Grace Abounds: Preface and Chapter 1 - What is Religion?

By nature we ask questions that have supernatural or religious significance.  We yearn to know: Why am I here? Where have I come from? Where has everything around me come from and why does it exist? Where am I going?  What is the point and purpose of life, of joy, of suffering, of death?  What happens after death? Is there a God out there? Am I acocuntable to him?...Religions exist to deal with and provide answers to these questions (page 4).Why Doctrine?  Why study doctrine?  Why should we read a 560 page book on doctrine and then spend time talking about what we read?  In his Word to us we can know his love for us!God unveils his existence to us through what we might call "the natural knowledge of God."   In the beauty, complexity and wonder of nature we can know that there is a God.  In the fact that we have a conscience (and that every other has a conscience and it speaks to the same set of moral laws) we can know that there is something higher than us.  And in the coming chapters we see God reveal himself to us in his Word.