Theology for the Curious

Pete Goulding
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Debating theology that makes sense of life and faith. A team of regular people discuss issues of theology, faith and life. Uncovering bible thinking from cutting edge, to conservative, to all things in-between. A lively debate show that gets you thinking, challenging the relevance of God, scripture and faith to today's contemporary outlook.

  1. 6d ago

    Ep. 190 - The Calvin in Calvinism: Understanding the Man and the Myth w/prof.Bruce Gordon

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! John Calvin has become one of the most famous — and most caricatured — figures in Christian history. To some he is the towering theologian of the Reformation; to others, the grim dictator of Geneva, obsessed with predestination and intolerant of anyone who stood in his way. But who was the real Calvin? In this first of two episodes on Calvinism, the Curious team are joined by leading Reformation historian Bruce Gordon to move beyond both the admiration and the mythology and uncover the man himself — brilliant and difficult, fiercely driven yet deeply wounded, capable of extraordinary loyalty and equally extraordinary conflict From his early years in France and reluctant arrival in Geneva, through failure, exile and the formative years in Strasbourg, we follow the experiences that turned a gifted young scholar into one of the most influential pastors and theologians in Christian history. We explore his friendships, marriage, grief, preaching, battles with Geneva, the controversy surrounding Michael Servetus, and the question of how much power Calvin really possessed. Was he the cold, joyless tyrant of popular imagination, or does the historical Calvin turn out to be a far more human, contradictory and fascinating figure? Before we ask what Calvinism teaches, perhaps we first need to ask: who exactly was the Calvin in Calvinism? Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles that compliment this episode…. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/who-was-john-calvin-and-why-was-he-important/ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-spiritual-utility-of-calvins-correspondence-during-the-strasbourg-years/ What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  Bruce Gordon— Calvin   Bruce Gordon— John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Biography Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  2. Oct 20

    Ep. 190 - Pantheism; Is Everything God?

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Have you ever stood beneath a sky full of stars, gazed across a breathtaking landscape, or listened to the crashing waves of the ocean and felt that God was somehow present? But what if we took that experience one step further? What if nature doesn’t simply reveal God, but actually is God? What if everything in existence, including you and me, belongs to one great divine reality? This is the fascinating claim of pantheism, an ancient idea that continues to influence modern spirituality, philosophy and even the language we use about God. In this episode of Theology for the Curious, the Curious team explore why pantheism is so attractive, what thinkers such as Baruch Spinoza believed, and how its understanding of God challenges some of Christianity’s most fundamental convictions. If everything is God, what happens to evil, prayer, salvation and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ? And could the popularity of pantheism reveal something that Christians themselves have forgotten about God’s presence in the world? Join us as we wrestle with a deceptively simple question that has enormous implications: Is God the Creator of everything, or is God everything? Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode…. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/ https://www.monergism.com/pantheism What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy! John W. Cooper— Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato To The Present David K. Clark & Norman L. Geisler— Apologetics in the New Age: A Christian Critique of Pantheism  Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  3. Oct 13

    Ep. 189 - The Rise of Atheism: From Ancient Greece to Richard Dawkins (Part Two)

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Imagine What happens when belief in God is removed — and what takes its place? In this second part of our series on atheism, the Curious team invite us to meet some of the thinkers who profoundly shaped modern unbelief: Feuerbach, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud and Russell. Their challenges to Christianity went far beyond simply saying, “God does not exist.” Was God a projection of human longing? Was religion a tool of oppression? Could evolution remove the need for a Creator? And when Nietzsche announced that “God is dead”, was he celebrating the disappearance of Christianity — or warning the West about what might happen when the foundations beneath morality, meaning and purpose were removed? The episode then turns its attention to the extraordinary rise — and subsequent fragmentation — of the New Atheism of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Why did their books capture the imagination of so many people after 9/11, and why did a movement united by opposition to religion later find itself divided over morality, identity and what atheism actually stood for? Along the way the team ask an even more basic question: what does it actually mean to be an atheist? From strong atheism and agnostic atheism to apatheism, misotheism and John Gray’s “seven types”, this episode asks whether atheism is simply the absence of belief — or whether every account of reality ultimately has to answer the deeper questions of meaning, morality, dignity, purpose and hope. Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode…. https://sharedveracity.net/2021/12/11/how-believers-become-unbelievers-a-review-of-alec-ryries-emotional-history-of-doubt/ https://learn.ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/history-of-atheism What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  John Gray— Seven Types of Atheism Alec Ryri—  Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt Alister McGrath—  The Twilight of Atheism Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  4. Oct 6

    Ep. 188 - The Rise of Atheism: From a Minority Idea to the Dominant Story of the West (Part One)

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Atheism can look like the obvious alternative to belief in God, but its story is far more complex than simply “science replaced religion.” In this episode, the Curious team trace the development of unbelief from the ancient world through the Enlightenment and into the modern West, asking why atheism remained a minority position for so long — and what changed. From Diagoras, Democritus and Epicurus to Hume, Voltaire and the intellectual revolutions that followed, we explore the different ideas that slowly reshaped the way Western culture thought about God, reason, morality and human freedom. Along the way, the team challenge the idea that atheism is one single worldview. Marx, Nietzsche, Russell and Dawkins do not all mean the same thing when they reject God, and even the word atheism has had a fascinating history — Christians themselves were once accused by the Romans of being “atheists” because they rejected the pagan gods. So how did a marginal philosophical position become one of the dominant stories of modern Western culture? And what assumptions does atheism itself bring to the table? This week’s Theology for the Curious is an invitation to look beyond slogans and understand the deeper history behind one of the most influential intellectual movements of our age. Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode…. https://sharedveracity.net/2021/12/11/how-believers-become-unbelievers-a-review-of-alec-ryries-emotional-history-of-doubt/ https://learn.ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/history-of-atheism What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  John Gray— Seven Types of Atheism Alec Ryri—  Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt Alister McGrath—  The Twilight of Atheism Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  5. Sep 29

