MERCYhouse University

Topics: Doctrine of Humanity, Doctrine of Sin The tenth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cDUo9vdUs4hF5eLTdTBjIZ1ozcj6I3-fduYhqCaqdCk/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of God The ninth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/110PELLQs-MBFN0LeAsuL7qmkzpvHvCxsuAW8OEA_6HI/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of God The eighth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RSEqI01p9H_j147aspWkcSKpEbfd7l5M7wPK-yQyPKU/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of God The seventh lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/172zc-pbBMqaosRQld66Sjq4wHCS-BQf2RKDNvOxid2M/edit?usp=sharing

Topic: Doctrine of God The sixth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p55hVojihHDOotx8SQw-L_FUR6fBJcJ307HQQJ5wJ5k/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of God The fifth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p55hVojihHDOotx8SQw-L_FUR6fBJcJ307HQQJ5wJ5k/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of God The fourth lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZCQmvD2Fk80J41uzBOiIS25gNj-VMjSDHjavoYpcRIM/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of Scripture The third lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17veBnyKKr1wMVdjHUijnuschhjGLNWojAG4of9g0bnc/edit?usp=drive_link

Topic: Doctrine of Scripture The second lesson in MERCYhouse's Systematic Theology Sunday School class. Taught by Alden Foelsche. Access the class notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lIogyjIPxLNeH_PyeZMkU00KzIIGKVkNwpmuyrU3yhA/edit?usp=drive_link

Episode 8 of our series, How God Explains Everything. Patrick leads us through a discussion of the Argument from Possibility. We discuss what possibilities are, what reasons we might have for thinking they're related to God, and why it has seemed to some that God's powers have to be the ultimate source of all possibility.

Episode 7 of our series, How God Explains Everything. Patrick leads us through a discussion of the Argument from Propositions. We talk about what propositions are; how it seems like they're connected to truth, meaning, and thought; and why God can explain the existence of something with all those features.

Episode 6 of our series, How God Explains Everything. Austin leads us through a discussion of the Moral Argument for God's existence. We talk about what it means for there to be objective moral truths and why it might seem like a powerful personal God must explain them.

Episode 5 in our series, How God Explains Everything. Justin leads us in a discussion of the Biological Design Argument. We discuss how biological life seems designed, and how this points naturally to a designer. We also talk about some of the recent (and historical) debate that's centered around this idea.

Episode 4 in our series, How God Explains Everything. Justin leads us in a discussion of fine-tuning. We discuss some examples of the ways the universe seems fine-tuned for life, some reasons to think this is best explained by God, and some objections to the argument (including the multiverse hypothesis).

Episode 3 in our series, How God Explains Everything. Austin leads us in a discussion of what's called the "Kalam Cosmological Argument", an argument that establishes the existence of God from the fact that the universe must have had a beginning. We talk about reasons to think the universe must have a beginning, as well as the relationship between God and time.

Episode 2 in our series, How God Explains Everything. Patrick leads us in a discussion of an argument for God's existence from the existence of contingent beings. Contingent beings are those that exist but might not have existed. It seems like the only explanation for the existence of contingent beings is the existence of a necessary being (who could bring them about). That's the start of the argument we discuss.

Episode 1 in our series, How God Explains Everything. Justin leads us in a discussion of why it's valuable to think about arguments for the existence of God, how the existence of a perfect being can explain a variety of other phenomena, and how we can use this fact to build a cumulative case for God's existence.

Episode 8 of our series, Puzzles About God. Patrick leads us in a discussion of how best to think about the idea that Jesus is both God and man, along with how to solve some apparent contradictions that come up in that context. We think about just what it means for Jesus to be fully human in a way that doesn't contradict or mix with his Divinity.

Episode 7 of our series, Puzzles About God. Austin leads us in a discussion of the Incarnation, the doctrine that God became man. We discuss the most important aspects of this doctrine and the ways that people can go wrong, especially by denying the humanity or divinity of Christ, or by confusing the two natures.

Episode 6 of our series, Puzzles About God. Justin finishes our discussion of the Trinity. First, we get clear at just what the puzzle is: how can there be one God, three persons of the Trinity, and every person is God? We look at a few ways of resolving the apparent contradiction.

Episode 5 of our series, Puzzles About God. Austin leads us in a discussion of the Trinity. How do we talk about the Trinity without going "out of bounds"? What does it mean that God is a Trinity? Austin outlines a Trinitarian grammar and tells us about some ways that people have gotten the Trinity wrong in the past.

Episode 4 of our series, Puzzles About God. Patrick leads us in a discussion of God's goodness might seem to threaten his power. After all, if God can do anything, then why couldn't God sin? We discuss some different ways to resolve this apparent contradiction.

Episode 3 of our series, Puzzles About God. Justin leads a discussion of God's omniscience, especially as it bears on God's knowledge of the future. Does God know the future by "seeing" it laid out? By inferring what will happen from what has happened? By causing it? We discuss these and other possibilities.

Episode 2 of our series, Puzzles About God. Patrick leads a discussion of God's omnipotence. What does it mean that God is omnipotent? Are there any limits to it? Should we understand it in terms of possible situations, logically possibility, or some other way? Listen to find out.

Episode 1 of our series, Puzzles About God. Justin leads us through a discussion of the question "Where did God come from?" We discuss God's relation to time, the fact that God is a necessary being, and the fact that God depends nothing else.

Episode 8 of our series, Does Prayer Work? This includes two separate, shorter discussions. First, we discuss the question in the episode title: why should we pray if God already knows what we're going to pray for? Second, we ask whether we should be praying for the past more than we do. We think both discussions will help you think through those difficult questions.

