Opened · Honest Answers
Reasons for the hope
Hard questions about Jesus and the Bible, answered honestly: the objection at its strongest, the Christian case, and where the evidence is weaker.
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear…”
112 questions · free to read and share
Hard Questions
God’s existence10
- Is there any good reason to believe God exists?Christians point to several lines of evidence that together make a strong case: that anything exists at all, that the universe had a beginning, that it is ordered and fine-tuned for life, that some things are truly right and wrong, and above all the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. None is a mathematical proof; together they show that belief in God is reasonable.
- If everything needs a cause, who made God?No one did. The classic argument is not that everything needs a cause, but that whatever begins to exist, or depends on something else, needs one. God as Christians understand him has no beginning and depends on nothing: he is the uncaused source of everything else.
- Isn’t faith believing without evidence?Not in the Bible’s sense. Biblical faith is trust in someone you have reason to trust, as you trust a friend who has proved faithful. The Gospels appeal to eyewitnesses and evidence and invite people to test what they hear. Faith goes beyond what can be proved, as all trust does, but not against the evidence.
- Can we be good without God?People who don’t believe in God can be very good, and the Bible says God’s law is written on every heart. The deeper question is whether anything can be truly right or wrong, binding on everyone, if there is no God. Christians argue that real moral truths are best explained by a good God.
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- If God exists, why is he so hidden?Christians admit that God often seems hidden; the Bible says so itself. Many think God gives enough light to find him without forcing belief, because he wants trust and love, not mere agreement that he exists. He has also shown himself most clearly in Jesus. Still, the silence many sincere people feel remains a real and painful question.
- Is the universe fine-tuned for life?Many physicists, religious or not, agree that several basic features of our universe fall within narrow ranges that allow stars, chemistry and life. What explains this is debated: Christians see it as pointing to a Creator, while others appeal to many universes, deeper laws or simple luck. It is a serious pointer, not a proof.
- Isn’t belief in God just wishful thinking?Not necessarily. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it false, any more than it makes it true; what matters is whether there are good reasons to believe it. And the God of the Bible is not simply comforting: he judges, makes demands and unsettles, and many people have had reasons to wish he weren’t there.
- Are miracles possible?If God exists, miracles are possible: a God who made the world can act within it, and nothing in science shows he cannot. The harder question is whether any particular miracle actually happened, and that has to be weighed on the evidence, case by case.
- Hasn’t evolution explained away design?Evolution explains how living things can look designed without each feature being separately made, and many Christians accept it. But it does not settle whether the universe as a whole is designed: evolution itself depends on stable laws, finely balanced physics and a world we can understand. For many Christians, evolution describes how God works, not whether he exists.
- Why believe in one God rather than many?Christians believe in one God because the Bible teaches it and because there is a strong argument from reason: a truly ultimate, unlimited being cannot have equals, or something would have to distinguish and limit them. The unity of nature’s laws fits one source better than many. Jews and Muslims share this conviction; Christians hold that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Jesus12
- Did Jesus really rise from the dead?Christianity stands or falls on this. Historians widely accept that Jesus died by crucifixion, that his followers sincerely believed they saw him alive afterwards, and that this belief began very early. Christians hold that the best explanation of those facts is that God raised him.
- Did Jesus really exist?Almost all historians of the ancient world, whatever their beliefs, accept that Jesus of Nazareth was a real Jewish teacher who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. What historians debate is who he was, not whether he lived.
- Isn’t Jesus just one way among many?Jesus claimed to be the only way to God, and Christians believe him. That is a strong claim, but every view of religion makes some exclusive claim, including the view that all religions are equally true. Christians are called to hold it with humility and with respect for people of other faiths.
- Isn’t the Trinity a contradiction?Christians believe in one God who exists eternally as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is a mystery, but not a contradiction: God is one in one sense (his being) and three in another (persons). The doctrine was worked out to hold together everything the Bible says about God and about Jesus.
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- Why did Jesus have to die?The Bible says sin is real and serious, separating us from God, and that God in love dealt with it himself: Jesus, God the Son, gave his life in our place, bearing the cost of sin, defeating evil and bringing us back to God. The cross shows both how seriously God takes evil and how far his love goes.
