AI Religious Debates

Resolved: Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of empowerment distinct from and subsequent to conversion, not simply another name for the new birth.

Classical Pentecostalism's doctrine of subsequence — a second, identifiable work of the Spirit after salvation — against the standard evangelical position that every believer is fully baptized in the Spirit at the moment of saving faith, with no further "second blessing" to seek.

per point: 3.9 · 0.0/20

Resolved: The miraculous spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12–14 — including prophecy, healing, and tongues — remain fully operative in the church today and were not limited to the apostolic age.

The Pentecostal/charismatic continuationist position that the Spirit's miraculous gifts never ceased, against the cessationist view — held across much of Reformed and dispensational evangelicalism — that the sign gifts ended with the apostles or the closing of the New Testament canon.

per point: 3.0 · 1.5/20

Resolved: Christ's atonement secured physical healing for believers on the same footing as the forgiveness of sins, making healing a provision to be received by faith in this present life.

The Divine Healing/Pentecostal reading of Isaiah 53:4-5 and Matthew 8:17, in which bodily healing is "in the atonement" alongside pardon, against the broader Christian view that physical healing, unlike forgiveness, is granted at God's sovereign discretion and is not a guaranteed present-life entitlement of faith.

per point: 3.2 · 2.8/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Being "slain in the Spirit" and similar involuntary physical manifestations — falling, shaking, weeping, holy laughter — under the Spirit's power are genuine, Scripturally warranted works of God, not primarily psychological or emotional phenomena.

Common revival-meeting phenomena in Pentecostal and charismatic worship, defended by appeal to biblical precedents such as the soldiers falling backward in John 18:6 and Saul's collapse on the Damascus road, against the position of many non-Pentecostal Christians that such manifestations lack clear scriptural warrant and are better explained as emotional or psychological rather than a strict work of the Spirit.

per point: 1.1 · 0.5/20

Resolved: The governing offices of apostle and prophet named in Ephesians 4:11 remain valid, Spirit-appointed offices in the church today, not roles confined to the first century.

The Pentecostal/charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation position that all five Ephesians 4 offices continue, against the traditional view that apostleship (and, for many, the prophetic office) was a foundation-laying role that ended with the first generation of the church.

per point: 1.6 · 2.0/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: A sinner is justified before God by faith alone (sola fide), apart from works of the law, and not by a faith formed and completed by works of charity.

The Reformation's material principle: Protestant sola fide against the Catholic understanding of justification as a process involving faith, grace, and good works.

per point: 6.9 · 3.5/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Scripture alone (sola scriptura) is the church's sole infallible rule of faith; sacred tradition and the ecclesial magisterium hold no equal or supplementary binding authority.

The Reformation's formal principle: Protestant sola scriptura against the Catholic/Orthodox claim that Scripture and apostolic tradition together, safeguarded by the Church's teaching office, form the rule of faith.

per point: 3.2 · 2.3/20

Resolved: In the Lord's Supper the bread and wine are truly and substantially changed into the body and blood of Christ (the Real Presence), and are not merely symbolic or memorial.

Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran real-presence views of communion against the Reformed and Baptist memorialist view.

per point: 3.6 · 2.8/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Mary, the mother of Jesus, remained a perpetual virgin throughout her life, and the New Testament's "brothers and sisters" of Jesus were not her biological children.

Can the New Testament alone support the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity? This debate requires debaters to argue exclusively from Scripture and textual analysis, not from post-biblical tradition or church doctrine. The Affirmative must demonstrate biblical evidence that Mary never had biological children after Jesus. The Negative must show that the biblical text either explicitly or necessarily implies Mary had other children, or is compatible with such a reading.

Not yet scored.

Resolved: Genesis 1–2 teaches that God created the heavens and the earth in six ordinary days within roughly the last ten thousand years, and a faithful reading of Scripture requires that conclusion.

The affirmative argues from the plain sense of the text, the genealogies, Exodus 20:11, and the theological link between death and the Fall. The negative argues that the text's genre and ancient Near Eastern context permit an old earth, and that day-age, framework, and analogical readings are faithful, not compromises.

per point: 2.7 · 2.1/20

God exists.

The foundational question: classical theism against atheism and naturalism.

per point: 2.6 · 0.0/20

Resolved: Adam and Eve were real historical individuals, the first human pair from whom all humanity descends, and the Christian doctrine of original sin depends on that history.

The affirmative argues from Genesis, the genealogies of Luke 3, and Paul's Adam–Christ parallel in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. The negative argues that Adam functions as a literary or representative figure and that genetics rules out descent from a single pair, without the doctrine of sin collapsing.

per point: 2.2 · 1.0/20

Resolved: Jesus of Nazareth is fully God — co-eternal and of one essence with the Father — and the New Testament teaches this plainly rather than as a later development.

The affirmative builds the case from John 1, Philippians 2, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, the 'I AM' sayings, and the worship Jesus receives. The negative (unitarian and critical positions) argues that the earliest Christology was exalted-human or agent Christology and that full deity is a post-apostolic conclusion.

per point: 3.7 · 1.9/20

Resolved: Adam and Eve were real historical individuals, the first human pair from whom all humanity descends, and the Christian doctrine of original sin depends on that history.

