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Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165 AD) is considered by many to be the first great apologist of the Christian church. The apostle Paul is surely a better candidate for that distinction. But Paul was an inspired author of Scripture. This is not true of any of the other great Christian apologists. And Justin apparently was the first of these. Certainly, he is the first whose writings have survived and are available in English translation ...

In Mark 9:1-13 we read about an unparalleled event in the Bible. It is absolutely amazing to let our imaginations wander to consider what the disciples actually witnessed. What a moment it must have been. But what does it actually mean to us? What can we learn from this event?

Hello Dr. Craig. My question was awakened after having been listening to your class on ''The Ontological Argument''. My question to you is: Does a maximally great being, necessarily have be what we humans are able to imagine as the greatest being? Can it not just be that the being (God) who is in reality the greatest of all beings (since no greater being exists in reality), is the greatest conceivable being. Why do our imagining of a greater being need to devaluate the greatness of the already greatest being. Even if we could imagine a greater being, can it not just be that those ''greater/higher attributes'' are unnecessary and therefore not really greater attributes?

To see and experience something of Jesus’ emotions, let us join eighty to a hundred thousand religious pilgrims on their trek to the sacred city to worship at the Jewish Temple. It is Passover week. In order to participate in the traditional Temple offerings, people need doves or pigeons. Since worshippers need these birds, they were sold at the Temple at a premium price. You could get a more economical bird outside the Temple courts or lug one from home through the hot desert. However, every bird used in Temple rituals had to pass the rigid purity standards of the Temple’s in-house animal inspectors. Only inflated Temple-sold birds had the guaranteed certification of the scrupulous inspectors. In this way, the house of prayer had become a classic case of what economists call a “captive market.

Siempre me ha sorprendido el contraste entre las celebraciones del día de las madres y las del día del padre. Generalmente el día de las madres es una gran festividad y un motivo de alegría generalizado en el cual la mayoría reconoce la labor tan ardua y abnegada de las madres. Celebrar a la mamá es una obligación social que se asume con entusiasmo porque todos tienen motivos de sobra para hacerlo. Reconocer a los padres, sin embargo, no tiene el mismo peso social y la efusividad disminuye considerablemente. Ambos padres son importantes, pero pareciera que el énfasis y el reconocimiento son diferentes.

Dear Dr. Craig, First off, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me through your ministry and hope that your reach continues to spread. I grew up in a conservative Christian home and for the most part accepted everything that I had been taught. Then during my junior year of high school I read some Richard Dawkins, and the likes, and quickly lost my faith. About six or so months later I discovered your ministry and my life was changed! Your arguments convinced me and in no time I had gone back to my faith. I read On Guard and Reasonable Faith among other Christian authors as well. I felt that my faith was strong and I even considered changing my major to Philosophy for a short time. But now, I am saddened to say that I am slowly losing my faith in the Christian God ...

If Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and a mix of our ancestors from virtually any age of human history were crammed into a time machine and hurled into the twenty-first century, there is something normal to us that they would find totally bewildering. I am not referring to air and space travel, or the worldwide renown achieved by a cartoon mouse, or even technologies that put all human knowledge at our fingertips that we use to watch endless cat bloopers, bizarre as all of that would seem. I am referring instead to the sacred, unquestioned authority granted to feelings in our day. Western culture has been through a so-called ‘Age of Faith’ and an ‘Age of Reason.’ We live in what Princeton’s Robert George calls “the Age of Feeling.”[1] Canadian Philosopher, Charles Taylor, prefers the moniker, “The Age of Authenticity,” to describe how staying true to your feelings, whatever they may be, has become the highest virtue of our day (unlike historic virtues in which certain feelings could and should be chastened).

I wrote a book titled When The Church Was A Family. Considering its rather narrow focus, it has sold pretty well. I am particularly delighted that the book has become required reading in one of our Talbot Spiritual Formation courses. One person who has read When The Church Was A Family is Mark DeNeui. Mark is a New Testament scholar who has been training Christian leaders in Europe for over twenty years. He and his wife Lisa have been on furlough from the mission field and will shortly return to France. I was Mark’s youth pastor back in the late 1970s, I officiated at their wedding a decade or so later, and my wife and I have remained close to the DeNeuis all these years ...

