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/larrysanger- While I was raised Christian, I lost my faith in my teens, as so many do. But my life has been a truth-seeking quest, and I ended up earning a Ph.D. in philosophy (as I was starting Wikipedia). My reasons for disbelief fell away one by one; eventually I read the Bible, finally, for good […]
- This video explores the meaning of the Eucharist, focusing on whether Jesus’ words—“This is my body” and “This is my blood”—should be understood literally or symbolically. It examines Eucharistic realism, which claims the bread and wine are Christ’s real body and blood, and critiques this view for relying on undefined “Holy Mysteries.” Instead, the symbolic […]
- What did Jesus mean when he said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”? Was he speaking literally, symbolically, or in some other sense? In this video (part one of two), I examine the theological and philosophical debates surrounding the real presence in the Eucharist, drawing from Scripture, Church history, and philosophical reasoning. […]
My Blog
The Denominational Distinctives I: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant
In a previous post on LarrySanger.org, I listed some “questions that distinguish the denominations.” More precisely, I attempted to list, tentatively, questions that, taken together, are minimally adequate to distinguish the doctrinal commitments
On freedom and divine sovereignty (summary)
Free will and determinism have exercised me since my teen years, and I’ve thought of myself as a compatibilist since college. I have found no reason to change my mind. Since my conversion
Does God expect the impossible of us?
A student asked some advice, so I replied. The question and the answer are both very general, so in case this helps anyone:
Why does the Christian conception of God impose divine standards of
Brief Notes on the Gospel
Is “believe that Jesus died for your sins” the whole Gospel? What if the Bible says otherwise—and what if we’ve missed the most ancient part?
The Gospel—the good news—was the inauguration of the Kingdom
A Sketch of My Theological Method
While thinking about a certain book on the history of religious ideas, I considered how my own approach to theology might fit into that enormous history. This led me to the following summary
The Bible and the Fathers on the Divinity of Jesus Christ
Among those who have responded to my testimony, a few Unitarians have come out of the woodwork, warning me sternly that there is one God. With this, I agree, of course. But they
A Response to My New Brothers and Sisters
My conversion story weighs in at 14,000 words, and this follow-up is another 5,000. The outpouring of response has been so great that I felt I owed some further answers to all these
The questions that distinguish the denominations
I want to ask my generous and well-informed Christian readership here for their feedback on a list of questions.
The task is fairly straightforward to state, not maybe not easy to execute: Formulate a
How a Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian
It is finally time for me to confess and explain, fully and publicly, that I am a Christian. Followers of this blog have probably guessed this, but it is past time to share
Why Encyclopedias Are Still Important
Here is a little argument for the enduring necessity of encyclopedias, despite the rise of LLMs. This will have two parts: the first more philosophical, developing principles about the “organic” nature of intelligence