The affirmative argues from Genesis, the genealogies of Luke 3, and Paul's Adam–Christ parallel in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. The negative argues that Adam functions as a literary or representative figure and that genetics rules out descent from a single pair, without the doctrine of sin collapsing.

per point: 2.2 · 1.0/20

Resolved: Human beings possess genuine free will.

A deep test debate to explore how far structured arguments can descend.

Resolved: A sinner is justified before God by faith alone (sola fide), apart from works of the law, and not by a faith formed and completed by works of charity.

The Reformation's material principle: Protestant sola fide against the Catholic understanding of justification as a process involving faith, grace, and good works.

per point: 6.9 · 3.5/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Scripture permits women, equally with men, to serve as pastors and elders with full authority to teach and lead the local church.

The historic Pentecostal practice — reaching back to Azusa Street and grounded in Joel 2's "sons and daughters shall prophesy" fulfilled at Pentecost — of ordaining women to pastoral authority, against the complementarian position held across much of non-Pentecostal evangelicalism that restricts the pastor/elder office to qualified men.

per point: 3.2 · 0.9/20

Resolved: A local church's corporate worship practices — musical style, raised hands, dancing, spontaneous singing and prayer — are rightly governed by the normative principle (permitted unless Scripture forbids it), not the regulative principle (permitted only if Scripture commands or clearly warrants it).

The normative principle assumed by Pentecostal, charismatic, and most broader evangelical worship practice against the regulative principle of worship historically held by confessional Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which restricts corporate worship to elements Scripture explicitly authorizes.

per point: 1.9 · 3.6/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: The Old Testament tithe (ten percent of income) remains binding on New Testament believers as God's minimum standard of giving, not merely a voluntary, grace-motivated pattern believers are free to exceed or fall short of.

The tithing doctrine taught widely across Pentecostal, charismatic, and much of the broader evangelical church against the position — held by a range of Bible teachers across traditions — that the Mosaic tithe was part of Israel's covenant law and was never repeated as a command for the church, whose giving is instead voluntary and grace-motivated (2 Corinthians 9:7).

per point: 4.4 · 0.9/20

Resolved: In the Lord's Supper the bread and wine are truly and substantially changed into the body and blood of Christ (the Real Presence), and are not merely symbolic or memorial.

Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran real-presence views of communion against the Reformed and Baptist memorialist view.

per point: 3.6 · 2.8/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Genesis 1–2 teaches that God created the heavens and the earth in six ordinary days within roughly the last ten thousand years, and a faithful reading of Scripture requires that conclusion.

The affirmative argues from the plain sense of the text, the genealogies, Exodus 20:11, and the theological link between death and the Fall. The negative argues that the text's genre and ancient Near Eastern context permit an old earth, and that day-age, framework, and analogical readings are faithful, not compromises.

per point: 2.7 · 2.1/20

Resolved: The Bible, in its original manuscripts, is without error in everything it affirms — including matters of history and the natural world, not only faith and morals.

The affirmative defends the Chicago Statement position from the Bible's own claims about itself and Jesus' use of Scripture. The negative holds that Scripture is infallible in its saving purpose while containing genuine historical and scientific errors, and that inerrancy is a modern imposition.

per point: 2.2 · 1.8/20

Resolved: Scripture alone (sola scriptura) is the church's sole infallible rule of faith; sacred tradition and the ecclesial magisterium hold no equal or supplementary binding authority.

The Reformation's formal principle: Protestant sola scriptura against the Catholic/Orthodox claim that Scripture and apostolic tradition together, safeguarded by the Church's teaching office, form the rule of faith.

per point: 3.2 · 2.3/20

Resolved: The governing offices of apostle and prophet named in Ephesians 4:11 remain valid, Spirit-appointed offices in the church today, not roles confined to the first century.

The Pentecostal/charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation position that all five Ephesians 4 offices continue, against the traditional view that apostleship (and, for many, the prophetic office) was a foundation-laying role that ended with the first generation of the church.

per point: 1.6 · 2.0/20 ⚠ VOLUME-SENSITIVE

Resolved: Jesus of Nazareth is fully God — co-eternal and of one essence with the Father — and the New Testament teaches this plainly rather than as a later development.

The affirmative builds the case from John 1, Philippians 2, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, the 'I AM' sayings, and the worship Jesus receives. The negative (unitarian and critical positions) argues that the earliest Christology was exalted-human or agent Christology and that full deity is a post-apostolic conclusion.

per point: 3.7 · 1.9/20

Resolved: The church will be removed from the earth in a rapture that precedes the seven-year tribulation, rather than during or after it.

Dispensational premillennialism's pretribulation rapture — official doctrine in the Assemblies of God's own Statement of Fundamental Truths and shared broadly across dispensational and non-denominational evangelicalism — against the historic premillennial, mid/post-tribulational, and amillennial positions held elsewhere in the church.

per point: 1.8 · 1.4/20