Restitutio

Let's face it, suffering is a major problem for those of us who believe in a good and powerful God.  How do you answer skeptics who challenge your belief in God because of the gratuitous suffering endemic in human history?  In this episode we'll explore some answers to this question offered by several worldviews before looking at how the Christian metanarrative offers hope.

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This is part 10 of the Why Christianity class.

https://youtu.be/Lu-TyjXB-Nc

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Suffering---------Natural Evil—suffering that is caused by impersonal agents (e.g., hurricanes, famine, fires, illness, etc).

Moral Evil—suffering that is caused by personal agents (e.g., murder, rape, torture, theft, slander, etc).

The BIG Questions1) Why me?2) Where’s God?3) What does it mean?

How do the 3 major categories of metanarrative answer these questions?

Tri-Lemma----------• Is evil, evil?• Is God all good?• Is God all powerful?• Evil exists• God is omnibenevolent• God is omnipotent

Critics: “Which of these do YOU deny?”

Response: “How are they all true?”

Freedom and morality are two interrelated concepts that everyone has an opinion about. From a Christian perspective, we limit our freedom based on our received moral code. We believe that the restrictions the bible provides us are for our good; They are not the result of a capricious deity's arbitrary or stifling whims. In fact, we believe that the limits God places on our freedom lead to the best human flourishing available in our fallen world. After thinking through Christian freedom, we'll delve into the much more important question of moral motivation. Most people believe in right and wrong, but many of us lack the drive to chose the good over the convenient or self-serving course of action. In this episode we'll survey some of the popular moral systems out there, including classic systems such as virtue ethics, categorical imperatives, and utilitarianism as well as religious systems, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Although we'll only scratch the surface, I hope you will find this approach useful when conversing with people who call into question your Christian moral commitments.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 9 of the Why Christianity class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D8wiyxxJOw

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Jesus Explains Morality------------------------Mark 12:29-3129 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

5 Biblical Reasons To Do the Right Thing----------------------------------------1. fear of God (Deuteronomy 6:1-2)2. duty (Ecclesiastes 12:13; Luke 17:10)3. personal/communal benefits/detriments (Psalm 7:14-16; Galatians 6:7-8)4. love (1 John 4:9-11)5. prophetic witness (1 Corinthians 6:1-3)

Other Worldviews-----------------1. Atheisma. Virtue Ethicsb. Deontological Ethicsc. Teleological Ethics

2. Hinduisma. karma, rebirth

3. Buddhisma. life is suffering, eliminate desires

4. Islama. five pillarsb. Yawm al-Qiyamah

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 8 of the Why Christianity class.

Last time we delved into the first two components of scripture's overarching story line: creation and fall.  These two explain where the world came from and what went wrong with it.  Today we'll consider the last two components: redemption and restoration.  These two tell us what God has done about the problems of our world already and what he yet plans to do in the future.  Taken together, these four elements of the Christian metanarrative provide a robust explanation that not only makes sense of the human experience, but also gives us purpose and hope.

https://youtu.be/HxVEkcyeuAQ

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Redemption-----------Redemption – Greek apolutrōsis, meaning “to release,” connoting the deliverance effected through the death of Christ from the retributive wrath of God and the merited penalty of sin.

Eph 1:17—“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of his grace”

Rom 8:24—“Now in this hope we were saved, yet hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?”

Restoration-----------Restoration – Greek apokatastasis, meaning “to return to a previous good state,” connoting the restoring of what was once good but has since been altered.

Acts 3:21—“Therefore, repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be erased; so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord's presence; and he may send the Messiah appointed in advance for you, that is, Jesus. He has to remain in heaven until the time comes for restoring everything, as God said long ago, when he spoke through the holy prophets.”

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This is part 7 of the Why Christianity class.

So far in this class we have stuck to classic apologetics topics like reasons for God’s existence, the historicity of the resurrection, and the rationality of Christian epistemology.  Now we are going to shift gears and do some work on worldview.  One of the reasons Christianity appeals to someone is how it “works.”  In other words, from inside a Christian worldview life makes sense.  We understand where the world came from, how it got corrupted, what God has already done to remedy the situation, and what he still plans to do in the future.  This four stage metanarrative provides us with a framework to understand not only history, but also our place in the world.  Today we’ll focus on just the first half of the biblical metanarrative (creation and fall) and next time we’ll cover the second half (redemption and restoration).

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What Are Metanarratives?

Examples of metanarratives, or the “-isms”

Why are metanarratives useful?

What is the Christian metanarrative?

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 6 of the Why Christianity class.

The Bible is such a strange thing. On the one hand, it looks like a big book, on the other hand, it’s a library of books. It’s loaded with very different kinds of literature from poetry and wisdom to history and prophecy. Dozens of people were involved in it’s production over centuries…and most important of all, it claims that the creator God inspired it all! In this presentation, Jerry Wierwille briefly covers what the Bible is, how Christians decided which books belong in it, how we transmitted it over the eons, and why other collections of books like the Apocrypha, Psuedepigrapha, and Gnostic Gospels didn’t pass muster.

