Biblical Evidence for Spiritual Questions...

What hard evidence (Biblical or otherwise) is there for the following:

*”heaven” as the place where the “true” Christians go immediately after death?

*”hell” as the place where the non-Christians and/or false Christians suffer eternally?

*the current doctrine of the Holy Trinity?

*the soul or mind as separate and distinct from the body, particularly the brain?

The “hard evidence” is Scripture, God’s revealed Word, God’s revelation of Himself - the Bible. Especially with the things asked about here, there is no other source material. No one on earth has seen God. I have never been to heaven or hell. I have never had someone go either place and send me a postcard. The only material we have on any of these things is God’s Word.

So, here are some places to go in the Bible to answer these questions.

1,2 - See Matthew 25:46, Revelation 20. Heaven and hell are described as real and eternal places.

3 - The Bible speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all as God (e.g. John 1:1). Many passages about this, check out “What We Believe >> Our Four Pillars and Doctrine” on our website.

4 - The Bible speaks of death as being a conscious/intelligent state, even though the brain of a deceased person stays in their body after they die.

Why is Satan Allowed to Exist?

Satan is permitted to exist for the same reason anything is - God’s sovereignty. If God did not have a purpose for Satan, then Satan would not exist.

What possible reason would God allow Satan to exist? The sin, the evil, the wickedness, the destruction caused by his presence and activity. Why?

God allows Satan, and evil, to exist for a time. One reason is it gives the opportunity for God to reveal things about Himself He couldn’t otherwise.

Like what? Imagine if there was never any evil in existence… ever. No sin, no failure, no rebellion. There are aspects of God’s personality that would be forever hidden. Like His grace, mercy, forgiveness, restoration - all things He puts on display in the human race for the angels to see (see Ephesians 3:10, 1 Peter 1:12). Things about God that can only be displayed because He actually DID allow Satan and sin. Things God has allowed so that we may see His grace.

So Satan is allowed to do his thing. For now. And you can be sure God is still in control and using Satan to ultimately accomplish God’s purposes.

Should We Eliminate Books of the Bible that Don't Line Up with the Rest of It?

I have read that Martin Luther wanted to exclude the epistle of James from the canon of Scripture, probably because of one apparent contradiction between James and Paul on justification by works vs faith. Should we be willing to exclude one of our holy writings as a result of contradictions or other evidence?

First off, Luther was wrong to want to omit James, because there is no contradiction. James isn’t saying that works save you - he is saying works prove you ARE saved (See James 2:14-26). 

We believe that God wrote the Bible, and we believe God put it all together - all 66 divinely inspired books God made certain were put into one volume. Read God Wrote a Book by James MacDonald for an excellent answer to this, particularly chapter 2.

Where Do Catholic Beliefs Come From?

If modern-day Catholics have so much information available to show them that many of their beliefs are not in the Bible, why don’t they change their traditions?

This topic boils down to one issue: source of authority. We ALL have a “source of authority”, that is, we all have something from which we draw our beliefs. It can be a book (Bible, Book of Mormon, Koran), church teaching, or even your opinion. The question is: is your source of authority reliable? For example, those who draw their source of authority from their own opinion, I have to ask, “Has your opinion ever been wrong?”

For the Catholic Church, they draw their source of authority from two things: the Bible and church tradition (the latter includes councils, pope decrees, etc). Both hold the weight of authority. And unfortunately, if the church tradition seems to contradict the Bible, the tradition trumps God’s Word. I have discussed such matters with Catholic priests, and the response is simply, “That is what the Catholic church believes.”