Theology Unplugged

Must you be 100% certain of your salvation to be truly saved? Can someone have genuine saving faith while struggling with doubt? And can Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians be saved despite holding theological views of justification that Protestants believe are seriously mistaken?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, C. Michael Patton reads and expands upon his recent article examining the evangelistic approach of Ryan Hemelaar and NeedGod.net. While expressing deep admiration for Ryan's extraordinary commitment to evangelism and his defense of the Protestant Gospel, Michael raises two significant theological and pastoral concerns.

First, does the absence of complete assurance indicate the absence of saving faith? Ryan's evangelistic method asks people how certain they are that they will go to heaven. Michael examines the potential danger of assuming that someone who answers anything less than 100% is necessarily unsaved. Drawing upon his own experience using a similar method while attending Dallas Theological Seminary, he explains why he has come to reconsider that assumption.

At the heart of the discussion is a crucial distinction between assurance and security. Assurance is our subjective confidence in salvation. Security is the objective reality of our position in Christ. A believer may struggle terribly with assurance while remaining completely secure in the hands of Christ (John 10:27–29). Our doubts do not weaken the Shepherd's grip.

Second, Michael considers whether a person must possess a correct understanding of justification by faith alone to be saved. While vigorously defending sola fide, sola gratia, and sola scriptura, he argues that holding an erroneous doctrine of justification is not necessarily identical to personally relying upon works for salvation. Can someone genuinely trust Christ while holding theological convictions that are inconsistent with that trust?

Drawing on Galatians, Luke 18, Mark 9, and other biblical passages, Michael explores the mystery of salvation, the dangers of confusing theological precision with saving faith, and the importance of extending grace without compromising the Gospel.

This episode is both a respectful theological disagreement with Ryan Hemelaar and a pastoral encouragement to Christians who struggle with doubt, religious scrupulosity, and uncertainty about their salvation.

The central conviction is simple: We are saved by Christ alone through faith alone, not by the precision of our understanding of how He saves us.

This episode is also presented in video format for YouTube, with additional commentary accompanying the reading of the original article.

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How do we know whether a miracle really happened? Can extraordinary claims be tested? And if a miracle appears to be genuine, does that mean we should believe the message associated with it?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael Patton examines one of the most important questions in Christian apologetics: How do we evaluate claims of the supernatural, both inside and outside Christianity?

The Bible is filled with miracles. From the miracles of Moses and the prophets to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, miraculous events play a central role in authenticating God's revelation. But extraordinary claims are not limited to Christianity. Throughout history, people from different religions and backgrounds have reported healings, apparitions, possessions, and encounters with seemingly supernatural beings.

Michael considers several fascinating historical cases, including:

• The Miracle of Calanda (1640) — A Spanish man's amputated leg was reportedly restored, and the event was formally investigated and declared miraculous by Catholic authorities.

• Our Lady of Fatima (1917) — Thousands gathered in Portugal after three children predicted a public miracle, leading to extraordinary reports of the sun spinning and appearing to plunge toward the earth.

• Our Lady of Zeitoun (1968–1971) — Large crowds of Christians and Muslims reportedly witnessed luminous apparitions above a Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt.

• The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (1975–1976) — A disturbing and extensively documented German exorcism case that eventually resulted in a criminal trial and inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

• The Ariel School Encounter (1994) — Dozens of schoolchildren in Zimbabwe reported seeing an unidentified craft and unusual beings, with their testimony documented by investigators and journalists.

What should Christians do with these accounts? Should we dismiss them because they don't fit our theology? Should we accept them simply because they have numerous witnesses? Or is there a better way to evaluate the evidence?

Michael explores the relationship between miracles, evidence, worldview, and previously established revelation. Drawing particularly from Deuteronomy 13, Matthew 12, and 2 Corinthians 11, he explains why even a genuine extraordinary event does not automatically authenticate the religious message associated with it.

The central principle is simple: God may build on what He has revealed, but He will never perform a miracle to make a lie out of what He has already said.

A discussion about evidence, supernatural claims, theological discernment, and the challenge of defending the miraculous foundations of Christianity without abandoning intellectual honesty.

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What's happening with Credo House? What does the future hold for the ministry, our books, and our ongoing theological projects?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael Patton gives a general update on Credo House Ministries, current projects, and plans for the future.

