Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 2083 The free will defence is the best known Christian answer to the charge that the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In its simplest form it argues that a world containing free creatures who can genuinely love and obey is more valuable than a world of programmed puppets, and that such…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06016 The book of Job is the Bible’s most sustained engagement with the problem of innocent suffering, and it remains one of the most honest, unsettling, and ultimately profound books in all of Scripture. Job’s story demolishes simplistic explanations of suffering while pointing toward something far deeper than any of his friends were able…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06011 This question sits at the intersection of theology and lived experience, and how it is answered shapes everything about a person’s relationship with God. If God directly causes every instance of suffering, then He becomes morally responsible for evil. If He has no involvement at all, then He is either powerless or indifferent….
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08131 Few questions in theology generate as much emotional difficulty as this one. If God is good, if He knew from eternity past what Satan would become and what devastation his rebellion would cause, why did He create him at all? The question feels urgent because it touches on the deepest issues of God’s…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 60006 If God is all-powerful, He could prevent evil. If God is all-loving, He would want to prevent evil. Yet evil exists. Therefore, either God is not all-powerful, not all-loving, or He does not exist at all. This is the problem of evil, and it has been posed as an objection to Christian faith…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 60106 Of all the questions people bring to God, this one carries the heaviest weight. Why does a God who is both perfectly good and all-powerful allow the abuse of children, the oppression of the defenceless, the calculated cruelty of one human being toward another? It is the question that has driven more people…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 60107 Theodicy is not a word most people encounter outside of theology or philosophy, yet it names one of the most pressing questions anyone can ask: how can a God who is both all-powerful and perfectly good allow evil and suffering to exist? The word comes from the Greek theos (God) and dike (justice),…
Reading Time: 8 minutesQuestion 2064 If God is sovereign, does that mean He “permits” or “allows” terrible evils like rape, abuse, or murder? How can we say “nothing touches your life without passing through God’s sovereign permission” without making God sound complicit in evil? This is a question that real people ask when they have been violated, when…