To the public,
Credible Faith is dedicated to providing an intellectually rigorous defense of the Christian faith and a clear explanation of the Christian gospel. It seeks both to engage the mind and touch the heart, recognizing that, granted its intellectual credibility, the Christian faith offers solutions for some of the most difficult questions and pressing concerns of human existence. Further, central to the Christian faith is the doctrine, expressed in one form or another, of justification by faith, a source of an unmatched and unending joy capable of making eternal existence a paradise rather than a hell.
A central premise of Credible Faith is that a right evaluation of all the evidence - scientific, historical, philosophical, anthropological, etc. - leads to the Christian faith, and that one who does not embrace Christianity has either failed to examine all the evidence, has failed to weigh the evidence correctly, or will not embrace it for a reasons that is not intellectual, or has not embraced Christianity for some combination of the foregoing. This last point regarding non-intellectual reason(s) is significant, for Christianity does indeed make ethical demands that are inconsistent with the lifestyles and thinking of much of the world. In such cases, indeed in every case, what is needed is not only an intellectual assent, but a change of heart. That change, according to what Jesus taught and Christian doctrine, is not one that is made without the initiative of God acting in a person. Man does not change himself unaided. God changes him.
Such a conviction about the necessity of God's work in the human heart is grounded in Christian scripture and the teaching of Jesus, and that divine working in the human heart happens when the character of God and his work is revealed through the teaching and preaching of the Word that he has given to man. Accordingly, Credible Faith recognizes that intellectual arguments and the presentation of evidence in favor of Christianity is incomplete by itself. A clear presentation of who God and man are according to scripture and the means of their reconciliation must also be given. That means of reconciliation is the sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The God who created the universe and who will judge its inhabitants loved sinners like me so much that he entered the world, suffered, and died on my behalf so I would not receive the eternal punishment that I deserve. That is good news, and news that Credible Faith seeks to tell alongside its presentation of intellectual arguments and evidence for the truth of the Christian faith.
It would be my hope that in the future, the Credible Faith website would be a place where large numbers of people would come and be edified in their Christian faith or be drawn closer to becoming a follower of Jesus Christ themselves. May the Lord be glorified through it.
Sincerely,
Paul Larson
Endnotes:
In place of a comments section, Dr. Larson accepts and encourages letters to the editor. If you would like to write a letter to the editor, then feel free to submit your letter here.