Michael announces the release of Todd Stories: Coloring Book and discusses plans for future theological children's books designed to introduce young readers to important truths of the Christian faith.

He also addresses the future of Credo House itself. Is a physical Credo House still part of the vision? What might the ministry look like moving forward, and how will its mission continue to develop?

There's also an update on Through the Church Fathers in a Year, the ongoing project of reading through some of the most important writings in Christian history, along with a discussion of Michael's latest blog post, "Bad Theology Is Not Necessarily Sin." The article explores why theological error does not always arise from rebellion or sinful motives, but can also result from human limitations, misunderstanding, and the process of growing in theological knowledge.

A brief update on where things stand, what's coming next, and the continuing mission of helping people understand and grow in their Christian faith.

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What happens when the mind can no longer give the certainty the heart needs? Can theology, arguments, and intellectual conviction carry us through seasons of doubt, suffering, and spiritual darkness?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael reflects on the relationship between the mind and the heart in the Christian life. After decades spent teaching theology and helping people understand what they believe and why, he asks a harder question: Is knowing the truth about God the same as knowing God?

Theology matters. Truth matters. The intellect is a gift from God. But there is a difference between being able to defend God’s existence and experiencing genuine fellowship with Him. Drawing on Blaise Pascal’s observation that “the heart has reasons the mind knows not,” Michael explores the limits of intellectual certainty and the place of personal trust.

What happens when someone can explain the doctrines of God’s love and grace yet struggles to experience them? Can a person possess a strong theological framework and still feel spiritually empty? The goal is not to set the head against the heart. Both have their proper place. The mind helps us understand what is true. The heart responds through trust, love, dependence, and worship.

Arguments can explain why God is trustworthy. They cannot, by themselves, replace the personal act of trusting Him. There are moments when the intellect reaches its limits, while the heart still has reasons to believe.

The heart has reasons the mind knows not.

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How can the Bible be one unified story when it was written by more than forty authors across roughly fifteen hundred years, in different places, languages, cultures, and historical settings?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael argues that the progressive unity of Scripture is one of the most striking evidences of its divine inspiration. Other religious systems are often built around a single founding figure, a single generation, or a relatively compact body of teaching. The Bible is different. Its message develops over centuries through many authors who did not possess the completed canon and could not see the entire picture from the beginning.

Michael uses the image of a puzzle gradually being assembled. Genesis 3:15 gives the first major piece: the promise of the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent. From there, the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New Covenants progressively add definition to God’s redemptive plan. The prophets add still more detail until the picture finally comes into focus in Christ.

This raises an important hermeneutical question: Did the Old Testament authors consciously understand everything God intended through their words? Michael explores the idea of sensus plenior, or the “fuller sense,” especially as developed by Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown, and compares it with dispensational and progressive dispensational approaches to progressive revelation.

The central issue is one of hermeneutical guardrails. If God can intend more than the human author consciously understood, how do we know what that fuller meaning is? Michael argues that later revelation may complement, complete, and clarify earlier revelation, but it cannot cancel or redefine the original historical referent. Otherwise, biblical meaning becomes unstable and the promises of God themselves become difficult to trust.

The discussion also considers the contrast between Alexandrian and Antiochene approaches to interpretation, the role of typology, the distinction between type and antitype, and the need to distinguish historical meaning from later fulfillment and contemporary application.

A proposed summary of the hermeneutic is this: one historical meaning, sometimes situated within a divinely intended typological trajectory, progressively revealed and climactically fulfilled in Christ, followed by many legitimate applications.

The remarkable thing is not merely that Scripture contains theological themes. It is that dozens of human authors, spread across centuries, contribute pieces to a redemptive story none of them individually controlled, yet the pieces ultimately form a coherent picture centered on Christ.

Many authors. Many centuries. Many pieces. One story. One Christ.

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In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael is joined by his daughter Kylee for a lively and personal conversation about Israel, the Church, and the promises God made to Abraham.

Michael reads and expands upon his recent article arguing that a promise may ultimately mean more than its original recipient understood, but it cannot mean less than what was originally communicated. If God promised Abraham that his physical descendants would inherit the land, can that promise later be reinterpreted as referring only to Christ, the Church, heaven, or the whole world?