- Did Jesus ever claim to be God?Not in the words “I am God, worship me”, but in ways his Jewish hearers understood clearly: he took God’s name, forgave sins, accepted worship, said he would judge the world, and said that seeing him was seeing the Father. His opponents tried to stone him for it and condemned him for blasphemy.
- If Jesus prayed to God, how can he be God?Christians believe Jesus is fully God and fully human. As a man he prayed, grew tired, and chose not to draw on everything he was, such as knowing the day of his return. The same Gospels show him claiming God’s place. Prayer shows his real humanity and his relationship with the Father, not that he was less than God.
- Was Jesus copied from pagan gods like Horus or Mithras?Historians, including non-Christian ones, generally say no. The best-known parallels, such as Horus being born of a virgin on 25 December and having twelve disciples, are not found in ancient Egyptian sources. Roman Mithraism is attested only from the late first century. Some real similarities exist, but the earliest Christian beliefs grew out of Judaism and claimed to report recent events.
- Did Jesus really do miracles?Many historians, including sceptical ones, accept that Jesus was widely known as a healer and exorcist, and that people believed they had seen him do wonders. Whether God was truly at work depends partly on whether you think God exists and acts. Christians believe he did, and that his miracles were signs of who he is.
- Was Jesus married?Almost certainly not. No early source, Christian or otherwise, says Jesus had a wife. The New Testament names his mother, brothers, sisters and women followers, but never a wife. The idea that he married Mary Magdalene rests on much later texts or modern fiction. Most Christians would not think marriage sinful, so this is a question of history, not of holiness.
- Did Jesus fulfil the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah?Christians believe he did, though not in the way many expected. The New Testament presents Jesus as the promised son of David and Isaiah’s suffering servant. It says the promises of world peace and a restored Israel await his return. Many Jews disagree, holding that the Messiah’s defining tasks remain undone.
- Did Jesus travel to India in his “lost years”?There is no reliable evidence that he did. The idea goes back mainly to an 1894 book by Nicolas Notovitch, whose claimed Tibetan source has never been produced and was challenged within a year. The Gospels say little about Jesus’ twenties, but they suggest the people of Nazareth knew him as a local craftsman.
The Bible’s reliability10
- Hasn’t the Bible been changed over the centuries?We have far more copies of the New Testament, and far earlier ones, than of any other book from the ancient world, and comparing them shows what was written with a high degree of confidence. Where copies differ, modern Bibles say so openly, and none of the differences overturns a central Christian belief.
- Doesn’t archaeology contradict the Bible?Archaeology has confirmed many people, places and events in the Bible, from kings of Israel and Judah to Pontius Pilate. Some periods, such as the exodus and the conquest of Canaan, are still debated because the evidence is thin or hard to read. Archaeology can support the Bible’s history; it can’t prove its spiritual claims.
- Who decided which books are in the Bible?No single council or emperor chose them. The churches recognised the books that came from the apostles and their circle and were already read in worship. By about AD 200 the core of the New Testament was widely accepted; a few books were debated longer, and later councils confirmed what churches already used. The Old Testament was received from Judaism.
- What about the lost gospels, like Thomas and Judas?Gospels such as Thomas, Judas and Mary were written later than the four Gospels, mostly in the second century or after, and many reflect the ideas of groups such as the Gnostics. They were never widely accepted rather than secretly suppressed. They matter for history, but they aren’t earlier or more reliable accounts of Jesus.
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- Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?The Bible contains many differences between parallel accounts, but most alleged contradictions ease when read in context, with attention to genre and to how ancient writers summarised events. A few remain genuinely hard, and Christians differ over how to explain them. The differences mostly concern details, not the core events the accounts agree on.
- Who really wrote the Gospels, and when?None of the four Gospels names its author in the text, but second-century Christian writers attribute them to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and many scholars think that tradition is broadly reliable. Most date them between about AD 65 and 100, within living memory of Jesus. Some argue for earlier dates, and others doubt the traditional names.
- Hasn’t the Bible been translated too many times to trust?Modern Bibles are not translations of translations. They are translated directly from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, using the oldest manuscripts available, so each is usually only one step from the original languages. Translation always involves choices, but readers can compare versions and footnotes to see where those choices lie.
