If you were to force people to do something against their free choice, you would be dehumanizing them. The option of forcing everyone to go to heaven is immoral, because it's dehumanizing; it strips them of the dignity of making their own decision; it denies them their freedom of choice; and it treats them as a means to an end. When God allows people to say 'no' to him, he actually respects and dignifies them.
J.P. MorelandWhen God chooses to create somebody, he or she has an impact on other people's choices and it might be that they have an impact on their decisions to trust Christ or not.
J.P. MorelandGod maintains a delicate balance between keeping his existence sufficiently evident so people will know he's there and yet hiding his presence enough so that people who want to choose to ignore him can do it. This way, their choice of destiny is really free.
J.P. MorelandWe need to admit the mind into Christian fellowship again. We need the mind disciplined in Christ, enlightened by faith, passionate for God and his creation, to be let loose in the world.
J.P. MorelandThe soul is the ego, the ‘I,’ or the self, and it contains our consciousness. It also animates our body. That’s why when the soul leaves the body, the body becomes a corpse. The soul is immaterial and distinct from the body.
J.P. MorelandIn Scripture, faith involves placing trust in what you have reason to believe is true. Faith is not a blind, irrational leap into the dark. So faith and reason cooperate on a biblical view of faith. They are not intrinsically hostile.
J.P. MorelandI would rather commit a sin of commission than a sin of omission, and the evangelical community is exactly the opposite. The evangelical community would rather not do something wrong and the price they're willing to pay for not doing something wrong is they're willing to fail to do something right; they're so afraid of making a mistake. Now the reason they're afraid of making a mistake is they're cowards and our community produces cowards.
J.P. MorelandReal life does not come naturally. It is counterintuitive. It is a skill we have to learn. That's because the way to real life is not something we get, but something we give.
J.P. MorelandFrom space travel to organ transplants, one of the most important influences shaping the modern world is science. Amazingly, people who lived during the Civil War had more in common with Abraham than with us. If Christians are going to speak to that world and interact with it responsibly, they must interact with science.
J.P. MorelandReligion is now viewed by many as a placebo or emotional crutch precisely because that is how we often pitch the gospel to unbelievers
J.P. MorelandThe proper thing to do is to admit that hell is real and to allow our feelings of discomfort to motivate us to action.
J.P. MorelandNo one will go to hell simply because all they needed was a little more time and they died prematurely.
J.P. MorelandThe disciples had nothing to gain by lying and starting a new religion. They faced hardship, ridicule, hostility, and martyr's deaths. In light of this, they could never have sustained such unwavering motivation if they knew what they were preaching was a lie. The disciples were not fools and Paul was a cool-headed intellectual of the first rank. There would have been several opportunities over three to four decades of ministry to reconsider and renounce a lie.
J.P. MorelandIf we are going to be wise, spiritual people prepared to meet the crises of our age, we must be a studying, learning community that values the life of the mind
J.P. MorelandWhile the Christian faith clearly teaches that believers are to be involved as good citizens in the state, nevertheless, it is obvious why so many secularists are addicted to politics because political power is a surrogate for a Higher Power.
J.P. MorelandInstead of responding to these attacks with a vigorous intellectual counterpunch, many believers grew suspicious of intellectual issues altogether. To be sure, Christians must rely on the Holy Spirit in their intellectual pursuits, but this does not mean they should expend no mental sweat of their own in defending the faith
J.P. Moreland