Dear Dr. Craig, I recently viewed your defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument video at the Baylor University Alvin Plantinga conference, and I was intrigued by the new grim reaper argument against an infinite series of causal events. I've searched throughout the web and have found very little on this argument. I was wondering what exactly your thoughts were on this argument and if you will be adding it to your repertoire of arguments against an eternal series of causal events ...

As with anything we touch, even good behaviors and initiatives can be twisted to harmful effects in our lives. The Bible holds out many precepts and instructions for right behaviors that are “acceptable” and “pleasing” to God. These guidelines are helpful for Christians to discern how to make choices in harmony with God, instead of in violation of God. The twist is when we mistakenly attempt to leverage the good actions we might do to prop up our sense of our acceptability before God. Many children learn from parents’ responses that behaviors can evoke positive and negative responses; how much of this learning is projected onto our relationship with God, our father in heaven? ...

Hello Dr. Craig, I have always wondered about your claim that Christianity is the only true religion (based on historical evidence as you say). But how can you be so sure when Islamic and Jewish scholars claim the same claim? As a former atheist and now an agnostic, the question of which religion to choose is essential. I'm very well acquainted with Islamic Theology and unlike your claim. Islam affirms that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same god ("Allah" is not a special god for Muslims rather it's the term for god in Arabic). So what is your position on Islam? (And I would really like to know from who do you get your information on Islamic theology). I also would to invest some time in Christian theology, would kindly recommend some introductory books?

I am the very model of a Doctor of New Testament, I exegete pericopae in weather fine or inclement, I know the difference between a codex and a Chester B, and even if a manuscript is Byzantine or Westerly.

Me encanta la primavera, pero en esta temporada tengo que hacer lo que tanto lamento y pienso es una maldición que viene unida a la hermosura primaveral. Junto con las flores, árboles e incluso el césped, la hierba mala hace su aparición en mi jardín cada año a pesar de que nunca es bienvenida en mi casa. Me gusta mucho ver crecer las flores, los árboles y escuchar el sonido de los pájaros que visitan nuestro vecindario. Si bien pienso que cortar el césped es un mal necesario que tengo que hacer, realmente sería un poco más atractivo hacerlo si no tuviera que cortar también la hierba mala que piensa que está en competencia con el césped para ver quién crece más ...

I'm taking a philosophy of religion course right now, and it is very fascinating to me. I'm taking the course because I am interested in Christian Apologetics. One aspect of Christian Apologetics is to argue for intelligent design. To my surprise, my professor, who is a Christian, does not believe in intelligent design (ID). I also wanted to point out the fact that in an astronomy class my girlfriend is taking, the professor lectured on how most Christians do not believe in ID. As I'm pondering on why my Christian professor doesn't believe in ID and how an astronomy professor lectures on how most Christians don't believe in ID, I start to question if I even know what ID really is ...

... At one time or another, most of us have encountered situations at work that, for one reason or another, are troublesome and don’t seem to have a clear resolution. Discerning the right thing to do seems complicated, with each possibility appearing to have an equal number of strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the issue at stake is more on the level of personal business ethics, as is the case in the story above. Sometimes the issue is one that is on a broader level and affects the business as a whole. For example, what does a business do when there is a tension between paying a higher wage or providing better benefits, and charging prices that will allow the business to remain competitive? Where is the line between marketing that allows the consumer to make a more informed decision and marketing that manipulates consumers into buying products they don’t want or need? ...

The study of how to interpret biblical laws and apply them to our lives today (the text we study in class is the command in Deuteronomy 22:8 to build a parapet around your roof!) results in many opportunities to talk about issues related to spiritual formation, including such areas as celebrating the Sabbath, helping the poor, and identifying legalism. One interesting area we examine is how to honor our parents.