- Did Moses write the first five books?The five books never name their author, but they say Moses wrote down laws and records, and Jewish and Christian tradition, including Jesus, calls them “the law of Moses”. Many Christians hold that Moses is their main source, with some later editing, such as the account of his death. Most critical scholars think the books reached their final form centuries after him.
- Was Daniel written after the events it predicts?Most critical scholars date Daniel’s final form to about 165 BC, during the persecution under Antiochus IV, because its predictions are exact up to then and less clear afterwards. Many Christians hold the traditional sixth-century date, pointing to God’s ability to foretell the future and to details that fit Babylon. Informed, faithful Christians hold both views, and the evidence is debated rather than settled.
- Why do Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have extra books?Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include several Jewish books written in the last centuries before Christ, preserved mainly in Greek and widely read in the early church. Protestants follow the shorter Hebrew Bible of Judaism and treat these books as useful but not Scripture. The disagreement covers a defined group of books; most churches agree on the 27 New Testament books.
Hard passages25
- Does Isaiah 7:14 really say “virgin”?The Hebrew word almah means a young woman of marriageable age, and it isn’t used in the Old Testament of a woman known to be married. Jewish translators before Christ rendered it with the Greek word for virgin. Christians differ on whether the sign had a first fulfilment in Isaiah’s day before its fuller fulfilment in Jesus.
- Why do Matthew and Luke give different genealogies of Jesus?After David the two lists follow different lines. Early Christians already noticed this and offered explanations: one list may trace Joseph’s legal line and the other Mary’s, or the lists may reflect adoption and levirate marriage. Christians differ on which explanation is right, but the difference was never hidden.
- How did Judas die? Matthew and Acts disagree.Matthew says Judas hanged himself and the priests bought a field with his money; Acts says he bought a field, fell headlong and burst open. The accounts can be read together: the field was bought with his money, and a body left hanging can fall. Christians differ on how far the accounts need to be harmonised.
- Was Luke wrong about the census under Quirinius?Luke places Jesus’ birth during a census when Quirinius governed Syria, under Herod the Great. Quirinius is known to have governed Syria and held a census in AD 6, about ten years after Herod’s death. Scholars have proposed solutions, but none is certain; this is a real historical puzzle, in a writer who is accurate on many details that can be checked.
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- Why did God send bears on the boys who mocked Elisha?The Hebrew words translated “little children” can mean youths or young men, and they came from Bethel, the centre of Israel’s idol worship, mocking God’s prophet just after Elijah was taken up. The passage presents it as judgement on contempt for God, as the covenant had warned. It remains a disturbing story.
- How can Psalm 137 bless those who dash infants against rocks?Psalm 137 is the cry of exiles whose city was destroyed and whose children were killed. It is honest grief and anger brought to God, not a command. It echoes the judgement already announced on Babylon, leaves vengeance with God, and the New Testament goes further, teaching love for enemies.
- Did Jesus wrongly predict the end within a generation?In Matthew 24 Jesus answers a question about the destruction of the temple, which happened in AD 70, within a generation. In the same speech he says no one knows the day or hour of his return. Christians differ on exactly how the speech moves between the two.
- Do Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other?Genesis 1 gives an overview of all creation; Genesis 2 zooms in on the first people in the garden. Read that way, most of the apparent contradictions fall away, and Jesus quotes the two chapters together. Christians differ on how literally to read the days, and on some details of the order.
- Was Jonah really swallowed by a great fish?The book presents it as a miracle (God “appointed” the fish), not as something that happens naturally. Jonah son of Amittai was a real prophet, and Jesus pointed to Jonah’s three days as a sign of his own resurrection. Christians differ on whether the book is straightforward history or a historical story told with deliberate irony.
- Did God accept Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter?No. God never asked for Jephthah’s vow, and his law forbade human sacrifice. Judges records the story as part of Israel’s moral collapse, when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Christians differ on whether the daughter was killed or dedicated to lifelong service.
- Why did Ananias and Sapphira die for a lie?Not for keeping some of their money: Peter says it was theirs to keep. They lied to God, pretending to give everything, at the very start of the church. Like other judgements at the beginning of a new stage in God’s story, it showed that God is holy and present among his people.