    Ep. 187 - Leiden, Dort & Beyond: Theology that would shape Europe and the World: PART TWO

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! For seven months, theologians gathered through a bitter Dutch winter to answer questions that had already spilled far beyond the walls of the church. A professor was dead. His followers were fighting for their theological inheritance. A powerful statesman awaited his fate. And delegates had travelled from across Europe to a small Dutch city to decide what Christians could — and could not — say about grace, freedom, election and the saving purposes of God. Four centuries later, the arguments have survived almost everything else about the controversy. Why does one person believe while another does not? Does God choose us because we believe, or do we believe because God has chosen us? Did Christ die in precisely the same sense for everyone? Can saving grace finally be resisted — and can somebody genuinely united to Christ ultimately walk away? Behind the familiar labels Calvinism and Arminianism lies a much more complicated and human story. This week the Curious team continue their exploration of the impact and reach of the teaching of Jacob Arminius as they enter the Synod of Dort and discover how five disputed articles helped shape a theological conversation that Christians are still having today. Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles that compliment this episode…. https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/canons-dort https://www.crcna.org/news-and-events/news/digging-history-synod-dort https://seedbed.com/a-primer-on-prevenient-grace/ What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  W. Robert Godfrey— Saving The Reformation: The Pastoral Theology of the Canons of Dort  Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  6. Sep 22

    Ep. 186 - Leiden, Dort & Beyond: Theology that would shape Europe and the World: PART ONE

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! It began with questions in a university lecture room. Before long, ministers were being driven from churches, congregations were splitting, pamphlets were flooding the streets and armed troops were facing one another across Dutch cities. Somewhere along the way, a dispute about predestination had become a struggle over who governed the church, who governed the nation — and perhaps even who governed history itself. At the centre of the storm was a theologian who had once been expected to defend the very doctrine he would later question. Jacob Arminius died before the controversy bearing his name reached its extraordinary climax, but his ideas survived him — carried forward by friends, politicians and theologians until the Dutch Republic stood perilously close to fracture. How did an argument about grace and election lead to soldiers in Utrecht, political prisoners in The Hague and theologians from across Europe gathering at Dordrecht? This week the Curious team begin the first of two parts on the history of Jacob Arminius and his ideas. The road to the Synod of Dort is considerably more dramatic than the five points it eventually produced. Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles that compliment this episode…. https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/arminius-and-remonstrants https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/defender-of-gods-justice What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  Keith D Stanglin and Thomas H McCall— Jacob Arminius: Theologian Of Grace  Roger E Olson— Arminian Theology – Myths and Realities  Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  7. Sep 15

    Ep. 185 - If Things Were Otherwise: The Mystery of Molinism

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Imagine that before the first moment of creation, every road history might take lay open before God. Every decision you could make. Every decision you would make if your circumstances were different. Every conversation that never happened, every opportunity never presented, every alternative history never lived. Now imagine that God knew them all — and chose to create this particular world. Suddenly the familiar questions about providence and human freedom become considerably more intriguing. But hidden inside that proposal is a question that is surprisingly difficult to escape. If God knows what a genuinely free person would choose before that person even exists, what makes that knowledge true? Somewhere between God’s sovereignty and our freedom lies one of Christian theology’s most ingenious attempts to hold the two together — and perhaps one of its greatest philosophical puzzles. It’s called Molinism, and once you understand the problem it is trying to solve, you may find yourself looking at providence rather differently. Join the curious Team this week as they take a nose dive into the key players and ideas behind Molinism Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles that compliment this episode…. https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/molinism-101 https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/131/522/459/6382285 What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  James R White— The Potters Freedom  William Lane Craig— The Only Wise God Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

  8. Sep 8

    Ep. 184 - Does God Know the Future: Understanding Open Theism w/prof. Bruce A. Ware

    Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! We trust God with tomorrow. We pray about decisions we haven’t yet made, circumstances we cannot control and dangers we cannot see. We take comfort from the belief that however uncertain the road ahead may appear to us, it is not uncertain to Him. But what if we have misunderstood that? What if some of tomorrow remains genuinely undecided — not simply from our perspective, but from God’s? It is an idea motivated by some deeply human questions about love, freedom, suffering and prayer. Yet follow it far enough and it begins to touch almost everything we believe about God. Can He be surprised? Can He discover something He did not previously know? Can He change His plans? And if the future contains possibilities rather than certainties, what does that mean for prophecy, providence and the promises on which Christians have staked their lives? In this episode, the curious team are joined by theologian Professor Bruce Ware to explore one of the most fascinating — and controversial debates about the nature of God: Open Theism. Further Reading Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode…. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/openness-theology-divine-omniscience/ https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/open-theism/v-1 What we’re reading? As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!  Bruce A. Ware— God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism Gregory A. Boyd —  God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

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Debating theology that makes sense of life and faith. A team of regular people discuss issues of theology, faith and life. Uncovering bible thinking from cutting edge, to conservative, to all things in-between. A lively debate show that gets you thinking, challenging the relevance of God, scripture and faith to today's contemporary outlook.

Information

  • Creator
    Pete Goulding
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    193
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Theology for the Curious
  • Show Website
    Theology for the Curious