Christ is certainly the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. He is the promised Seed through whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. But does Christ fulfill God’s promises by expanding them—or by replacing what God originally promised?

Michael and Kylee explore authorial intent, sensus plenior, the relationship between Israel and the Church, and the danger of turning “greater fulfillment” into cancellation. Michael illustrates the issue through a promise involving a Hot Wheels collection and a 1969 Camaro. A real Camaro would certainly be greater than a toy Camaro—but would it fulfill the specific promise that was originally made?

This informal father-daughter conversation works through the argument, reads between the lines, and asks what must be true if God’s promises are to remain stable and trustworthy.

A promise may mean more than originally intended, but it cannot mean less. Greater fulfillment must mean expansion—not cancellation.

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Is the Bible filled with irrelevant details? In one sense, yes—and that may be one reason to trust it. The biblical writers frequently preserve small, vivid, seemingly unnecessary details that do not advance the plot, establish a doctrine, or strengthen an argument. Why include them at all?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael continues developing the cumulative case for the historical reliability and inspiration of Scripture by examining incidental—or apparently irrelevant—details in the Gospel accounts. Eyewitnesses often remember odd specifics simply because they saw them. Fabricated stories, by contrast, frequently make every detail serve the plot or argument.

These incidental details do not prove that an account is historical. A skilled storyteller can deliberately invent realistic details to create the appearance of authenticity. Nevertheless, when details are vivid, unnecessary, unexplained, and naturally embedded in the narrative, they may bear the marks of genuine memory rather than calculated invention.

Michael considers five striking examples. Mark remembers that Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat “on the cushion.” He records that the crowd sat down on green grass before the feeding of the multitude. John identifies the high priest’s servant as Malchus, while Luke specifies that Peter cut off his right ear. John also remembers that he outran Peter to the empty tomb—a detail that proves nothing by itself, but sounds exactly like the kind of personal fact an eyewitness would remember.

The strangest example may be the unnamed young man who followed Jesus after His arrest and escaped by leaving behind his linen garment and running away naked. The incident appears nowhere else in the Gospels, contributes little to the main plot, and raises the possibility that the story originated with the young man himself. Richard Bauckham argues that such a detail may preserve the testimony of someone personally involved in the event.

Michael also considers the broader pattern of Scripture. The Bible preserves embarrassing admissions, unresolved theological tensions, difficult doctrines, genuine ambiguities, and people who repeatedly misunderstand God’s plan. These features do not establish historicity individually, but together they make Scripture look less like carefully controlled religious propaganda and more like testimony grounded in real people, events, perspectives, and memories.

The Bible is not irrelevant in its message. But some of its apparently irrelevant details may be among its most revealing marks of authenticity.

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Why do the Gospel writers preserve stories that appear awkward, damaging, or even embarrassing to the earliest Christians? If the Gospels were invented to persuade people to follow Jesus, why did their authors include details that made Jesus' family, His disciples, and some of His most important witnesses appear doubtful, confused, and unreliable?

In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael continues developing the cumulative case for the historical reliability and inspiration of Scripture by examining the criterion of embarrassment. Historians recognize that people who fabricate stories normally avoid including material that damages their credibility. Nations celebrate their victories, movements polish the reputations of their founders, and religious communities generally portray their earliest leaders as courageous and faithful. The Gospels repeatedly do the opposite.

Michael considers Jesus' baptism by John, whose baptism was associated with repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Why would the sinless Messiah submit to a baptism intended for sinners? He also examines the unbelief of Jesus' brothers, the claim that His family thought He was out of His mind, and John the Baptist's question from prison about whether Jesus truly was the one who was to come.

The Gospel writers are equally candid about the failures of the disciples. Matthew records that some doubted even while standing before the risen Christ. Mark preserves Jesus' statement that no one knew the day or hour of His return—not even the Son. The Gospels place women at the center of the empty-tomb testimony despite the limited public and legal standing often given to women's testimony in the ancient world. They also preserve the strange account of Jesus cursing the fig tree when it was not the season for figs.