- Doesn’t “an eye for an eye” teach revenge?No. It is a rule for judges, limiting punishment to what fits the harm, not permission for personal revenge, which the same law forbids. Jesus, speaking to individuals, goes further: don’t retaliate at all.
- Did dead saints really walk into Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52–53)?Only Matthew reports that when Jesus died, tombs opened and holy people were raised and appeared in Jerusalem after his resurrection. Christians differ on whether it describes a literal event or uses prophetic imagery to show what Jesus’ death and resurrection mean.
- Was Jesus wrong about Abiathar (Mark 2:26)?Mark has Jesus say David ate the holy bread “in the days of Abiathar the high priest”, but 1 Samuel names the priest as Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father. Several explanations have been offered, and Christians differ on which is right; some accept that Mark’s wording is imprecise.
- Was Noah’s flood global?Genesis tells of God judging human violence with a flood and saving Noah’s family, and then promising never to do so again. Christians differ on whether the flood covered the whole planet or the whole world Noah knew. Either way the story’s point is God’s judgement on evil and his mercy.
- Did the sun really stand still for Joshua?Joshua 10 quotes a poem from the Book of Jashar in which Joshua asks the sun and moon to stand still, and says God fought for Israel. Christians differ on whether this was a lengthened day, a miracle of light, or poetic language for an overwhelming victory.
- Don’t the resurrection accounts contradict each other?The four Gospels differ in details, such as which women went to the tomb and how many angels they saw, but agree on the core: women found the tomb empty early on the first day of the week, they were told Jesus had risen, and he appeared to his followers. Differences in detail are what we expect from independent witnesses.
- Why did God tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?Genesis calls it a test (22:1). God stopped Abraham, provided a ram, and Isaac lived. The story shows Abraham trusting that God would keep his promise through Isaac, and it shows that Israel’s God does not want child sacrifice. Christians also see it pointing ahead to God giving his own Son.
- Why did Jesus call a Canaanite woman a dog?Jesus used a common saying: the children’s bread (his mission to Israel) shouldn’t be thrown to the dogs. The words sound harsh, and they were. But the woman turned the saying around, Jesus praised her faith and healed her daughter, and the story points to the gospel reaching Gentiles. Christians differ on whether he was testing her, exposing his disciples’ attitude, or something else.
- Did Jesus really tell us to hate our parents?Jesus did say “hate” (Luke 14:26), but he was using a Semitic idiom that means loving one thing far less than another. Matthew’s version puts it as loving parents “more than me”. Jesus elsewhere insisted on honouring parents, so the point is that loyalty to him comes first, even above family.
- Did Jesus come to bring a sword, not peace?Yes, Jesus said it (Matthew 10:34), but the context shows he meant division, not violence. His call to put him first would split families, as Luke’s parallel says plainly. He forbade his followers to fight for him and told Peter to put his sword away.
- Why did Jesus curse a fig tree?Jesus cursed the fig tree as an acted parable, like the symbolic acts of the Old Testament prophets. Mark places it around his clearing of the Temple: a tree in full leaf but bare of fruit pictured religious show without the fruit God looks for. It was a warning of judgement, not a fit of temper.
- Why did God tell Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman?God asked Hosea to live out his message: Israel had broken covenant with God as an unfaithful spouse breaks a marriage. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer, her unfaithfulness and his costly taking her back pictured both Israel’s sin and God’s persistent love. Christians differ on whether Gomer was unfaithful before the marriage, became so later, or whether the account is a parable.
- Why did God strike Uzzah for steadying the ark?Moving the ark on a cart broke the law God had given: only Levites were to carry it on poles, and no one was to touch it, on pain of death. Uzzah’s death is presented as a warning that God’s holiness is real and cannot be handled carelessly, even with good intentions. Later in the story, David himself blames the wrong method of carrying the ark.
- Why does the Bible include stories like Lot and his daughters?The Bible often records what people did without approving of it. Lot’s story shows a man who chose Sodom’s comforts and ended in drunkenness and shame, and it explains the origins of Israel’s neighbours Moab and Ammon. Yet Ruth, a Moabite, became an ancestor of David and Jesus, so the story also points to grace reaching people born of a broken family.
