How Suffering and Evil Lead People to Consider Christ

Introduction

Evil and suffering are making their existence painfully known in our world. Whether we realize it or not or intend to do it or not, evil, pain, and suffering do cause us to reflect philosophically on their meaning and purpose. At some (breaking) point, they force us to ask deep philosophical questions of life:

• Why me? Why now?
• Is God really there?!
• If he is, does he really care about my suffering?
• What purpose could he possibly have for my suffering (not to mention everyone else's too)?

Many unbelievers think that the very existence of evil, pain, and suffering in life is incompatible with the all-loving and all-powerful God of the Bible. However, the truth is the exact opposite. Allow me to explain:

Why Suffering In the Life of the Unbeliever?

For many of us, it takes a profound, painful event or series of painful events that cause us to seek answers to the deeper questions. God desires to be known, and if there are any experiences that would cause us to diligently seek him, we can expect that those experiences would enter our lives.

"Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."- Hebrews 11:6b

When we reflect upon the philosophical questions triggered by evil, pain, and suffering, and we honestly search for an explanation to make sense of them, we are earnestly seeking answers. No one can escape the questions of purpose ("why" questions) without considering a Purposer (God) as an explanation. When we consider God's existence in the faces of evil, pain, and suffering, we cannot merely consider His existence on emotional grounds. Logical and evidential grounds are demanded as well. 

"I have found that the more I reflect philosophically on the attributes of God the more overwhelmed I become at his greatness and the more excited I become about Bible doctrine. Whereas easy appeals to mystery prematurely shut off reflection about God, rigorous and earnest effort to understand him is richly rewarded with deeper appreciation of who he is, more confidence in his reality and care, and a more intelligent and profound worship of his person."- William Lane Craig

The evil, pain, and suffering that we experience in life has the ultimate purpose of bringing us into a loving relationship with the Creator and Savior that will last for eternity. The evil, pain, and suffering that we experience must be seen in light of Jesus' death and Resurrection. Hebrews 11:6a states that without faith it is impossible to please God. But the faith that is described here is not a blind leap into the dark; it is a trust based on evidence of the historical event of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The evil, pain, and suffering in your life has brought you to examine the evidence of the reason for the evil, pain, and suffering of Jesus Christ. It is in the light of Jesus' suffering, death, and Resurrection that our suffering makes sense and is given an eternal purpose. God was faithful in the past; He is the same throughout eternity; therefore, God will be faithful in the present and in the future. You can reasonably trust Him with your life now and in the future. 

Conclusion

God has a purpose for the evil, pain, and suffering in our lives- "...Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). If the suffering in this finite life brings you to Christ or closer to Him, then what comes of that finite time of suffering will continue into eternity, an infinite amount of time without suffering and only with pure joy. 

For more:

• The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering
• A Deeper Understanding of Christ's Love Through Suffering
• Stories: We All Got 'Em
• Is There Meaning To Life?

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Monday Musings: COVID-19, Gratuitous Suffering, and God's Purposes

The last three years of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll in many ways on every person. It has not really left anyone untouched. Many have had friends and family, if not themselves, in hospitals, barely clinging to life as doctors scramble to give them relief and a chance at recovery.

Rick Carr is one who found himself a victim of the virus, spent many months in the hospital and is still recovering from its effects today. As he could, he brought the readers of his blog along through the journey of pain, prayer, gratitude, and healing. You can read about it at his site Extreme Gratitude. 

A line in his post on healing and prayer made a profound point: 

"If this long, miserable process has resulted in others being helped, encouraged, strengthened in their faith, and praying like they haven’t before, then it has been worth it."- Rick Carr

Many people wonder how an all-loving God could allow them to suffer, even those who have followed Christ all their lives. The Apostle Paul states the purpose of our suffering in his letter to the Romans:

"We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose."- Romans 8:28 HCSB

"All things." Not just the good things. Not just the enjoyable or fun things. "All things" includes the suffering that we endure. Most people have no issues with that part; however, they often think that the suffering is for their good. The profound point made by Carr above, that may be difficult to consider in the middle of our suffering, is that the "good" of Romans 8:28 may not necessarily be for us but for someone else. 

