A couple of months ago, YouTuber SkyDive Phil invited me onto his popular channel for a discussion on a topic with which he is very familiar: the problem of animal suffering. In fact, I first became acquainted with Phil’s work when he appeared a few years ago on Unbelievable to debate that very topic with Christian philosopher Michael Murray. […]
natural evil
Is God punishing us with COVID-19? Here’s My Answer
The Problem of Animal Suffering: An Atheist and Christian in Conversation
Natural Evil and Young Earth Creationism
In this short discussion (short being a relative term: it’s under ten minutes) I explain why young earth creationists have a problem of natural evil that they need to explain. Music Credit: Apero Hour Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
God, Natural Disasters, and My Next Book
A few weeks ago I published an article at Strange Notions titled “Does God Punish People Through Natural Weather Events?” For some time I’ve been thinking about writing a book on the topic of whether God punishes human populations by way of natural disasters. Well, this past week I finally got around to starting the […]
God and the Weather Revisited
Ten days ago I posted an article titled “‘I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth…’ Could God be punishing Texas?” Since then I rewrote and expanded the article and this morning it was posted at Strange Notions as “Does God Punish People Through Natural Weather Events?“
“I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth…” Could God be punishing Texas?
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. […] 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath […]
Gnu Atheism? Wildebeest and the Problem of Natural Evil
Natural evil concerns any suffering within nature which is not the result of the morally culpable actions of a moral agent. (For my previous discussions of natural evil see here.) Instances of natural evil are not hard to come by. Consider, for example, this image of a young wildebeest being eaten by a hungry crocodile. […]
I feel love. It’s about love: Still Alice as Theodicy
Lisa Genova’s 2007 novel Still Alice tells the story of Harvard professor and scholar Alice Howland and her journey living with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Howland is a few months into her fiftieth birthday when she receives the terrible diagnosis. From there the book follows her on her slow and painful decline into dementia. At first […]
A Child Dying of Cancer Should Change Us All
A few weeks ago grieving father Andy Whelan posted a photo of his beloved four year old daughter Jessica in the midst of agony from the cancer that would soon take her life. Whelan posted the photo so that the world could appreciate the horror of childhood cancer and be motivated anew to fight it. […]
God and the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald
The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was a mighty Great Lakes freighter which sank in a storm on Lake Superior in November, 1975, taking 29 sailors to a watery grave. The tragedy was immortalized in Canadian folk rock balladeer Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting 1976 hit “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald“. I’ve listened to the song innumerable times […]
Can you hear the groaning of creation?
In Romans 8:22 Paul famously describes our broken creation as groaning: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Have you ever wondered what the groaning of creation sounds like? Now you need wonder no more. In his TED Talk “The voice […]
On calling God a murderer (Part 1)
Over the years I have often heard the charge made: if God exists, then he is a murderer. As a piece of rhetoric, I suppose such charges satisfy those making them. But as a serious accusation they commonly leave much to be desired. In this series of posts I’m going to discuss the complexities inherent […]
You can’t judge a book by its cover: A Review of “Death Before the Fall”
Ronald E. Osborn. Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014. This book suffers from a serious identity crisis. On the face (that is, the cover) of it, the book purports to provide an in-depth theological analysis of the problem of natural evil generally and animal […]