God, evil and morality11
- What about the violence in the Old Testament?The Old Testament records wars, including commands to destroy Canaanite cities, that are deeply troubling. Christians read them as particular judgements at one moment in history, not a pattern for any later time, and in the light of Jesus, who taught love of enemies. Christians differ on how literally to read the conquest accounts.
- If God is good, why is there so much suffering?Christianity doesn’t explain every instance of suffering, and the Bible doesn’t pretend to. It says God made a good world that has gone wrong, that God is not distant from pain but entered it in Jesus, and that one day he will end it. Many people find that hope more honest than easy answers.
- How can a loving God send people to hell?The Bible speaks of judgement and of hell, often in the words of Jesus himself. Christians hold that judgement is God putting wrong right, which a good God must do, and that God takes no pleasure in anyone being lost. They differ on what hell is like.
- Doesn’t the Bible approve of slavery?The Bible regulates forms of servitude that already existed, and some of those laws are hard to read today. It also sets limits unknown in other ancient laws, condemns kidnapping people to sell them, and plants the truths that later moved Christians to campaign against slavery. Christians have used the Bible both to defend and to oppose slavery, and that history should be told honestly.
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- Does the Bible silence women?Two passages tell women to be silent or not to teach, and Christians read them differently. At the same time women were the first witnesses of the resurrection, prophesied in church, led churches in their homes and worked alongside Paul. Faithful Christians disagree on what roles in church leadership are open to women today.
- What happens to people who never heard of Jesus?The Bible does not answer this directly. It teaches that salvation comes only through Jesus, and also that God judges justly, according to the light people have, and wants all to be saved. Christians differ: some hold that those who never hear are lost, while others think God may save some through Christ without their knowing his name.
- Is it fair that we inherit Adam’s sin?Christians agree that Adam’s sin affected the whole human race, but they differ on how. Some believe we inherit Adam’s guilt; many others believe we inherit a damaged nature and mortality, and are judged only for our own sins. The Bible also presents Jesus as a new Adam, whose obedience can count for us as Adam’s failure affected us.
- Why did God allow sin into the world at all?The Bible doesn’t give a full answer, but it points in a direction: God made people able to love him freely, and that meant they could also refuse him. Christians believe God permitted the fall, knowing he would overcome it through Jesus and bring a greater good than a world where sin was never possible.
- Isn’t a jealous God insecure?In the Bible, God’s jealousy is not insecurity but the protective love of a faithful husband who will not share his bride with rivals that would harm her. Insecurity comes from need and fear, and the Bible says God needs nothing. His jealousy is for his people’s good, not to prop himself up.
- Why do animals suffer?The Bible doesn’t fully explain animal suffering, but it insists that God cares for every creature, that creation now “groans”, and that he will one day renew it. Christians offer partial reasons, such as the goods of a stable, law-governed world, and they disagree about whether animal death came before or through human sin.
- Are natural disasters God’s judgement?The Bible says God rules over nature and sometimes describes particular disasters as judgement. But Jesus warned against treating victims as worse sinners than anyone else, and told everyone to turn back to God. Christians hold that we cannot read God’s verdict on people from the weather or the ground, and that suffering is a sign of a broken world awaiting renewal.
Islam16
- Did Jesus foretell Muhammad as the Comforter?No. In John 14–16 Jesus names the Comforter (also translated Advocate or Helper; in Greek parakletos) as the Holy Spirit, who would be sent to the disciples in Jesus’ name, live in them for ever and glorify Jesus. That was fulfilled at Pentecost, weeks after Jesus’ resurrection, not six centuries later.
- Is Muhammad the “prophet like Moses” in Deuteronomy 18?No. Moses promised a prophet raised up “from among you, from your brothers”, and in Deuteronomy “your brothers” means fellow Israelites. The book itself defines what makes a prophet like Moses: knowing the LORD face to face and doing signs among the people. The New Testament sees the promise fulfilled in Jesus.
- Does the Old Testament name or foretell Muhammad?The passages usually offered, Song of Songs 5:16, the “Paran” verses, Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 29:12, don’t point to Muhammad when they are read in their context and in Hebrew. God did promise to bless Ishmael and make him a great nation, and the Bible keeps that promise in view, but the covenant line runs through Isaac.
