Two years ago Richard Kachkar stole a snow plow and began driving it down the streets of suburban Toronto. In the process he struck and killed police sergeant Ryan Russell. On March 27, 2013 Kachkar was found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. Philosophically the verdict is interesting. On the one hand, the evidence presented […]
theodicy
God and Evil: The case for God in a world filled with pain: A Review
Chad Meister and James K. Dew Jr., eds. God and Evil: The Case for God in a World filled with Pain. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013). God and Evil is an expansive collection of nineteen essays (plus a sizeable appendix featuring the transcript of a debate between William Lane Craig and Michael Tooley). The […]
God, why are you hiding? A Reflection
Thinking about God is not a waste of time. Or so I’ve argued. Admittedly it’s hardly a surprising thesis coming from the mouth of a theologian. But the reasons for its importance go far beyond my own need to protect my profession and paycheck. If God is there, he’s the most important reality there is. […]
On reading the Bible’s texts of terror
Over the last several years I have wrestled extensively with what Phyllis Trible memorably called the “texts of terror” in the Bible. Texts that narrate slavery, genocide, assassination, beheading, cannibalism, rape, and many other heinous acts. Some of these texts depict Yahweh commanding, commending, or himself committing violent acts. In other texts the actions are […]
God’s suffering: Meditations on Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel escaped the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and then wrote a bestselling, critically acclaimed book describing his harrowing experiences (Night). So you might think he knows something about God and suffering. For this reason I paid close attention when Wiesel turned to address the problem of suffering in his 1995 book All Rivers Run to […]
Did God accommodate genocide?
In his 2008 book The God I Don’t Understand Christopher Wright makes the extraordinary suggestion that God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide against neighboring peoples as a form of accommodation to ancient near eastern standards of war. In the theaded discussion to my article “A Few Shades the Other Side of Silly” Jerry Shepherd suggested […]
The theist’s problem of evil explained simply
Imagine that you have such faith in the government that you believe bad things never happen to the infrastructure of the city in which you live unless they are planned by the government for some greater purpose. One day you wake up to find the street of your neighborhood flooded. “There’s your capable government for […]
Psalm 137 for Family Devotions
Psalm 137 used to be a biblical text that I avoided with care. What do you do with a bloke who thinks that grabbing babies by the ankles and swinging them like a sack of flour into jagged rocks is an afternoon well spent? However, tonight we made Psalm 137 the text for our family devotions. […]
How good is God Behaving Badly? A Review
David T. Lamb, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011. David Lamb’s new(ish) book God Behaving Badly (GBB) covers much of the same terrain as Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Baker, 2011). However, if […]
Can animal resurrection compensate for suffering endured?
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.” Matthew 10:29 This passage reflects the benevolent providence thesis according to which God is providentially superintending the lives of all creatures. But if this is the case, then why does the sparrow fall […]
Satan and the problem of evil: is the devil in the details?
Let’s consider further the attempt to attribute natural evils to the operation of malevolent spiritual agencies. Kerk takes issue with the way I described the role of malevolent agencies in the natural world. He writes: I think you are distorting the way that the evil agency hypothesis purports to explain natural evil. One does not […]
Are demons responsible for natural evil?
In the discussion following my critique of William Dembski’s theodicy Dima asked about Greg Boyd’s thesis that natural evil can be attributed to demonic agency. The relationship between natural evil and demonic agency was memorably proposed by Alvin Plantinga in God, Freedom, and Evil when he noted that Augustine attributed natural evil to demonic agency. Based on […]
William Dembski on Natural Evil
Over the last couple weeks we’ve been wrestling with aspects of the problem of natural evil. Today we’re going to consider a solution to the problem of natural evil as it relates to animals which is proposed by William Dembski in his book The End of Christianity. We can summarize the problem in two parts: suffering and […]
Does natural evil always require sentience?
In an earlier discussion of natural evil I defined the concept as follows: Natural evil refers to any event or state of affairs which (i) directly or indirectly leads to the suffering and/or deprivation of sentient creatures, (ii) is unconnected to the acts of commission or ommission of any finite creature (iii) but which is […]
