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A common claim by atheists and agnostics is that there is no good evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead.How should you respond?The Resurrection better explains the evidence than any alternative hypothesis.According to the Christian message, Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. He rose from the dead, his tomb was found empty, and he appeared to his disciples. Finally, he ascended into heaven in their presence.The pivotal claims here are that he died, rose from the dead, and ascend …

How can the Catholic Church teach that it’s possible for us to lose our salvation when Jesus says that his sheep always hear his voice and that no one can snatch us out of his hand?Recall that the Catechism warns of “offending God’s love” and “incurring punishment” (2090). To fear incurring the punishment of hell implies that a person can’t have absolute assurance of his salvation. There is a Bible passage that some Protestants use to mount a challenge—John 10:27-29: My sheep hear my voice, and …

St. Justin Martyr’s First Apology dates to around 160. In the text we find Justin offering an explanation and a defense to the pagan emperor. That includes a description of what the Christians of his day thought about baptism:I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertak …

“How can you believe that? Don’t you know the Bible says…”It’s a challenge we have to meet. If we can’t reconcile apparent contradictions between Scripture and Catholic teaching, how can our own faith survive? And if we can’t help our Protestant brothers and sisters overcome their preconceptions about “unbiblical” Catholic doctrines and practices, how will they ever come to embrace the fullness of the Faith?In this excerpt from Meeting the Protestant Challenge, Karlo Broussard gives an example o …

There are many books on the subject of salvation, and many of them share certain characteristics: 1. They focus exclusively on the subject of eternal salvation.2. They focus in particular on the doctrine of justification.3. They often ignore, in the interests of systematic theology, the way in which the Bible uses language.4. They are often written in a polemical, hostile style.5. Due to the authors’ unfamiliarity with the way other groups of Christians express themselves, they mistakenly …