Adam Johnson

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

How does God choose who will be saved and who won’t? Historically there have been two major positions; today most call these two positions Calvinism and Arminianism, but they’ve gone by other names throughout history. There are other positions, but these two are the most common. Calvinists generally put more emphasis on God’s sovereignty to choose who will be saved, and Arminians put more emphasis on our responsibility to choose to trust in Christ. For some denominations, this issue is one of their distinctives; most all Presbyterians are Calvinists, and most all Methodists are Arminians. But other denominations are different; for example, Southern Baptists don’t hold this issue as one of their distinctives.

This seven-part series examines three of the most difficult and debated chapters in Paul's epistle to the Romans, and through them seeks to discover the true heart of God.

Romans 9:1-5

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Ancient philosophy began when people started thinking about ultimate reality. These early philosophers proposed theories about the ultimate elemental stuff which everything else comes from or is made of. Some of the early theories were earth, air, fire, or water. One ancient philosopher, Democritus, even suggested that everything is made up of tiny particles he called atoms. However, if Christianity is true, and I believe it is, then when the final curtain of reality is pulled back, we won’t find earth, air, fire, water, or atoms. Instead, we’ll find loving relationships between three divine persons. Ultimate reality, from which everything else comes, is a God which exists as a Trinity: three divine persons united in one essence and united in Their loving relationships with Each Other.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

It seems to me that Plantinga’s argument in this book is correct but uninteresting. If I understand him right, his argument is that if Christianity is true, then it has warrant. This seems to be only helpful in interacting with those who claim that even if Christianity were true, people still wouldn’t be justified in believing it. I don’t imagine that many people claim such a thing, but I could be wrong. Maybe it’s the case that there are, or have been, some very influential thinkers who have made this argument, possibly even Marx and Freud.

What is apologetics? In short, it is giving good reasons and evidence to believe that Christianity is true. Apologetics focuses on some big questions about the truth of Christianity such as the following: Does God exist? Who was Jesus? How do we know Jesus was God? Is the Bible even historically reliable? Questions like these often appear front and center in our culture where skepticism of religious claims is the norm. The lectures below can help prepare you to address these questions in a Biblical manner, giving a "defense for the hope that you have" in Christ "with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). Follow along with Adam’s Introduction to Apologetics class to learn about the good reasons and evidence for God, Jesus, and the truth of the Scriptures.

Some skeptics will articulate an objection to Christianity by raising the problem of religious language. They will allege that, even if there were a God, since He is such an infinite and transcendent being, our language would be inadequate to describe Him, and thus all our talk about Him is meaningless. There are three main responses that have been offered to this. One response says that language referring to God is univocal; that is, when we use words to describe an infinite God, they have the exact same meanings as in other finite contexts. In other words, there is no problem with religious language. Another response claims that religious language is equivocal, which means that our language can’t actually describe God because an infinite God always transcends the ability of finite language to describe Him. However, on the equivocal position, our religious language is not completely meaningless, as it can describe certain aspects of God or our experience of God. A third response is that our religious language is analogous such that it has some connection to what God is like and can describe Him using comparisons and similarities. Some adopt a hybrid position that the language itself is univocally defined but analogously applied to both finite humans and an infinite God.

Sometimes human free will is a problem skeptics raise against the existence of God. This objection is usually presented similarly to this version by Nelson Pike: (1) If God exists, then He has infallible foreknowledge. (2) If God has infallible foreknowledge, then humans can’t have free will. (3) But humans do have free will, so (4) therefore God must not exist. Several solutions have been proposed to answer this objection to God. One such solution is called “Open Theism,” and it rejects premise 1 and says that God does not have infallible foreknowledge of free human choices. This response falls outside the bounds of orthodox historical Christian thinking. Another solution that rejects premise 1 focuses on the idea that God exists outside of time and therefore His knowledge is not foreknowledge but is rather timeless. A third solution called Okhamism rejects premise 2 by saying that future free choices cause God’s knowledge even though they happen chronologically after God has that knowledge. A fourth solution called Compatibilism rejects premise 3 by claiming that human beings do not have free will in an absolute sense. Many Calvinists and Reformed theologians take this position. Finally, another solution is Molinism, named after Luis de Molina, which rejects premise 2. Molinism claims that God can have “middle knowledge”; in other words, He can foreknow what all humans would freely do in any set of circumstances.

What if evolution is false? I’ve talked with many people who considered themselves Christians but then, for whatever reason, came to believe that evolution is true. These individuals were greatly troubled because they thought, now that they had accepted evolution, that they’d have to reject Christianity. However, many of them remained confident that the basic tenets of Christianity were true, i.e., God exists, Jesus is God, the Bible is from God, and a person can be forgiven and reconciled back to God through faith in Jesus Christ. With such individuals I’ve tried to lovingly point out that evolution doesn’t prove that Christianity is false. In this article I’ll summarize my argument in the hope it will be a benefit to others. This article will be published in two parts. I’ll begin by stating the obvious: If evolution is false, then certainly it doesn’t prove that Christianity is false. Therefore, in part one of this article, I’ll present the strongest argument against evolution.