Page 8-9: It seems that Marcion, settled in Rome, had a good start with the church.

He must have been a wealthy man as a ship-owner and businessman in maritime commerceFrom this point on, Marcion led his movement and preached at least until the mid-century. The time of his death is also only estimable, which can be somewhere between 160 and 165AD. I thought this whole section of Marcions life, drawing from the work of different scholars, was helpful for me to put Marcions theology in context. Page 10: First, pepron, Marcions own disciple, introduced a third principle, the just God, which later combined into a tritheism of good, just, and evil Gods. Due to this later development, Marcions theology has been mistaken as tripartite system This was something I didnt know and found enlightening. Same page: In Marcions original theology, the God of the Old Testament is an evil God, who is the Creator of the world that is disgusting and detestable The folly of Marcion is now continued by the likes of the New Atheists. Perhaps we can gain insights from this period of Church History, say from the likes of Irenaeus, to respond to these senseless challenges? The paper goes on to discuss the canon of Marcion. The remark that Marcion was a firm believer of the Old Testament, historically and literally. Marcion believed and hated the evil God of the Old Testament (13). This is a good way to think about it. It is true that one can believe the truthfulness of something without loving it; so James emphasizes that even the Devil believes in God, and shudders. Whats important for faith is not merely to believe in the existence and truthfulness of something, but to cherish it, savor it, and relish it. It is fundamentally a relationship, and that surpassesand does not bypassbelieving in the truthfulness of it. This is different from the kind objections we encounter. One can say that the kind of objections we encounter nowadays are precisely the opposite. In his Warranted Christian Beliefs, Plantinga distinguishes de facto objections and de jure objections. The objections nowadays take on the form Christian faith is irrational whether or not it is true (de jure) rather than Christian faith is not true (de facto), and develop a theory of knowledge on the basis of the idea of warrant. This has been possibly the greatest defense against the modern attack on Christianity, because it is informed by a disciplined and systematic disarmament of Kantian philosophy. It might be interesting to see how this kind of defense organically relates to the early apologists and theologians of the church. Page 14 contains five simple rules: 1. The tradition of the church is falsified; 2. Christ is not the Son of the Old Testament God; 3. Christ is neither born nor raised; 4. The Old Testament or its figures are no authority for Christ; and 5. The Old Testament cannot be fulfilled in Christ. This is a helpful list of rules to keep in mind when we consider how Marcions theology informs his practical operations. In our own ministry, we need to keep in mind as well how our theology informs our practical operations: how is the fact that Christ is the Son of God influence our preaching, pastoral counseling, etc? To not let it influence us is to deny it altogether.

Lastly, the conclusion provides nice last thoughts about why we shouldnt take the theses such as Joseph Tyson seriously. This is useful and informative as well.