We, of course, are not the only one who "love(s) God: who is called according to His purpose." Numerous others are in that category, as well. It is very possible, if not probable, that the suffering that we endure is for the eternal benefit of someone else: whether that benefit is coming to salvation in Christ or coming to know Christ better. And please notice that my use of "or" implies only the minimum of one person's eternal benefit; multiple people stand to have eternal benefits that can include both coming to salvation in Christ AND multiple others coming to know Christ better. 

Now, let us back-track in the eighth chapter of Romans to the eighteenth verse: 

 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us."- Romans 8:18 HCSB

No matter how much suffering with a finite duration we endure (even all of it combined), it is overcome by a single good purpose of God's with an infinite duration. This means that your finite suffering is not gratuitous. There is a purpose for it, even if that purpose does not necessarily involve you. And a single infinite purpose is infinitely greater than all the finite suffering in the grand view of eternity. 

This can be hard to understand, much less accept, when we are in the pain of suffering. But we know that because God has been faithful in the past and that He is the same ("yesterday, today, and forever"- Heb 13:8), we know that God WILL use our finite suffering for the infinite good of someone who is called according to His purpose. 

This is not something that is merely hoped for, or blindly believed; it is something that is logically known- a trust that is grounded in the reality of who God is and the reality of what He has done. This is not a blind faith. This is a biblical and logical faith, a faith that demonstrates reason and purpose for our suffering, a faith that demonstrates how and why an all-loving and all-powerful God would allow so much suffering in our lives. 

For more on suffering and God please continue your journey of faith with these encouraging posts:

• The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering
• A Deeper Understanding of Christ's Love Through Suffering
• Did The Historical Jesus Rise From The Dead?
• Job, Suffering, and a Game of Chess
• Stories, We All Got 'em
• Is Pain Inherently Evil?
• Of Tornadoes, Flat Tires, and Moore
• Is There Meaning to Life?

Defending Truth or Relieving Suffering: Which Should Be A Christian's Focus?

Why should Christians spend so much time and energy debating true theology when people are dying every day? 

The Current Suffering In America

In the last year America has experienced a crazy amount of unrest and carnage (or at least that is what is put in front of our eyes every single day). And the opportunities for Christians to minister to those who are suffering due to the evil continue grow by the day. While these existential issues are piling up and many Christians are on the front lines of tending to physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual wounds, many other Christians continue to have, what seem to be, abstract and less important discussions and arguments over theology. A friend of mine expressed his concern on social media when we were discussing a particular theological issue (but his concern can be aimed at any of the numerous theological debates). He states: 

"I’m confused, why is it so important to show that your understanding of how old the Earth is, is the correct one? When people are destroying businesses while the police are told it’s okay because we need to let them vent, I’m thinking there are more important things Christians could be doing right now, than trying to prove to each other that their version of how and when God created our world, is the correct one. But I could be wrong...For the record, I do think it’s important to understand scriptures correctly, but some things like how and when God did certain things, are not as important to be understood correctly. In fact, I can imagine God being displeased with people on both sides of the age issue, because they lose sight of what the entire Bible is really all about. That doesn’t mean God didn’t stick some cool science answers in there, but OECists are correct when they object to how many YECists make it so important and I believe I’m correct when I complain about OECists seemingly making it so important too."

He is not the only one who I have heard express similar concerns. 

Many Christians believe that the reason that we see so much evil in America today is because, as a culture, we have forgotten God. As a culture, we have intentionally removed Him from our education and legal systems, and as a result we have removed any objective standard by which to judge what is morally good and logically valid. This has led to several generations of Americans who are never taught of objective morality or even proper logical reasoning. As a result they feel free to do whatever they want, to whom ever they want, to get whatever they want. There is no consideration for what actions and what goals are objectively, morally good and objectively, logically justified. Our culture has devolved into a struggle for and demonstration of physical, legal, and rhetorical power over those who have different understandings of reality than our own. And as long as Americans feels that they are justified in continuing to reject God, there is no hope in sight for this sad state of affairs to ever change. 

Book Review: The Purpose Driven Life

Can an all-loving and all-powerful God possibly have reasons for allowing all the evil, pain, and suffering in this world? 

The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book) by Rick Warren is a book that I have meant to review for quite some time now. I had heard about it when it first came out in the early 2000s and had heard both raving reviews and scathing critiques. It was not until my pastor at the time did a sermon series on it that it really caught my attention. Over the years I have referred to it here and there in my blog posts, and I believe that the time has come for me to give it a full chapter-by-chapter review from the perspective of a defender of the Christian faith. 

