Theology

What is the future? The question may seem trivial. But when you think about it, you understand better what St Augustine confessed: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know".

Jesus Christ is certainly the most fascinating and controversial person in human history, if we look at how He has been understood throughout the history of Christian thought. But how did Jesus understand Himself?

How can one explain that laws attributed to revelation are found in the legislation of other ancient peoples? How can the similarities between biblical thought and ancient culture be explained? How is the biblical God compared to the gods of other peoples?

"Hi, Alina! I hope you had a productive weekend" was the opening line of an email that, to me, encapsulated a whole misguided philosophy of life.

How did I begin to believe in You?

The question in the title is a protest which expresses a fair amount of suspicion towards God. It is a barely concealed condemnation of God and His actions, the strange rebellion of a world that sees itself as morally superior to God. People forget Scripture's words in the book of Job: Beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing (Job 36:18, RSV).

The tempest in our teacup, the controversy over religious education, has stirred up anger and debate not only about the fairness of filling in a form, but also about the role and purpose of religion in children's lives.

Let's go back in time to the day when Jesus spoke His apocalyptic words. At that time, rather than giving a revelation about the future, He was more concerned with warning about the dangers of deception.

There are predictions made in the Bible. Have all the predictions of the past been fulfilled? If not, what does the failure of some of them to be fulfilled say about the credibility of the Bible?

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

We love people for who they are. But there is a kind of love that is too high for us to truly comprehend in all its nuances, a love that manifests itself towards people no matter who they are or what they become. We find a love such as this in the beautiful story of Ian and Larissa.

During my adolescence, a Swiss author, Erich von Daniken, made waves with his theories about extra-terrestrial influences on early mankind. His most important book was called Memories of the Future. Of course, his ideas have no support today, but the idiom remains: memories of the future. Something from the past says something about what is to come.

How can salvation be real and certain only through Jesus Christ when countless people have never even heard His name? If billions of people have no knowledge of Him, isn’t the role of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world exaggerated? And are there no other ways of salvation besides Him?

On April 26th 1986, reactor 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded. The effects were catastrophic­­—it was the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion let out the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bombs-worth of radiation, and the area around Chernobyl—including the town of Pripyat—is now uninhabited. It will be unsafe to live there for the next 20,000 years.

The (metaphysical) Truth does not allow us to judge Him. According to the Bible, He expects to be believed and accepted so that He can be understood and evaluated. In contrast, the Truth is the One who judges us.