Most significantly, the earliest Christians proclaimed a crucified and bodily risen Messiah. Crucifixion represented weakness, shame, rejection, and apparent divine curse. Bodily resurrection also sounded foolish to many within the Greco-Roman world. These were not culturally convenient beliefs created to make Christianity easier to accept. As Paul acknowledged, Christ crucified was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

The criterion of embarrassment does not prove that every Gospel account is historical, nor should it be applied mechanically or in isolation. Nevertheless, these embarrassing details contribute to a powerful cumulative argument when considered alongside the historical context, eyewitness characteristics, incidental details, manuscript evidence, and other marks of authenticity. The Gospels do not read like carefully sanitized propaganda. They preserve the story in all its difficulty because the writers believed these events actually happened.

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How can we be certain that the Bible is inspired? What evidence supports the Christian claim that the Scriptures are uniquely the Word of God? In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael begins examining the cumulative case for biblical inspiration, including Scripture's self-attestation, its uniqueness, its historicity, its prophetic character, the testimony of Christ, its life-changing power, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

Michael begins with Scripture's testimony concerning itself. The Bible repeatedly claims to speak the words of God, but self-attestation cannot stand alone as the entire argument. Simply saying that the Bible is inspired because the Bible says it is inspired would appear circular. Nevertheless, self-attestation is a necessary part of the evidence. If Scripture truly is the Word of God, there can be no higher authority by which its divine inspiration may be authenticated. As Hebrews says of God, because He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself.

The episode also considers the remarkable uniqueness of the Bible: a collection of 66 books, written by more than 40 authors from very different backgrounds, in three languages, on three continents, over approximately 1,500 years. Despite these differences, the books form a unified theological and redemptive story unlike any other collection of literature.

Michael then turns to the historicity of Scripture and explains the importance of examining both internal and external evidence. Christianity does not ask people to accept its historical claims merely because the Bible is inspired. Rather, the historical claims themselves—most importantly, the resurrection of Jesus Christ—must be investigated. If the resurrection occurred as a historical event, Christianity is true whether or not someone has already accepted a complete doctrine of biblical inspiration.

Finally, Michael begins considering the internal evidence for Scripture's historical reliability, especially its striking honesty. The biblical writers consistently record the sins, doubts, embarrassments, and failures of their own heroes. David murders, Peter denies Christ, the apostles abandon Him, Abraham and Sarah doubt, Jonah runs, Noah becomes drunk, and Israel repeatedly rebels. These are not the kinds of carefully polished stories normally produced to glorify a nation, its leaders, or its founders. Scripture also preserves apparently incidental details that are difficult to explain as deliberate legendary embellishments.

This episode begins a larger cumulative argument. No single evidence by itself establishes everything Christians believe about inspiration, but together these evidences provide substantial reasons for believing that the Scriptures are what they claim to be: the written Word of God.

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What happens when we become convinced that our church, our tradition, or our denomination is the official gatekeeper of the kingdom of God? In this episode of Theology Unplugged, Michael explores a surprising pattern that runs throughout the Gospels. Again and again, the disciples appoint themselves as the guardians of God's kingdom. They try to stop outsiders from ministering in Jesus' name, call for fire from heaven on those who reject Christ, keep children away from Jesus, and argue over who deserves the seats of greatest honor. Jesus, however, repeatedly pushes back, showing that His kingdom is bigger than they imagined and His grace reaches farther than they expected.

This episode is a little different than usual. Rather than delivering a traditional monologue, Michael reads one of his recent blogs to his wife, Kristie, while she—and her dogs!—represent the audience. Think of it as a pilot episode for a possible new format. If your podcast app supports video, Michael highly recommends watching this episode rather than simply listening. Otherwise, you can watch it on YouTube or, for supporters, on Patreon.

Along the way, Michael argues that perhaps we have been asking the wrong question. Instead of beginning with lines, boundaries, and gatekeepers, perhaps we should begin with the center. The center is neither a denomination nor an institution. It is the person and work of Jesus Christ. The true church is ultimately defined not by self-appointed guardians, but by the confession Peter made: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Michael would love to know what you think of this new format. If you enjoy it—or if you have ideas for improving it—please leave a comment. Your feedback will help determine whether this becomes a regular feature of Theology Unplugged.

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Michael's public blog: https://credohouse.org

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