Some people have wondered why I decided to review The Purpose Driven Life considering it is not a book that is focused on the defense of the Christian faith. My reason is quite simple: Rick Warren makes the claim in this book that God has multiple reasons for allowing evil, pain, and suffering in our lives. This claim, if demonstrated to be correct, directly addresses one of the most common and emotionally powerful challenges to God's goodness, His power, and even His existence: the problem of evil, pain, and suffering. 

Initially, I had separated this review into multiple posts to keep the individual posts shorter, but it has been requested of me that I publish the whole review as a single post. This review will consist of my usual chapter-by-chapter summary format with my recommendation at the end; however, I have added additional thoughts for each part of the book between the summaries of those respective parts. I will include some of my initial impressions from years ago and reflections on the book's content that have bounced around in my mind from the last several years (including some of the theological critiques).  

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 6: The Mission

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 6

A few weeks ago I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the links to all the previous parts. Please check them out to learn more about the value of this book:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 6: You Were Made For A Mission

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 5: Serving God

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 5

A few weeks ago I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the parts with links that will be updated as they publish:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 5: You Were Shaped For Serving God

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 4: Becoming Like Christ

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 4

A few weeks ago I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the parts with links that will be updated as they publish:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 4: You Were Created To Become Like Christ

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 3: God's Family

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 3

A few weeks ago I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the parts with links that will be updated as they publish:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 3: You Were Formed For God's Family

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 2: God's Pleasure

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life- Part 2

Last week I began my chapter-by-chapter review of Rick Warren's popular book The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book). Rick Warren presents a theology of suffering in this book that caught my attention as a defender of the Christian worldview because of its applicability in addressing the problem of evil and suffering. Because the book has forty chapters, I decided to break up the review into multiple parts that coincide with the parts of Warren's book. For easy navigation of this review, here are the parts with links that will be updated as they publish:

• Part 1: Created For God's Purpose
• Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)
• Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)
• Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)
• Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)
• Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 2- You Were Planned For God's Pleasure

The Purpose Driven Life- An Apologist's Review- Part 1: God's Purpose

Book Review- The Purpose Driven Life

The Purpose Driven Life (hardback, Kindle, audio book) by Rick Warren is a book that I have meant to review for quite some time now. I had heard about it when it first came out in the early 2000s and had heard both raving reviews and scathing critiques. It was not until my pastor at the time did a sermon series on it that it really caught my attention. Over the years I have referred to it here and there in my blog posts, and I believe that the time has come for me to give it a full chapter-by-chapter review from the perspective of a defender of the Christian faith. I will include some of my initial impressions from years ago and reflections on its content that have bounced around in my mind from the last several years.

There is so much content in each chapter that should be included in my usual summary format, so because The Purpose Driven Life is broken into forty chapters and six sections, I have decided to break up this review into six parts to be posted over the next six weeks. I will present the usual chapter-by-chapter summary in each section then offer my thoughts about it. I will be sure to include links to the other parts to keep continuity and help you navigate the whole review once all parts are published.

Part 1: Created For God's Purpose

Part 2: Created For God's Pleasure (Worship)

Part 3: Created For God's Family (Fellowship)

Part 4: Created To Become Like Christ (Discipleship)

Part 5: Created To Serve God (Ministry)

Part 6: Created For A Mission (Evangelism)

Part 1- What On Earth Am I Here For?

17 Quotes From Ravi Zacharias on God's Plan For Your Life

Introduction

I was introduced to Ravi Zacharias' talks and books about fifteen years ago. He has had a profound effect on how I communicate and defend the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The way that he always answered an intellectual question yet never forgets the desires, longings, and pains of the questioner in his answer has been inspiring. The pain and suffering of life cause many to question God's goodness and even His existence. One of my favorite books penned by Zacharias is "The Grand Weaver." Today, I bring you several of my favorite quotes from that book and a talk that Ravi presented in 2017 on God's purpose plan for your life.

A Deeper Understanding Of Christ's Love Through Suffering

Introduction

How can you helplessly watch as a child dies from agonizing cancer? Doesn't the love you feel tell you that that suffering is evil and a God who is all loving and all powerful would rescue that child? How can God be all loving and all powerful if He allows such a child to suffer and die?

