Many have raised moral and theological objections on the justness, theological coherence and compatibility of the atonement.

In this episode of Faith Informed, Dr. William Lane Craig joins me to discuss the crucial doctrine of the atonement and more specifically, penal substitution.

How does Christ’s atoning death reconcile us to God? Why did Jesus have to die? Was His death necessary? How have Christians historically understood the doctrine of the atonement? How does Christ’s atoning death serve to expiate sin and propitiate God? Is penal substitution incompatible with God’s love? How is it just for God to punish Christ, an innocent party in place of us, the truly guilty ones? We will examine these questions and more. Dr. Craig has written extensively on the subject in his book, Atonement and the Death of Christ, looking at the atonement from an exegetical, historical and philosophical perspective.

Previous Episodes

In today’s episode, Dr. Paul Copan joins us to help make sense of some troubling passages in the Old Testament. Paul is a theologian and an analytic philosopher who has written/edited over 40 books including “Is God a Moral Monster” and “Is God a Vindictive Bully.” He is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University and travels extensively, speaking and teaching around the world.

Paul brings his expertise and thoughtful responses to some very difficult questions raised in response to passages in the Old Testament.

– Does the OT condone slavery?

– How could a truly holy and loving God command the slaughter of an entire people?

– Is the God of the Old Testament a misogynistic, vindictive bully?

– What are we to make of imprecatory Psalms?

In today’s podcast we are joined by apologist and philosopher, Dr. Paul Gould, author of “A Good and True Story: Eleven Clues to Understanding Our Universe and Your Place in it.” We will look at 11 features of the universe that point us to the true story of the world. We will examine if the Christian story offers the best explanation for the origin of the universe and of life, and if it provides the most satisfying answers to existential questions on meaning, beauty, identity, love and happiness. We will explore questions such as: Is the Universe fine tuned by a fine tuner? Is there an uncaused first cause behind the universe? How do we ground our intuition that human life is valuable? Are there objective moral values and duties? If so, what grounds them? What is true happiness? Can we make sense of our yearning for happiness on an atheistic/naturalistic story? What is love? What explains our deep longing for love? Are there aesthetic facts? Is beauty an objective feature of the world? What is the meaning of life?

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In Part 1, Travis shared how he began to doubt his Christian faith in seminary. He found he didn’t have good reasons to believe, but neither did he have good reasons to doubt. We all have questions about our faith that we wish we had a more satisfactory answer to. What should we do when we are faced with such questions? In this podcast we will learn about the distinction of “belief in” and “belief that” and will look at the argument from evil, does the existence of evil preclude the existence of God and the problem of divine hiddenness, if there is so much evidence for God’s existence why doesn’t everyone believe in God?

Travis Dickinson encountered doubt in the most unlikely of places – seminary. He felt his faith was “accidental” because he was born into a Christian family. Since he didn’t have good reasons to believe Christianity to be true, he thought it might be false. Learn how he navigated his season of doubt and found that Christianity values reason and evidence in a way that other religions do not. We discuss how asking questions is crucial to having a robust faith. What is doubt? Is it wrong to have doubts? Does Jesus call us to blind faith, to belief without evidence? Find answers to these and more and be sure to look for Part 2 where we continue our discussion…

In this episode we continue our conversation with author and apologist Mary Jo Sharp, discussing the importance of the local church, what to look for when choosing a church, and the hope we have despite the brokenness we encounter. Mary Jo, a former atheist, was drawn by the beauty she found in the Christian story, but because of her experiences in the church she found herself questioning the truth of Christianity. Through her journey of doubt she discovered afresh the truth, beauty and irresistible hope of the Gospel.

Have you considered giving up on your faith because of hypocrisy, legalism, and judgmentalism encountered in the church? More and more we are hearing stories of de-conversion, people once professing Christ turn skeptical and ultimately reject their faith altogether. Author and apologist, Mary Jo Sharp, was a likely candidate to do just that as she found herself questioning the truth of Christianity when confronted by the ugliness of hypocrisy within the church. Through her journey of doubt she discovered afresh the truth, beauty and irresistible hope of the Gospel.