Cave To The Cross Apologetics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJa2yKjI8OE God’s Glory Seen In Evil Now that we’ve laid out the Greater-Glory Theodicy that Scott Christensen has presented we unpack what it actually does that others don’t. In this theodicy, God’s Glory seen in evil is established. This doesn’t come from a novel, clever way to get around popular theories. This comes from the overall...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cnhkqSLfwY The Greater-Glory Theodicy We’ve knocked down the standard explanations. We’ve established who God is and what He desires. We’ve told His story in history from a story tale. Now, we get to tackle what Scott Christensen believes is the best explanation for evil with all those elements put together – The Greater-Glory Theodicy. In t...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCOUCzVT0_M God’s Purpose With Evil After setting the scene with Creation and The Fall, we are now able to see what God’s purpose with evil is. Following the story paradigm, we see God’s story played out in the rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. Each part covers an evil plot point where God is able to reveal Himself more fully t...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVGV6nyAG0A Evil’s Purpose In God’s Story What is evil’s purpose in God’s story? To begin to understand the answer we look at the fact that God’s written story, The Bible, is more than just propositions and commands – it is also stories. As it is the first story by the original Author we can call it a monomyth. This isn’t my...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp0imFHpNmg The Structure Of God’s Story Now that we looked at what myths are and what the monomyth of God’s story is; we look at what the structure of God’s story is – as well as all other stories follow. The shared collective consciousness of humanity reflects what it cannot help – the reflection of their Creator who is a Storyteller...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg8s7WtwPf0 God As The Monomyth Storyteller The term “myth” has a colloquial understanding of being made up or fake. But that’s not the true meaning of the word. Myths are stories told in a worldview used to relay information to a group and that story is made to stick. This universal concept derives itself from God. God as the monomyth Storyteller...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lPCw3o21Bk How To Bring Apologetics Into The Church In this episode, we responds to a great listener question about how to bring apologetics into the church. The question is specifically from a pastor’s point of view but we answer it in a way to be useful for the pastor, elder, deacon, Christian teacher, or layperson to be useful to his/her local church and b...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZrpIA4Mx7k God’s Responsibility In The Fall Continuing to look at God’s responsibility when it comes to evil, we look at God’s responsibility in the Fall of mankind. Both sides of the choice debate have to recognize the Fall as something unique and comes with their own set of questions. Which side is the most consistent AND the most biblical? Gene...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZceTZowEag God Is Free Of Evil God is free of evil because of who He is and His transcendence over His creation. But is He still considered the “author of evil”? Looking at people like the authors of the Westminster Confessions, Jonathan Edwards, and John Frame we see the Reformed tradition is not caught off guard by this claim that results in recognizi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujmkmgBD0k God’s Work In Evil Now that we’ve established the character and nature of God and seen that The Bible doesn’t shy away from attributing God’s control to evil actions of humans, we look at two other aspects of evil The Bible talks about. In divine hardening, we see that God steers the desires of humans to accomplish His will and Hi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdkyINUywA Is God The Author Of Evil? Is God the author of evil? That’s the question that Reformed Christians must be able to answer especially after dismantling libertarian free will. Here we begin to look at the characteristics God embodies that informs the discussion of his sovereignty over evil. Looking at God’s absolute goodness and holiness and ri...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnc-nstWMko What About Compatibilism? We delve into the topic of God’s choosing and man’s choosing as it relates to evil. If you’ve ever wondered, “What about compatibilism? What is it and is it true?” this episode will break down the concept for you. First, we finish up the last two secondary characteristics that stem from God’s...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWVaNvKgWOs God Is Transcendent Now that we’ve toppled over the main theodicies that have been preeminent in the discussion of evil; we turn back to what should start off any conversation rooted in the Christian worldview – the character and nature of God. Specifically, God is transcendent. God didn’t just happen upon the universe; He made it from...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3y_dGOs3M Divine Judgment & Hell Looking at one of the last main theodicies, we look at the topics of divine judgment & Hell. After laying out the argument from the divine-judgment defense we see that while this argument does have some merit to it, it is not an all-encompassing view of evil. With two interesting problems, it doesn’t seem to deal with...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y65dqyPZF4I Soul-Making In The Best Possible World Two of the subset theodicies of the Greater-Good Theodicy are the Soul-Making Theodicy and the Best-Of-All-Possible-Worlds Defense. In these, soul-making in the best possible world gives a purpose to evil existing as a means to an end. From the soul-making side, we see this as a desire in our own stories we share an...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f3AZo-9SkE Greater-Good Theodicy – Good From Evil Looking at another explanation for why there is evil in the world, we turn to the Greater-Good Theodicy. With this, we see a focus on the good that is accomplished as a result of the evil that occurs. From the evil actions of people or evil in the natural world, God is able to produce an abundance of good. Jus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s41ti1G3VZE Hermeneutics & Practical Bible Study Continuing our discussion from last week, Jeff and Josh from The Anarchist Bible Study and Patrick talk about how hermeneutics & practical Bible study and how to use each in the other. Hermeneutics isn’t important just for pastors, theologians, and seminaries. It is important for every Christian reading...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzzS6bWWLa0 Hermeneutics & Apologetics Hermeneutics & apologetics go hand-in-hand with each other. Since The Bible is our ultimate standard that it is important that we read it and interpret it the way God meant it to be. And to communicate it to other people accurately is just as important in our apologetics. Patrick is joined by two amazing guys who are ac...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtIGkKfAKc Free Will, Gratuitous Evil, & Natural Law Free Will, Gratuitous Evil, & Natural Law are all topics that are related in the free-will theodicy. Free will must deal with the same implications that compatibilists deal with and that’s the appearance of evil without purpose. We look at the different theories free will theists put out to explain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riXA0yl4b54 Free Will & God’s Foreknowledge The concept of free will & God’s foreknowledge can be a heady concept. We attempt to accurately cover three different answers free will advocates attempt to allow God to have foreknowledge (or not have it). We do our best to break it down while attempting to be accurate to supporters and the issues seen...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8cWnzyKxU Problems With Free Will We continue to look at problems with free will in light of the explanation it supposedly gives Christians when it comes to answering the problem of evil. We see why the Reformed position rejects parts of libertarian free will in exchange for soft determinism. Libertarian free will undermines the doctrine of depravity, who God is,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcF-TanIR8M Do We Have Free Will? The free will defense has done a lot in answering the logical problems of evil. While determinism has become more popular in the past decade among academics; the culture at large still has the embracement of free will. But do we have free will? We want to ask, “By what standard can we say that we have a will and it is free to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBaQvo-ACKk Can God Answer Evil? Can God answer evil and the problems caused by suffering? That is what a theodicy attempts to do. It provides a justification for why suffering and evil exist and that God exists as presented. This is a reason why one has to stake a claim in a specific God like the biblical, Christian God rather than some generic deity. The consisten...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duJgdEJl_6Y The Battle Of Two Moral Standards After finishing with defining our terms we look at ways in which those definitions play out in our worldviews. Here’s where the battle of two moral standards starts to interact and separate. Each side has a burden of proof since each side has a problem of evil. Where the secular side wants to tout a focus on human...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg06ePK7aYU Defining Evil Definitions are one of the most important parts of having any conversation. A lot of times people use different definitions as a result of their worldview. So when it comes to the topic of evil, defining evil is vital. In this chapter, we look at a secular version as well as the Christian definition of evil. This highlights the divide betwe...