This is a challenge that is often raised by atheists to reject the God of the Bible. But today, I am not going to answer the atheist who raises the challenge as an armchair hypothetical that they have never experienced; instead I want to speak to the person who either has experienced this tragedy or is in the middle of it, and it causes them to be skeptical of the goodness and even existence of God.

This Is What Love Feels Like

But could God have a purpose for the pain that you feel? Before I get to that, please watch this tribute to those who have cared for a loved one at the end of their life: This Is What Love Feels Like, by dc Talk, inspired by Toby McKeehan's experience:

Knowing Love Through Suffering

Jesus knew the suffering that would take Him to His physical limits, yet He persisted and conquered: This was His love for you as He suffering the torture of crucifixion. If you have been taken to your limits through the suffering of a loved one, you know this love.

Without the suffering of a loved one, we would not know this love for someone else that takes us to our limits (and live to tell of it), what love truly feels like. Without the suffering of a loved one, we would not have the privilege of getting a trace of understanding of the depth of Christ's love for us that took Him to the end of His physical limits. Caring for a spouse, parent, or child as they leave this world has to be one of the most painful experiences, and we do not escape it unchanged by the suffering it has caused. We are wounded, but we can use those wounds to heal. We can become the wounded healer (see my post "The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering" for more on this concept). And just as we are alive today to be wounded healers, Jesus conquered death through His bodily resurrection to be the Ultimate Wounded Healer that we point to.

While it is a privilege to experience what this kind of love feels like (though it comes at a great cost, just like it did for Christ), our experience only scratches the surface of the love that Christ has. And our experience is only one person (or maybe a few people in extremely tragic situations) at a time. But Jesus' love, as He suffered death, was not just for you or just for a few people, it was for every person (John 3:16).

Conclusion

We must not forget that our suffering in this life will come to an end. It is finite, and this finite suffering is not worth comparing to the infinite glory that will one day be revealed in us (Romans 8:18) and can be revealed in others to enjoy with us, if we are willing to be used by God to be wounded healers. Do not be discouraged. Our perfect God has a purpose for your suffering. Without Him, your experience is gratuitous pain with no purpose or meaning. But because God exists and Christ is resurrected from the dead, your experience is both purposeful and meaningful. Through your experience, God has blessed you with a deeper understanding of His love for you, and now He gives you the privilege to speak hope, life, love, meaning, and purpose to the brokenhearted suffering and struggling the same as you are.

Recommended Posts for More Hope and Encouragement In Your Time of Pain

• The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering
• Solving The Problem of Evil
• The Risen Jesus and Future Hope

Is There Meaning To Life?

Introduction

An interesting TED Talk came across my Facebook feed a few weeks ago. The talk focused on finding meaning in life. More and more people are discovering that pursuing happiness is leading them nowhere. They discover that every time they think that something obtainable or achievable will make them happy, once that has been obtained or achieved, that happiness lasts only for a short time. Then a discovery is made of something else that is greater than what they originally thought would make them happy, and they pursue that. This process repeats numerous times until they reach the top, then they realize that there is nothing left, yet they still feel unfulfilled. This TED Talk attempts to address that problem by positing that instead of pursuing happiness, people should pursue meaning. Here is a link to the talk, and I highly recommend that you watch it in full before continuing with this post: There's more to life than being happy- Emily Esfahani Smith.

On The Surface

The speaker recognizes the problems that the pursuit of happiness brings: unhappiness, unfulfillment, depression, and suicidal tendencies. The offered solution gives hope to those who are depressed and tired of the pursuit of happiness. From a pragmatic perspective of survival, this talk was quite encouraging and invigorating. However, regardless of the survival advantage that it provides if one believes the claims, if the claims in the talk do not reflect reality (are not true), then the person who believes them has traded the truth for a lie in the name of mere survival- a delusion that is evolutionarily necessary to believe if we wish to win the survival game. If the speaker is presenting a delusion, then, for those who value truth and knowledge as well as survival, the talk is truly as useless as the solution it wishes to supplant. So, for the sake of truth, the claims need to be investigated and analyzed at a deeper level.

The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose in Your Suffering

Introduction

The other day, I heard a podcast that I want to highlight for anyone who is a victim of the evil and suffering of life and questions God's purposes, His love, or even His existence. Whether our experiences are singular traumatic events, day-in and day-out pain, or a combination of the two, suffering often feels completely unbearable. These experiences can be so painful that many people are compelled to honestly question and seek legitimate answers to how an all-loving and all-powerful God could and would permit the suffering that we experience in our lives and see others experience in our world. This is called the logical problem of evil and has been long recognized as having been resolved, even by atheists (click or tap the link to see how).

