Faith, Supernatural Encounters and the Problem of Knowing by Rudolph P. Boshoff
An interesting problem emerges whenever Christians begin talking about supernatural experiences. Someone says, “God spoke to me.” Someone else says, “I felt the presence of God.” Another tells us about a miraculous healing. Someone claims to have seen an angel. Someone else says that Jesus appeared to them in a dream. And then, somewhere in the room, the philosopher quietly clears his throat and asks: “Yes, but how do you know?” And there it is. [...]
Let’s Be Humble about Our Orthodoxy by A W Tozer
Christianity is rarely found pure. Apart from Christ and His inspired apostles probably no believer or company of believers in the history of the world has ever held the truth in total purity. One great saint believed that the truth is so vast and mighty that no one is capable of taking it all in, and that it requires the whole company of ransomed souls properly to reflect the whole body of revealed truth. The [...]
Can a Christian Be Demon-Possessed? Excerpt From Spiritual Warfare by Brian Borgman and Rob Ventura
“We cannot avoid this controversial question when we deal with the topic of spiritual warfare. First, we should define what we mean by demon-possessed. Some scholars today prefer the term demonized rather than possessed.1 The objection is that the New Testament does not use the word possessed. Furthermore, the word possessed implies ownership and property. We fervently deny the concept that Satan can own a believer.2 The preferred term, demonized, comes from the Greek word [...]
The Illusion of the “Shared Narrative”: Decoupling the Qur’anic Adam from Genesis by Rudolph P. Boshoff
In contemporary interfaith dialogue, a popular strategy for building common ground is to point to what appears to be a unified scriptural heritage. A prime example of this can be found in Dr. Osman Latif’s book, Divine Perfection: Christianity and Islam on Sin and Salvation. During discussions of the text—specifically the timestamp range 2:39–4:23—a foundational claim is made to establish a theological bridge between the two faiths under the banner of a "shared narrative". However, [...]
The Late Antique Milieu of the Qur’anic Adam and Eve by Rudolph P. Boshoff
There is no dispute that the Qur'an treats Late Antique Syriac and Rabbinic folklore as canonical history. Let's face it, if one is attempting to demonstrate a uniquely unmediated divine dictation, leaning heavily on the Life of Adam and Eve—a text that was essentially the theological fan-fiction of Late Antiquity—is a rather precarious position to take. The Late Antique Milieu of the Qur'anic Adam and Eve The Qur’an contains a repetitive but highly theological account [...]
Short thoughts on the Qur’an an it’s rejection of Original Sin by Rudolph P. Boshoff
The Qur’an’s rejection of original sin (inherited ancestral guilt) and its specific construction of human accountability are not a historical vacuum or an unprecedented theological novelty. Instead, they map directly onto a fierce, pre-existing theological civil war raging across the Late Antique Near East. While Western Latin Christianity (following Augustine of Hippo) codified the doctrine of peccatum originale—the idea that humanity biologically or spiritually inherits Adam's moral guilt—the surrounding Rabbinic Jewish and East Syrian Christian [...]
The God Who Feels: A Biblical Case for Divine Passibility by Rudolph P. Boshoff
Does God Really Suffer With Us? One of the most important debates in contemporary theology concerns the emotional life of God. Does God genuinely experience love, grief, compassion, delight, and sorrow in response to His creatures? Or is God utterly beyond all emotional change? For centuries, many Christian theologians affirmed the doctrine of divine impassibility, the belief that God cannot be affected by anything outside Himself and therefore cannot suffer or experience emotional changes. Classical [...]
Neo-Classical Theism vs. Classical Theism: Why the Classical View of God Faces Serious Challenges by Rudolph P. Boshoff
In the world of Christian philosophy and theology, few debates are as deep and enduring as the one between Classical Theism and Neo-Classical Theism. Classical Theism—shaped by giants like Augustine, Anselm, and especially Thomas Aquinas—presents God as the ultimate, unchanging, perfectly simple, timeless, and impassible Being. Neo-Classical Theism (sometimes called “modified classical theism”) seeks to preserve God’s core perfections while making room for a more relational, responsive, and dynamic picture of divinity.While both sides affirm [...]
William Hasker’s reply to Dale Tuggy on the denial of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
This document is a scholarly reply by William Hasker defending the historical development of the Trinity doctrine against Dale Tuggy's critique, emphasizing biblical and theological evidence. Disagreements on Definitions of Key Terms The author criticizes Tuggy’s problematic definitions of ‘unitarian’ and ‘trinitarian,’ arguing they distort historical and theological understanding. Tuggy’s broad ‘unitarian’ includes early theologians like Tertullian and Origen, despite their differing views, and his ‘trinitarian’ requires full ontological equality and identification of the Trinity [...]
20 Ways Cults Twist Scripture: A Biblical Response Inspired by James Sire
“How often have you encountered some bizarre doctrine only to be stunned to hear a Bible verse quoted to support it?” That question from James W. Sire cuts straight to the heart of a problem every Christian eventually faces: Scripture is not always denied, it is often misused. In fact, some of the most dangerous theological errors arise not from rejecting the Bible, but from twisting it. Sire’s work, Scripture Twisting, remains one of the [...]