Mercyhouse University

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?