  IS YOUR FREE WILL AN ILLUSION?

1.)  IS CHRISTIANITY COMPATIBLE WITH POSITIVE TOLERANCE?

2.)  CAN WE HAVE A FORM OF GODLINESS, BUT DENY THE POWER THEREOF?

3.)  WHAT IS THE GREAT WAR?

4.)  SHOULD PRESIDENT TRUMP HAVE BEEN IMPEACHED FOR IMMORALITY?

5.)  WHO SAID MOSES WAS HUMBLE?

6.)  COULD CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE BENEFIT FROM WOKE REVISION?

7.)  DID EINSTEIN BELIEVE ALL CHRISTIANS WERE CALVINISTS?

8.)  WHY IS MARXISM A MAGNET?

9.)  WHAT IS TRUE SCIENCE?

10.)  CAN YOU LOSE YOUR SALVATION?

11.)  WHAT ARE THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS?

12.)  WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS?

13.)  WAS PAUL ENTIRELY SANCTIFIED?

14.)  ARE YOU LIVING IN A WORLD AT WAR?

15.)  WHAT IS THE DIRECT METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

16.)  WHAT IS THE CONTRAPOSITIVE METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

17.)  WHAT IS THE CONTRADICTION METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

18.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT PURGATORY?

19.)  WHICH BIBLE PASSAGES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

20.)  DO SELECTED NIV VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

21.)  DO SELECTED AKJV VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

22.)  DO SELECTED YLT VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

23.)  DO SELECTED 'VOICE' VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

24.)  COULD THE CONCEPT OF 'SALVATION ONLY FOR THE ELECT' HAVE BEEN ROOTED IN THE MIND OF AUGUSTINE BEFORE HE EMBRACED CHRISTIANITY?

25.)  DID AUGUSTINE RECEIVE PUSHBACK FOR HIS TEACHING OF 'SALVATION ONLY FOR THE ELECT' DURING HIS LIFETIME?

26.)  WHAT DOES REFORMED THEOLOGY MEAN BY PREDESTINATION; IS IT TRUE OR FALSE?

WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO AFTER YOU DIE?

How about, nothing because you will no longer exist?  If that is your answer, you have lots of company.  In at least a dozen developed countries, including America, between twenty five and sixty five percent of the population reject the concept of life after death.  But what if this belief is false?  What if you, as a person, continue to exist in a conscious, sentient state after the death of your physical body?  Consider the additional possibility that this existence may be either meaningful or meaningless depending on what’s in your heart when you die.  Would you think, “Oops, I made a mistake; I want a second chance to reconsider my beliefs on death.”  But, according to Scripture, there is no second chance: it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment (Heb 9:27).  Can you afford the risk of a false belief having such enormous consequences? 

The Bible teaches that your soul continues to exist after the death of your body.  Your soul is the sum total of you as a person comprising your heart, your intellect and your will.  The teaching of the immortality of the soul permeates the entire Bible per the following verses and more. 

 

And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last He will take His stand on the earth even after my skin is destroyed yet from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25-26).

As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we fly away (Psalm 90:10).

And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Mat 10:28).

And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire (Mat 18:8).

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?  He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mat 22:32).

Then He will also say to those on His left: ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ (Mat 25:41). 

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life (Mat 25:46).

And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).

And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).

Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal (John 6:27).

And they went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ (Acts 7:59).

We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8).

For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal 6:8).

That being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7).

And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Heb 9:15).

For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you (2 Pet 1:11).

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name (Rev 14:11).

(See also Sections 1.6, 1.12 and 7.14 of Theology Corner)