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How We Got the Bible

Canon – from Greek kanōn, meaning “a rule or standard.” A canon refers to an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture.

Criteria for Canonicity

Inspiration – from Greek theopneustos, meaning “God-breathed.” It refers to the origin and character of a writing as being authored by and produced according to God’s will.

Supposed “Lost Books” of the Bible

Pseudepigrapha – writings with anonymous authorship that are falsely attributed to other individuals.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 5 of the Why Christianity class.

How would you go about convincing someone that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened?  Now, what if that person didn't recognize the scriptures as inspired by God.  How would you go about making a case for Jesus' resurrection in that kind of scenario?  In this presentation, you learn four key pieces of historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, including (1) the honorable burial, (2) the empty tomb, (3) appearances, and (4) resurrection belief.  You'll also become familiar with competing theories and how to respond to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uax_VwrUS94

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Honorable Burial-----------------1. multiple, early, independent sources say he was buried in a known marked tomb (1 Cor. 15.4, Mark 15.46, John 19.42) 2. Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention since he is not one of the disciples, but a member of the Sanhedrin, the very body that condemned Jesus3. no competing burial story exists (even enemies never claimed a common grave or that Joseph’s grave was inaccurate)

Empty Tomb-----------1. several independent sources attest to empty tomb (Mark 16.6, Luke 24.5/Acts 13.29-31, John 20.2)2. a movement founded on Jesus’ resurrection could not get far if his body was still in a known tomb…otherwise early opponents could just bring Jesus’ corpse out disproving resurrection3. that women first discovered the empty tomb is unlikely a Christian invention since Josephus tells us women weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a court of law4. the Gospels lack marks of legendary development and theologizing in the resurrection narratives (cp. to Gospel of Peter)5. the earliest Jewish polemic, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep” (Matthew 28.13) presupposes an empty tomb

Appearances-----------1. the early creed of 1 Cor. 15.3-7 contains a list of eyewitnesses2. the Gospel appearance narratives contain earmarks of eyewitness testimony and their divergences exclude the possibility of collusion3. that the disciples failed to anticipate or believe in Jesus’ resurrection even after they found out about the empty tomb is unlikely to be a Christian invention4. James & Paul both did not believe in Jesus as Messiah, but became leaders in the church after they claimed they saw him

Resurrection Belief--------------------1. belief that God raised Jesus from the d

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This is part 4 of the Why Christianity class.

Is Christianity irrational?  Is believing in God intellectually vacuous?  Jerry Wierwille will address the criticism of skeptics that Christian belief is arrogant, unjustified, and irrational.  Next, he'll describe the popular secular belief in scientism before exposing its deleterious effects.

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Arrogant, Unjustified, & Irrational?-------------------------------------Justified – a belief is justified if after careful reflection and investigation of a matter, including objections and counter-arguments, it is still found to be strongly compelling.Rational – a belief is rational if it is produced by cognitive faculties that are functioning properly and successfully aimed at discovering what is true.Warrant – a belief is warranted if it is produced by cognitive faculties that are functioning properly in an appropriate framework of knowledge according to a design plan successfully aimed at discovering what is true.Science & Scientism---------------------Science – the investigation and study of the structure and behavior of the physical world through observation and experimentation.Scientism – the belief that science alone has the intellectual authority to give us knowledge of reality.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 3 of the Why Christianity class.

How do you know God is real?  What sorts of evidence would you marshal to make a case for God’s existence?  It won’t do to tell skeptics you believe in God because you’ve always believed in him, because you were raised to believe in him, or because the Bible says so.  In this episode you’ll learn six main lines of evidence for God’s existence to equip you to have meaningful conversations with your secular friends, coworkers, and relatives.

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Objective: to provide six reasons to believe in God and marvel at that God’s attributes.

1 The Beginning of the Universe

2 Fine-Tuning for Life

3 DNA Code

4 Moral Absolutes

5 Miracles

6 Personal Experience

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part 2 of the Why Christianity class.

It’s so easy to universalize our own local context.  For example, I (Sean) live in a secular, post-Catholic part of New York state.  It would be easy for me to think that most of the state or country or world is just like my area.  However, this ethnocentric perspective will not do justice to the data we have about Christians in the world today.  Sociologists have long held to the “secularization thesis”–the idea that world religions die out as societies improved education, technology, and health-care.  Is this what we see happening globally?  Join me in this episode as we explore the data from a number of sources to get a lay of the land.  How popular is Christianity today?

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Objective: to understand the local and global religious landscapes in light of Christianity’s popularity and its claims about Christ’s universal supremacy.

Secularization Thesis

“The seminal social thinkers of the nineteenth century—Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud—all believed that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the advent of industrial society.” -Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular, p. 3.

Future Projections

Religion, especially Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, is expected to either keep pace with population growth or surpass it while non-religious ideologies are predicted to fall 3% by 2050.

Universal Claims about Christ

Scriptures that make big claims about Christ’s cosmic importance:

Christianity’s geographic distribution testifies to its transnational, transracial, transcultural appeal.