- Did Jesus really die on the cross?Yes. That Jesus was crucified and died is among the best-established facts of ancient history, accepted by historians of every belief. The Qur’an, written about 600 years later, says it only appeared so (Qur’an 4:157). Christians hold that the earliest witnesses are the better guide, and that Jesus’ death was the heart of his mission.
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- Doesn’t “Son of God” mean God had a child?No. Christians agree with Muslims that God has no wife and did not father a child physically. “Son of God” describes an eternal relationship and a shared nature, not biology. The Bible uses “son of” in this way elsewhere, and Jesus’ hearers understood his claim to be Son as a claim to equality with God.
- Doesn’t the Qur’an say the Bible was corrupted?The Qur’an actually honours the Torah and the Gospel, tells the people of the Gospel to judge by it, and says no one can change God’s words. The manuscripts we have from centuries before Muhammad contain the same Bible Christians read today. So if the Bible was changed, it would have to have happened before Muhammad’s time, which sits uneasily with what the Qur’an says.
- Was Jesus sent only to Israel?During his earthly ministry Jesus went first to Israel, as God had promised. But in the same passage that says so, he heals a non-Israelite woman’s daughter, and after his resurrection he sends his disciples to all nations. From Abraham onwards God’s plan was to bless every nation through Israel.
- Isn’t the Gospel of Barnabas the true Gospel?The book called the Gospel of Barnabas survives only in Italian and Spanish manuscripts from the late Middle Ages or later, more than 1,400 years after Barnabas. It contains medieval details, geographical mistakes, and even contradicts the Qur’an by denying that Jesus is the Messiah. Many Muslim scholars also doubt it.
- Did Paul invent Christianity?No. Paul’s letters, the earliest Christian writings, pass on beliefs he had “received” from those before him, and he says Peter, James and John recognised his message. The worship of Jesus as Lord, his death for sins and his resurrection were the faith of the first Jerusalem believers, not Paul’s invention.
- Was the Gospel (Injil) a book given to Jesus?In the New Testament “gospel” means good news: the message that Jesus died for sins and rose again, which Jesus himself preached and the apostles proclaimed. No early source mentions a book revealed to Jesus. The four Gospels are accounts of his life by his followers, and they were in use for centuries before Islam.
- Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?Both believe in one God, the Creator, who spoke to Abraham, and Arabic-speaking Christians have always called God “Allah”. But Christians and Muslims describe God very differently: Christians know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, revealed in Jesus. Christians disagree about whether to call this the same God described differently, or a different understanding of God.
- Was Jesus a Muslim?Not in the sense Muslims usually mean. Jesus fully submitted to God, which is what the Arabic word muslim means, but he was a first-century Jew. The Gospels show him teaching things Islam denies: that he would die and rise again, that he could forgive sins, and that he is the Son of God.
- Do Christians worship Mary as part of the Trinity?No. Christians believe in one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and Mary is not part of the Trinity. Catholic and Orthodox Christians honour her highly and ask for her prayers, but their own teaching says worship belongs to God alone. Most Protestants keep devotion to Mary much more limited.
- Isn’t the Qur’an better preserved than the Bible?In one sense, yes: the Qur’an was standardised within about 20 years of Muhammad’s death, and its text has been remarkably stable since. But it has a textual history too. The Bible is preserved differently, through thousands of early, independent copies that let scholars recover its wording with high confidence. Careful preservation shows faithful copying. It doesn’t show which message is true.
- Doesn’t the Bible forbid pork and require circumcision, as Islam does?Yes. The Law of Moses forbids pork and commands circumcision, and Jesus was circumcised as a Jewish boy. But the New Testament teaches that these laws were signs of God’s covenant with Israel, and that through Jesus they are not required of non-Jewish believers. Peter, James and Paul agreed this in Acts 15, and Mark says Jesus “declared all foods clean”.
- Why don’t Christians accept Muhammad as a prophet?Christians respect Muhammad’s call to worship one God, but believe God’s final word came in Jesus, and the Bible teaches that prophets are tested by whether their message agrees with what God has already revealed. The Qur’an denies that Jesus died on the cross and that he is the Son of God, which the New Testament treats as the heart of the faith.