Some, though, have wondered if that given the amount of evil and suffering, it is likely that an all-powerful and all-loving God does not exist. Simply stated: "There is too much gratuitous suffering in the world for an all-loving and all-powerful God to exist." While this is a more modest concern that seems reasonable, if it is to be granted, such a denial of God's existence based upon gratuitous suffering is necessarily reliant upon the idea that God does not have reasons to allow the amount of suffering that He does. Further, that depends upon knowing God's purposes (or lack thereof) and how those purposes could (not) be accomplished. However, both the purposes of God and the methods of their fulfillment would have to be extremely limited for one to reasonably conclude that the amount of evil and suffering in the world is gratuitous. God's purposes and methods are not so limited, so evil and suffering cannot be used to reasonably conclude that God does not exist. Yet, even though this answer is reasonable, it does not really answer the question of what the purpose of evil and suffering actually is. That is where I believe that Dr. Emerson Eggerichs picks up from the logical answer to the problem of evil and suffering and makes a deeply personal connection to their purpose.

Stories: We All Got 'Em

A Purpose for Suffering

This past weekend I pulled out some of my old CDs and came across a song I had not heard in a while. With all the pain and suffering in the world, it is often hard to see how God could have a good purpose for what he allows. But if it weren't for pain and suffering, most of us would not have a testimony of Christ's faithfulness to share with the unsaved. Why does a good God allow suffering? To draw people to Himself so that they can tell their story and bring even more into an everlasting relationship with their Savior and Creator.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us."- Romans 8:18

This was part of God's plan for Redemption, from the creation of the world. If the Cross was not "Plan B" (1 Peter 1:20), then neither was pain and suffering. Our experiences, no matter how painful, have an eternal, good purpose. It is encouraging to hear a reminder of this. If you've been down to the bottom, how will you choose to allow God to use this powerful evangelical tool in your life and give your experience an eternal, good purpose?

Please take a few minutes and listen to "Stories (Down to the Bottom)" by TobyMac and allow God to speak to and encourage you through a fellow brother in Christ:

Related Posts:

• The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering
• Of Tornadoes, Flat Tires, and Moore
• Solving the Problem of Evil
• Job, Suffering, and a Game of Chess
• Book Review: Peril in Paradise
• Why Is The Image of God So Important?
• Book Review: Improbable Planet
• Is Faith Emotional or Logical

Charlie Gard and Purpose in Suffering

The World Watches Charlie Gard

With the international attention received by baby Charlie Gard in the United Kingdom (including my post from last week), good news has been received: the judge has granted a hearing of new evidence about experimental treatment available in the United States, claims that Charlie is not, in fact, suffering pain, and that damage to his brain caused by a rare mitochondrial disease is not permanent. The hearing began yesterday, and the judge is waiting for more information before a new decision is reached. Here is the latest from Life Site News: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/charlie-gards-day-in-court

UPDATE: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-american-doctor-will-examine-charlie-gard-on-monday

While the world awaits the updated decision, conversations are still taking place in the public square about the value of human life and the role of "quality of life" in medical decisions (even among Christians). My post from last week received a series of concerns that are commonly raised with those who have defended human life in these situations. I will quote the concerns and provide a response to help equip you, the reader, to think clearly and logically and respond with comfort and love regarding such issues.

I want to preface this with the fact that the person raising the concerns was a Christian who is also struggling through how to properly respond and act within the Christian worldview. All concerns in such emotional cases need to be understood in the context that we are not merely talking about ideas but lives, humans created in the Image of God, who may be struggling themselves with the pain of the (potential) loss of a friend or family member, such as baby Charlie. These concerns should not necessarily be seen as challenges to put the defender of life on the defensive but rather in the position of a comforter who God has put in this position to help guide in this painful time. We are the Body of Christ- God's "hands and feet" in this world , so we are called to minister to the broken in heart and in mind. With that in mind, let's look at these concerns.

Podcast Highlight: Why Are Believers Mad at God?