Hi Dr. Craig, Let me first say that while not a Christian myself (although I've somehow ended up doing a theology degree...) I am a very big fan of your program of presenting rigorous and rational justification for Christian doctrine - in particular you have thoroughly convinced me on the cosmological argument! However I am unwilling to move beyond belief in a minimalist Deist creator God for several reasons, among which is the question of: Is the incarnation compatible with theodicy? ...

Doug Geivett is professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. He's recently published two books that focus on the New Apostolic Reformation. One is a shorter book titled God's Super-Apostles, and a longer one called A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement. Both can be purchased directly from the publisher or at amazon.com. Today's interview explores the nature and influence of this movement.

In his 2012 book, Mind and Cosmos, philosopher Thomas Nagel, who is both an atheist and a philosophical naturalist (the view that all reality can be reduced to the material world alone) issues a stark conclusion (some would call it a terminal diagnosis) for naturalism due to its inability to account for some key aspects of human experience that many believe make human beings significant—namely, consciousness, rationality, and morality/moral properties ...

Dear Dr Craig, I was born in Turkey and simply followed the traditions and became a Muslim. I have always been hungry for knowledge and understanding. So I started to research Islam with the hope that I could have a closer/stronger connection with God. But unfortunately I realized that the Prophet Mohammed stands between God and me. This was my first disappointment. I also found out certain things that put me off so much from Islam, and in fact, from all the other religions. I then became and atheist because I believed it was intellectual, logical and rational. After I studied Mathematical Physics (and understood the true meaning of science, rationality and logic) at university, I realized that atheism was not for me either. My question is about Jesus. I am not a Christian but feeling very close to Jesus since the first day I came to know him. I don't understand him dying for our sins. What does that mean? No Christian has given me a satisfactory answer and I can't think of an answer myself. I am ready to die, today, for my mother but that's not what Jesus did (I assume?). What does it mean to "die for someone else's sins"? ...

... When you think of unbelievers you know, I imagine you see some of them as more ‘open’ to the gospel than others. Whether we realize it or not, we often profile people as to their potential for faith. Appearances, careers, affiliations, social habits – these and other factors lead us to make assumptions about people. Zaccheus stands as one of those unlikely converts whose conversion represents the amazing love and mercy of our Lord ...

... Teenagers need to be coached, not controlled, to help the growth towards adulthood responsibility develop. Coaches may still insist on how the “play” is executed so this is not a call for the abandonment of rules; but good coaches do more of teaching others how to do the work and do not take over the game itself. How sad it is for me as a college professor to watch a student who is unsure of how to make decisions for themselves, to take care of themselves in healthy, emotionally balanced and spiritually growing ways. Parents of teenagers need to think of the tasks that will enable a teen to live responsibly and healthy after leaving the comforts of a parent’s home ...

Uno de los pasajes más conocidos en la Biblia se encuentra en Mateo 28:16-20. Este pasaje es comúnmente conocido como “La Gran Comisión.” Jesús nos ordena hacer discípulos entre todas las naciones. La palabra discípulo significa aprendiz o seguidor. A inicios de la era de iglesia, se les llamó “cristianos” a los seguidores de Jesús (Hechos 11:26). Por lo tanto, discípulo de Cristo o cristiano pueden considerarse como sinónimos.

Hi Dr. Craig! I consider myself to be a Christian layman, as I am not formally trained in philosophy (I am a computer science major). However, I have been reading content on your website for about three months now and have read Reasonable Faith, On Guard, Contending With Christianity's Critics, Is God a Moral Monster, and I am currently working through Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview ...

Being a man, I have trouble with most emotions (when I am aware of them in myself or others). Often, my response to emotions is to think about the experience, but that tends to pin feelings down rather than give deeper expression to them. I’ve learned by trial and error to trust feelings by giving them my attention and expressing them momentarily as I sense them. I was able to practice this recently when faced with the loss of Bob Saucy ...