Doug’s Theological Thoughts

This is a great book on loving God with our mind by one of my favorite authors, Dr. J. P. Moreland. Dr. Moreland is a professor of Christian Philosophy at Talbot Seminary in Southern California. Dr. Moreland is an excellent speaker on subjects related to the Christian faith and Christian apologetics. He also served as…

It has become common language to talk about the the building where Christians gather as the church. In response, it is sometimes said that the church is not the building, the church is the people. There is some value in this distinction but for several reasons it should not be overplayed. It is an ordinary…

This blog is in response to a question about my views on the atonement. I have to confess at the offset that I am not terribly sophisticated in my theology on this subject but as a good theologian I will not let that keep from commenting. Just do not expect my comments to be all…

The Augsburg Confession rightly says that God is not the cause of man’s sin: Of the Cause of Sin they teach that, although God does create and preserve nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the wicked, that is, of the devil and ungodly men; which will, unaided of God, turns itself…

I have taken a few genealogy trips in the past year and thought I’d write down what I learned in order to aid those who are considering similar trips. Before Leaving on the Roadtrip Start with what you know. Collect names and dates of births, marriages and deaths. Interview all living relatives. It is probably…

Dallas Willard is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Dallas is a Christian philosopher and thinker. He has written a lot of articles and books including The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God and The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. Here is an article Dallas…

If you have an interest in Christian historical documents, the Internet has some wonderful web sites. If you have not been to these sites, they are impressive in the amount of source materials that they contain. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is a vast depository of Medieval source materials. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has a…

This is an interesting article by C. S. Lewis on God, Gender and Priestesses. Lewis wrote the article in 1948. In particular, Lewis talks about feminine language to describe God as mother, etc. This article by Lewis predates by 40-50 years the current controversies in the Episcopal church and other denominations. Here is an article…

It has been stated by some that science has shown a genetic basis for sexual orientation. In other words, the claim is that abnormal behaviors are wired into people by their genetic makeup. This is now an accepted fact in some quarters which has been used to advance the agenda of certain persons. Here is…

The Gospel of Matthew contains some blanket condemnations of Gentiles. This article considers those condemnations. This is interesting in light of the charges that The Passion of the Christ is Anti-Semitic. Food for thought.

Evangelical Covenant Church missionary Dr. Paul Carlson was arrested and killed in the Congo in 1964. Read about it here.

Can you imagine getting a letter from Jesus to your church? That’s the situation that seven churches in Asia Minor found themselves in when the Apostle John penned the book of Revelation. The book starts out with the statement: Revelation 1:1-2 – The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His…

Study details school sexual misconduct.

It’s no longer fashionable in some sectors of the Christian community to be patriotic, but I say, “God Bless American”. Let’s keep praying for our country and thanking God that we live in a place with the sorts of freedoms we enjoy here. There are certainly enough people who would give up everything to come…

The Psalmist wrote, “The Heavens declare the glory of God.” Sometimes we forget that. Today we got another reminder. Check out the pictures of Saturn from the lastest JPL mission to the ringed planet. It is certainly spectacular. And yes, the Heavens do declare God’s glory. Amen.

The British Museum has a series of wall panels describing the siege of Lachish by Sennacherib. This is described in the Old Testament in 2 Chr 32:9. The period of the Old Testament Kings is well attested from archaeology. This is documented in a book titled, The Bible in the British Museum: Interpreting the evidence,…

I am thinking today about libertarianism (Free Will) and determinism (Bondage of the Will). In particular, I am thinking about compatibalism. Under compatibalism there is an assertion that man is both free to choose and determined. The example of Saddam comes to mind. In some very limited sense of the word free, he is free.…

This is a neat piece of physical evidence for the historicity of the Old Testament. This clay prism describes the siege of Jerusalem by King Sennacherib. The text says “I shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage.” This matches the Biblical account of the siege where Sennacherib surrounded the city, but did not…

Machen fought the forces of liberalism in his day. His spiritual children ended up fighting each other. This article details the areas of battle.

Biblically, what is a true mystery? When are we justified in calling something a mystery? If there is a contradiction in our theology can we say that it is all rectified by recourse to mystery? There are things in Scripture that are called mysteries. The calling of the Gentiles was only hinted at in the…

There are a number of passages in Scripture which are cited by critics of the Bible as showing the the Bible has contradictions. As an example, the infidels.org website has a long list of alleged contradictions in the Bible. They do this in an attempt to deny the Divine authorship of God’s Word. If there…

The Scholastics loved their philosophy. In their philosophies, they loved to split things into categories. Then they subdivided these categories into sub categories with nearly infinite regression. Bangs points out that this was greatly aided by the invention of the printing press. With the press, they could create large fold out charts containing their categories.…

It’s getting tougher every day to deny that life is present in the womb at a very early stage. See this article for pictures of why this is true. There are more pictures on the site, too.

Open theists assert that God does not know the future until it happens. One verse that is difficult for their position is: Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; God…

Any resemblance to reality in the following story is purely intentional. The herd moved along slowly across the wide open plains. There wasn’t much cover in this stretch of the plains. There were no trees for the herd to hide in if enemies attacked. They were oblivious to any attack that might happen. Sure there…