As a defender of the Christian worldview I come across numerous intellectual challenges. When these are addressed logically, though in many cases, it is found that the skeptic has rejected God (and Christ) due to an experience that they cannot reconcile with God's being all-powerful and all-loving. This is the classic problem of evil. Its not the logical version but the emotional version. The inability to reconcile a particularly painful experience with God's claimed nature (as reveal in the Bible) causes these people to hate God and, perhaps, even doubt that He even exists. Philosopher Dr. Ravi Zacharias reminds Christian apologists:

"You must always come to the level of the questioner because more than answering a question, you are always answering a questioner. Somebody is behind that question. And if you answer the question without answering the questioner, you may come through as being very knowledgeable, but you've not been very persuasive to the one who's looking for the answer." (Link)

While it is easy to address the logical problem of evil (the question) it is often more difficult to answer the emotional problem of evil (the questioner). As the questioner goes without an answer, their confusion can grow into hatred and even skepticism (since they do not have even an answer to the logical problem). 

In the latest two episodes of the Love and Respect Podcast, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs addresses the questioner in a way that I feel would be quite useful for the defender of the Christian faith. I encourage all apologists to listen to these episodes, and if you are struggling with some experience that does not seem compatible with the Christian God, I invite you, also, to listen with an open mind and open heart. 

Part 1

Part 2

Here are the links for the podcast feeds if you wish to subscribe:

RSS (for Android) and iTunes

Not Knowing God's Purposes and Wondering If He Exists

In The Business World...
In my professional career, I have been in the position of management a few times. One of the responsibilities of such a position is to communicate decisions of upper management to my employees. Often when my directors communicate the decision to me, they also communicate some of the reasons for the decisions, some of which I am not to communicate any further down the chain. When I communicate the decisions, some are received with a positive attitude, and others are received with a negative one.

I have interacted with many different types of personalities in these situations. Primarily with the negative ones, people begin asking questions about the purposes for the decision in order to evaluate for themselves if the decision was the best possible to make given the circumstances. In many cases, the employee is satisfied with the purposes that I provide; however, there are times that is not the case. The employee believes that based on the purposes communicated to them, a better decision could have and should have been made. They often leave the meeting dissatisfied and with less trust in the members upper management.

Unless we are those who make all the final decisions, we all can identify with the employees provided with a decision and the chosen purposes. I feel comfortable with saying that no person has been fully in agreement with every decision made by every management team in their career. To fully make sense, we need the whole story, and that level of transparency is a rare, if not, non-existent luxury.

This scenario is not limited to the business world, though. Any hierarchical relationship where absolute transparency among the parties does not or cannot exist exhibits this issue. Every relationship from familial to clubs is affected. Today, I want to draw two analogs of this familiar scenario to address two challenges to the existence of God.

The Cognitive Dissonance of Evil

The Problem of Evil and Suffering
In defending the truth of the Christian worldview, I often come across atheists who point to the supposed incompatibility of a loving God with the existence of evil and suffering. Many defenders of Christianity will move directly to explain to the atheist that without an eternal, unchanging standard, there is no objective morality, thus there is no objective good or evil. Without objective good or evil, their challenge is groundless. I agree with this answer, but only if the atheist is critiquing the Christian worldview from outside the Christian worldview; they are rather usually pointing to an internal inconsistency- that of a loving God and evil. Christians usually offer two answers to show that evil is, in fact, compatible with a loving God: that God does have purposes for allowing the evil, and man is free is disobey God which results in much evil and suffering. (Many do recognize that the challenge to Christianity has been overcome, but it is still offered in one form or another which does have much emotional and rhetorical power- more on this later.) However, this is only a portion of what our answer should be. We have merely shown that their claim of incompatibility is false, but what about challenges with atheism posed by evil and suffering?

Of Tornadoes, Flat Tires, and Moore

The Recent Tornadoes In Moore, OK
Many of you are aware of the recent outbreak of violent tornadoes in the middle of the United States in late May of this year. Three tornadoes struck extremely close to home for me. The first took out my wife's parents' place, and the other two (one being the EF4 on the 20th) was about one mile from our house. As I drive to work every day, I see the physical devastation. When I speak with my in-laws, I see the emotional devastation. When I heard the news of the children who lost their lives...there just are not words to describe the pain and emotions of that news. When we experience tragedies such as these, it is sometimes difficult to see that a loving God, who has our best interest in mind, could cause or allow this level of agony. The Friday after the first tornado outbreak a peculiar series of events took place that eventually ended in God making the answer to my questions very real to me.