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One of the objections to the Christian faith that most impacts people on an emotional level is the problem of evil: if God is good, why would he allow evil to exist? This objection gains its power because we all experience evils in life. Type of Evil:Philosophers and theologians divide evil into two types.-Moral evil occurs when people perform immoral acts (i.e., sins). Adultery is an example of moral evil.-Physical evil occurs when people suffer, whether or not that suffering was caused by sin. …

As the Christian faith spread, its members encountered new challenges, and the early Church began to develop an extensive apologetic literature, directed both externally—to non-Christians—and internally—to deal with apologetic issues among those professing to be Christian. Early Apologists and their Critics: Beginning in the second century, a group of Christian authors known specifically as “apologists” began to appear. They also had critics. One of the most prominent second century apologists w …

CHALLENGE: The value of Christ’s sacrifice was infinite. He paid it all. Therefore, there is no role for penance in the Christian life.DEFENSE: The value of Christ’s death on the cross was infinite—more than enough to pay for all the sins of mankind. But even after God has forgiven the eternal consequences of our sins, he wants us to experience some negative consequences.When a child misbehaves, there need to be consequences. If parents never applied any discipline, the child would never learn h …

When a true prophet says something about the future, at some point, it must be fulfilled. This raises the question of how the concept of fulfillment works. In cases of non-symbolic prophecy, it is often easy to identify the fulfillment, as when Jesus said he would rise from the dead. The concept of fulfillment is not always so straightforward, however. One reason is that—as we noted in Answer 5—a symbol can have more than one meaning and thus be fulfilled in more than one way. In Revelation, the …

Asking questions is an important part of the apologetic process, and it is important for every apologist to devote conscious thought to the art of asking questions—what they are used for, how they should be phrased, etc. The Socratic Method: Often apologists think of questions in connection with the Socratic method. In Plato’s dialogues, the figure of Socrates uses questions to challenge the beliefs of those around him. He asks questions designed to strip away false elements of these beliefs. Th …