Judaism5
- Is Isaiah 53 about Israel or about Jesus?Many Jewish readers since the Middle Ages have read the suffering servant as the people of Israel. Christians, following the New Testament, read him as the Messiah, Jesus. The passage describes an innocent person who suffers for the sins of “my people”, dies and is then vindicated, which Christians see fulfilled in Jesus.
- If Jesus is the Messiah, why isn’t there world peace?Christians believe the Messiah comes twice: first to deal with sin and make peace between people and God, and again to bring the world peace the prophets promised. The kingdom has begun but is not yet complete. Jewish readers see the prophecies as unfulfilled, which is a serious objection, not a misunderstanding.
- Did Christians abandon God’s law?Christians do not see it that way, though many Jews do. Jesus said he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it, and the first Jewish believers kept it. The early church decided that Gentile believers need not take on the whole Torah, and Christians believe Jesus’ death and the new covenant changed how the law applies.
- Does Daniel 9 point to the time of the Messiah?Many Christians read Daniel 9:24–27 as dating the coming and death of the Messiah to before the second temple fell in AD 70. Jewish interpreters, and many critical scholars, read its “anointed ones” as other figures, such as Cyrus or the high priest Onias III. The text is cryptic, so for Christians it is a serious pointer rather than a proof.
Other religions and movements8
- Does John 1:1 say the Word was “a god”?Nearly every translation renders it “the Word was God”. Greek has no word for “a”, and the form John uses stresses what the Word is: fully divine. Reading “a god” would put a second, lesser god beside the one God, which the Bible rules out.
- What about our ancestors, and honouring them, in African tradition?The Bible honours ancestors: it commands respect for parents, keeps genealogies and remembers forebears in faith. What it forbids is consulting the dead or offering to them, because worship belongs to God alone and Christ is the one mediator. Many African Christians therefore remember and honour their ancestors gratefully while praying to God alone.
- Isn’t karma fairer than grace?Karma promises that everyone gets exactly what they deserve, and that sounds fair. Christianity agrees that sin has real consequences, but teaches that God meets them himself at the cross, so mercy is given without justice being ignored. Grace is not unfair to anyone; it gives undeserved good, which is why it can reach people who could never repay.
- Does the Bible teach reincarnation?No. The Bible teaches that each person lives one earthly life, dies once and then faces God’s judgment, with the hope of bodily resurrection rather than rebirth into another body. Passages sometimes read as reincarnation, such as Jesus calling John the Baptist “Elijah”, are better explained in other ways.
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- Is the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus?Latter-day Saints believe it is: an ancient record of Jesus’ ministry in the Americas, translated by Joseph Smith in 1830. Most Christians do not accept it as scripture. It claims to add to the apostles’ finished witness, and historians and archaeologists have found no trace of its peoples. Its message about Jesus often echoes the Bible, but its claims about its own origins are hard to sustain.
- Are only 144,000 people going to heaven?No. Revelation mentions 144,000 sealed from Israel’s tribes, but John then sees a multitude no one could count, from every nation, before God’s throne. Most Christians read the 144,000 as a symbolic picture of God’s whole people. The Bible’s final hope is a renewed heaven and earth for everyone who belongs to Christ.
- Isn’t Buddhism a peaceful path without a God?Classical Buddhism teaches no creator God, though its world includes gods, and many Buddhists venerate buddhas and bodhisattvas. Its ideals of non-harm and compassion are real and admirable, but Buddhist history, like Christian history, includes violence. The deeper question is not which path seems gentler but which is true: is ultimate reality personal, and where does lasting peace come from?
- Is God the universe, or the universe within us?Christianity answers neither. God made the universe and is distinct from it, yet he is present everywhere and holds all things in being. He can live within people by his Spirit, but that is like a guest making a home with someone, not the discovery that our deepest self is God.
Science and history8
- Hasn’t science disproved God?Science explains how the natural world works; it can’t settle whether there is a God behind it. Many founders of modern science were Christians, and many scientists are today. Christians do differ on how to read Genesis alongside the age of the universe and evolution.
- Isn’t Christianity a white, colonial religion?Christianity began in the Middle East and reached Africa in its first generation, centuries before it reached most of Europe. Missions were sometimes bound up with colonial power, and that history should be faced honestly. Today more Christians live in Africa than on any other continent.
