15Feb 2020 by Post

Is Hell Torment or Torture and Is there a Difference?

Al Serrato, Apologetics, Christianity, Hell, Jesus, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Al Serrato Making a case for Christianity can be challenging in this secular culture. And what can be more challenging than explaining –no, than defending – the existence of a place of eternal punishment? It’s easy to be placed on the defensive, with an aggressive challenger deriding how a good and loving God could be so vindictive or petty as to subject his children to eternal torture simply because they didn’t “believe” the right things. But Jesus himself repeatedly spoke of Hell, so however difficult a conversation, it is one we cannot evade. Indeed, in some passages, Jesus likened Hell to the perpetual fires burning in the garbage dump outside Jerusalem, in the place called Gehenna. The Book of Revelation leaves us with the jarring image of the lake…
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18Jan 2020 by Post

Putting God on Trial

Al Serrato, Apologetics, Atheism, atheist, Christianity, evil, God, responding to the problem of evil, Skeptics, Suffering, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Al Serrato “I can’t believe in a God who would allow so much evil and suffering in the world.” Have you encountered this challenge? Most anyone who has tried to defend the Christian worldview surely has. The person bringing this challenge will often claim to be atheist, but when you dig in a bit this challenger is more often someone who knows there is a creator but who is deeply offended by the world, and angry at the God who set all this – the carnage, the anguish, the pain – in motion. In my last post, I restated the traditional Christian response to this problem of evil.  God did not create the evil that surrounds us because evil is not a thing.  Evil is a departure- a deviation-…
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04Jan 2020 by Post

The Problem of Evil

Al Serrato, Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Skeptics, the problem of evil, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Al Serrato One of the most common challenges to the Christian worldview is the problem of evil. We see evil all around us; we need to do little more than pick up a newspaper or watch the nightly news to have our sensibilities assaulted with countless acts of senseless violence and suffering. Many are man-made and some a product of an indifferent Mother Nature; whatever the source, at times, it feels as if the world is awash in wickedness. How, the challenger entreats, can your good and loving God create such things? Why did he imbue man with such capacity for wickedness? The Christian responds that God did not create evil. No, they claim, evil is the product of man’s twisted free will. How well does this claim hold…
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