Many think the God of the OT is harsh and judgmental, while the God of the NT is gracious and loving. Is the God of the OT different than the God of the NT? Did God reform Himself between the testaments? No. I demonstrate that we find a God of love and justice in both testaments. 

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Christians and Jews believe the God of the Bible is morally good. Many non-believers, however, think otherwise. They claim the God of Christianity is morally evil, and thus no god at all. So is the Biblical God the epitome of moral perfection, or a moral monster? I introduce this new sub-series and provide some guiding principles to help us understand difficult Biblical issues.

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I finished my thoughts on how Christians can deal with the emotional problem of evil, which wraps up this sub-series on the problem of evil. I explored the different purposes God has for evil, give some perspective in light of eternity and the cross, and God's plan for ultimately solving the problem of evil. 

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Evil brings with it suffering and emotional pain. How are we to deal with this? I contrast the atheist worldview with the Christian worldview on this matter. 

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I’ve offered a theodicy for moral evil, but what about natural evil? Why does God allow for suffering caused by natural disasters, disease, and accidents? 

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I wrap up my examination of the Free Will Defense and conclude that it succeeds. In the course of the discussion I explore why believers will not sin in heaven. I present two different explanations that Christians have offered, and reasons for preferring one over the other. 

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In the last episode, I offered the Free Will Defense (FWD) as an explanation for why God might allow evil: God cannot create free creatures who are unable to choose evil. The example of God, however, calls this logic into question. He is free, and yet He cannot sin. Is the FWD cooked, or is there a reason why God cannot - but we can - choose evil? 

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I’ve demonstrated that evil doesn’t make God’s existence impossible or even unlikely, but one might wonder why, if God exists, He permits evil. What is the purpose? This is the question of theodicy. 

I cover five reasons God might permit evil:

1.       To better our souls via moral growth (soul-making theodicy)

2.       To bring glory to God

3.       To make moral freedom and love possible

4.       To make happiness possible

5.       To reveal more of God to us

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On this miscellany episode I cover:

-- How the NYC mayoral race helps us think through our voting philosophy

-- What gerrymandering is, why it's a danger to our democracy, and which party does it the most

-- Don't assume that those who believe different than you do so because of a spiritual problem. 

-- Stop worrying about people being offended.

-- 2 pet peeves - using foreign words and performative prayer

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The evidential problem of evil falsely assumes that if God had a purpose for permitting the amounts/kinds of evil we see in the world, we would be able to discern what those reasons were. The bottom line is that so long as the existence of evil and the existence of evil are logically compatible, there is no good reason to think that greater amounts of evil make God's existence more unlikely.

I also discuss gratuitous evil. Some think that God can't exist if gratuitous evil exists, but this presumes that every evil must produce some good for it to be justified. The theist is not committed to such a proposition.

Web: ThinkingtoBelieve.com
Email: [email protected]
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Twitter & Gettr: @thinking2believ
Truth: @ThinkingToBelieve
Parler: @thinkingtobelieve