- Can a Christian accept evolution?Yes. Many faithful Christians accept evolution as the way God made living things, seeing no conflict with God as Creator. Others reject it, mainly over how to read Genesis and the story of Adam and the fall. The core Christian beliefs, that God made everything and that humans bear his image, do not depend on which view is right.
- How old is the earth, according to the Bible?The Bible never states the earth’s age. Adding up the genealogies in Genesis gives roughly 6,000 years, which many Christians accept, but others read Genesis 1 as not meant to date creation and accept the scientific estimate of about 4.5 billion years. Faithful Christians hold both views.
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- What about the Crusades?The Crusades (1095–1291 in the eastern Mediterranean) were wars called by popes to win and hold Jerusalem and other lands. They came after centuries of conflict and a plea for help, but they included massacres of Muslims, Jews and fellow Christians that contradict Jesus’ teaching. Christians should admit this honestly, neither excusing it nor exaggerating it.
- Didn’t the church persecute Galileo?In part, yes. In 1633 the Roman Inquisition forced Galileo to renounce the view that the earth moves round the sun, banned his book, and held him under house arrest until he died. But he was not tortured or thrown in a dungeon, and the affair was not a simple war between science and faith.
- Did Christianity cause the Dark Ages?Most historians no longer speak of “Dark Ages”, and they trace Rome’s fall in the West to many causes, not mainly to Christianity. Christians did sometimes destroy pagan temples and distrust pagan learning. But monks also copied much of the classical Latin writing we still have, and the Christian East kept Greek learning alive for another thousand years.
- What about the Inquisition?The Inquisitions were real and wrong. Church and state authorities used courts, torture and execution to punish belief, especially against Jewish and Muslim converts, contradicting Jesus’ own teaching. They killed far fewer people than popular myth suggests, but that is no excuse. Christians should admit this plainly and judge it by Christ’s own words.
Doubt and Christian life7
- Why are there so many denominations if the Bible is clear?Most Christians share the same core beliefs, summed up in the ancient creeds: one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Jesus truly God and truly man, crucified and risen; salvation by God’s grace. Denominations mostly differ on secondary questions, such as baptism and church government. Some divisions also come from human failure, which the Bible itself warns about.
- Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?The Bible says God hears every prayer, but it doesn’t promise to give everything we ask, when we ask. Jesus himself prayed for the cup to pass and it didn’t; Paul asked three times for his thorn to be removed and was told God’s grace was enough. Silence and “no” are part of honest faith, and the Bible gives words for them.
- Is it wrong to doubt?No – not in itself. The Bible is full of believers who doubted, and God meets them with patience: Thomas, John the Baptist, the psalmists, and a father who cried, “I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Scripture warns against a settled refusal to trust, but honest doubt brought to God is part of many people’s faith.
- How can I know I’m saved?Christians are not told to find assurance in the strength of their feelings, but by looking to Jesus and trusting God’s promise that whoever believes in him has eternal life. A changed life – growing love for God and others, a real fight against sin – is a confirming sign. Doubts and struggles do not by themselves mean you are not saved.
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- Can a Christian lose their salvation?Christians genuinely disagree. Many, especially in the Reformed tradition, hold that God keeps every true believer to the end, so anyone who finally falls away was never truly born again. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Wesleyan and many other Christians believe a real believer can fall away, but can return by repentance. Both sides agree that salvation rests on God’s grace, not on our performance.
- Why are so many Christians hypocrites?Christians do not claim to be good people. They claim to be forgiven sinners whom God is slowly changing, so failure is real and expected, though never excused. Jesus condemned hypocrisy more fiercely than almost anything else. Some who carry the name have never really followed him, and many who do follow him are changing slowly and unevenly.
- Do I need to go to church to be a Christian?Christians generally agree that you become a Christian by trusting Jesus, not by attending services; churchgoing does not earn salvation. But the New Testament knows nothing of Christians living alone: it assumes believers belong to a community that meets, worships and cares for one another. So church is not a ticket in, but it is part of what following Jesus normally looks like.
Drafted with Opened AI and awaiting review by Opened’s apologetics advisors.