Episode 7 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Justin leads us through a discussion of the question whether science poses any problems for the effectiveness of petitionary prayer. Some scientists have looked at statistics of answered prayer. Has what they found shown that prayers don't get answered? Find out in this episode!

Episode 6 of our series, Does Prayer Work? We ask the question why some prayers go unanswered. In talking about this, we discover that unanswered prayer is just one instance of what philosophers and theologians call the Problem of Evil. We talk about the traditional ways of responding to the Problem of Evil and how those responses can apply to the case of unanswered prayer.

Episode 5 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Elaine leads us through a deep look at the prayer life of the apostle Paul. What does the Bible show us about prayer from his life? What can we learn about prayer from someone who prays a lot in letters? These are some of the questions we discuss.

Episode 4 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Elaine leads us through a deep look at the prayer life of the prophet Jeremiah. What does the Bible show us about prayer from his life? What does a prophet pray for when he already knows how God will use his life? These are some of the questions we discuss.

Episode 3 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Sometimes we ask God to bring about results for events that have already occurred. Does that make any sense? Could God answer those kinds of prayers? Should we be praying for the past even more? We discuss these and other questions.

Episode 2 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Maybe we can know that God answers prayers in general, but can we ever know when God answers one of our prayers? What does it take to have that kind of knowledge? What sorts of prayers might have a better or worse chance of being subjects of such knowledge? We discuss the difference between certainty (which is unlikely to have in any particular case) and a justified belief about such matters.

Episode 1 of our series, Does Prayer Work? Won't God always do what's best if God is perfectly good? What's the point of praying, in that case? Either we're not asking for what's best, in which case God won't do it, or we are, in which case God was going to do it anyway! We take on this kind of concern here, discussing some reasons to think that our praying itself is a reason for God to act. We also cast some doubt on the idea that there is a single best way for the world to be, thus undercutting the idea that God will always bring about what's best.

Episode 8 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Elaine leads us through a discussion of the future value and importance of the resurrection. Why is it that Paul claims we are "most to be pitied" if the resurrection didn't happen, and how does the resurrection secure our future hope?

Episode 7 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Justin leads us through an in-depth look at the trials, sea-voyage, and ship-wreck of Paul.

Episode 6 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Austin takes a look at Paul's church-planting ministry. Does Luke's account of Paul's church-planting ministry in Acts fit with Paul's own account of this in his epistles? Does it fit with the rest of what we know about the region at the time?

Episode 5 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Patrick introduces our discussion of the book of Acts. We discuss the question of why we're even talking about Acts in a class on the resurrection, as well as what evidence we have that Acts is a reliable historical source. We also look at the life of Paul and some stories about the early church.

We've said a lot about whether you should believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and why it's important for our lives now. But how can you live in light of the resurrection? What spiritual practices could you incorporate into your life that will help you really live in a way that reflects the truth of Jesus' work? In this Bonus Episode, we talk about these questions.

Episode 4 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Elaine leads us through a discussion of why the resurrection matters for our lives right now.

Episode 3 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Justin leads us through a discussion of some apparent discrepancies in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection. Who went to the tomb? What did they find there? What happened next?

Episode 2 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Austin leads us through a discussion of what some call the "Minimal Facts" case for the resurrection. We talk about both why it's important to know that Jesus really rose from the dead, and how we can know that he did. Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ls-TiYE0OPCab_MsXzVpedxXdMmz4tHeMacCNhObYKo/edit?usp=sharing In this episode, one of us says that apparitions of deceased people are evidence that the deceased is dead, rather than evidence that they have been resurrected, attributing this point to N. T. Wright. Though the thought is indeed Wright's (pp. 690-1 in The Resurrection of the Son of God), nevertheless, this particular way of putting Wright's point is due to William Lane Craig (e.g. in this video clip: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/short-videos/why-is-the-hallucination-hypothesis-of-the-resurrection-implausible/).

Episode 1 of Part 2 of our course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Patrick leads us through a discussion of some of the events surrounding Jesus' death, including his trial before Pilate, his death on a cross, and his burial. Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ls-TiYE0OPCab_MsXzVpedxXdMmz4tHeMacCNhObYKo/edit?usp=sharing

This is a recording of the week 9 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Patrick takes us on a tour of historical evidence supporting the Gospel accounts of Jesus' arrest.

This is a recording of the week 8 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Justin canvasses historical evidence regarding some of Jesus' non-miraculous deeds, such as the cleansing of the temple.

This is a recording of the week 7 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Austin reviews some big-picture issues regarding the historicity of the Gospels, and then considers the evidence for the feeding of the five thousand and other miracles described in the Gospels.

This is a recording of the week 6 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Justin surveys evidence that Jesus taught the things attributed to him in the Sermon on the Mount and other Gospel discourses.

This is a recording of the week 5 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Patrick explores whether some of the parables attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are authentic.

This is a recording of the week 4 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Austin surveys some of the evidence pertaining to the ministry of John the Baptist.

This is a recording of the week 3 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Justin tackles a notorious problem about the census in Luke's infancy narrative, and then discusses the flight to Egypt in Matthew's infancy narrative.

This is a recording of the week 2 of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? Patrick leads a discussion of the two different genealogies of Jesus and begins to examine the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke.

This is a recording of the first week of Part 1 of our in-person course, Can We Trust the Gospels? We survey the types of evidence that one can look for to assess whether the Gospels are historically accurate.