Kenneth Scott Latourette

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

The prophets and the writers of the Psalms were clear that God was continuing to work in the universe and in all history. They declared that He had created the universe.

Although when Christianity appeared the total population of the planet was only a fraction of that of the twentieth century, most of the earth's surface was quite outside the Mediterranean world, Persia, India, and China.

In both the presence of evil and the eventual triumph over evil the sweep is cosmic. It embraces the entire universe, what to man is both seen and unseen. The victory is to be accomplished through Christ.

Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.

Freedom was conditioned by man's physical body, heredity, and environment.

The primary source of the appeal of Christianity was Jesus - His incarnation, His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection.

Christians were regarded as separated from society and therefore destructive of the Greco-Roman way of life.

Compared with the thousands of years in which human life has been on this planet, Christianity is a recent development.

In contrast, Christianity, while acknowledging the presence of suffering, declares that life can be infinitely worth living and opens the way to eternal life in fellowship with God Who so loved the world that He gave Himself in Christ.

In the third century after Christ the faith continued to spread.

Religiously the Empire was pluralistic and marked by a search for a faith which would be satisfying intellectually and ethically and would give assurance of immortality.