Evil And The Problem Of Jesus

This updated edition by one of the world's leading apologists presents a systematic, positive case for Christianity that reflects the latest work in the contemporary hard sciences and humanities. Brilliant and accessible.

Evil and the Problem of Jesus approaches age-old questions about God's relationship with evil (theodicy) from an entirely fresh angle. Rather than tweaking airy abstractions, it makes Jesus' interactions with evil our primary source for thinking about theodicy. This Christ-centered approach reveals the failure of traditional theodicy to be intellectually convincing or spiritually satisfying. Unlike that fossilized intellectual heritage, Christodicy (evil-and-Jesus) provides original insights into divine power, presence, and love that help us reengage the God Jesus reveals and the evil Jesus challenges. Presenting Jesus as a model for how to be fully human, it crafts new ways to envision our own multidimensional relationships with God and with evil. Written with both breadth and focus, the book includes pastoral experiences of tragedy, suffering, and evil; retraces philosophical, multifaith, and biblical insights; and explores the ways the Gospels describe Jesus' complex interactions with evil. Evil and the Problem of Jesus asks pointed questions and offers thoughtful conceptual frameworks to help people live more faithfully, compassionately, wisely, and justly in response to the evils around us, among us, and within us.

One Bible, Many Answers In God's Problem, the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus challenges the contradictory biblical explanations for why an all-powerful God allows us to suffer.

N.T. Wright explores all aspects of evil and how it presents itself in society today. Fully grounded in the story of the Old and New Testaments, this presentation is provocative and hopeful; a fascinating analysis of and response to the fundamental question of evil and justice that faces believers.

Why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? This is one of the most difficult problems of religious belief. Richard Swinburne gives a careful, clear examination of this problem, and offers an answer: it is because God wants more for us than just pleasure or freedom from suffering. Swinburne argues that God wants humans to learn and to love, to make the choices which make great differences for good and evil to each other, to form our characters in the way we choose; above all to be of great use to each other. If we are to have all this, there will inevitably be suffering for the short period of our lives on Earth. But because of the good that God gives to humans in this life, and because he makes it possible for us, through our choice, to share the life of Heaven, he does not wrong us if he allows suffering. Providence and the Problem of Evil is the final volume of Richard Swinburne's acclaimed tetralogy on Christian doctrine. It may be read on its own as a self-standing treatment of this eternal philosophical issue. Readers who are interested in a unified study of the philosophical foundations of Christian belief will find it now in the tetralogy and in his trilogy on the philosophy of theism.

The Problem of God explores answers to the most difficult questions raised against Christianity. A skeptic who became a Christian and then a pastor, author Mark Clark grew up in an atheistic home. After his father's death, he began a skeptical search for truth through the fields of science, philosophy, and history, eventually finding answers in the last place he expected: Christianity. In a winsome, persuasive, and humble voice, The Problem of God responds to the top ten interrogations people bring against God, and Christianity, including: Does God even exist in the first place? What do we do with Christianity's violent history? Is Jesus just another myth? Can the Bible be trusted? Why should we believe in Hell anymore today? Each chapter answers the specific challenge using a mix of theology, philosophy, and science. Filled with compelling stories and anecdotes, The Problem of God presents an organized and easy-to-understand range of apologetics, focused on both convincing the skeptic and informing the Christian. The book concluding with Christianity's most audacious assertion: how should we respond to Jesus' claim that he is God and the only way to salvation.

Gregory Boyd seeks to defend his scripturally grounded trinitarian warfare theod-icy with rigorous philosophical reflection and insights from human experience and scientific discovery.

No part of the Bible goes unstudied in this book's search for God's hidden nature.

Where does evil come from? If there is a sovereign creator God, as Christian faith holds, is this God ultimately responsible for evil? Does God's sovereignty mean that God causes each instance of sin and suffering? How do Satan, his demons and hell fit into God's providential oversight of all creation and history? How does God interact with human intention and action? If people act freely, does God know in particular every human decision before the choice is made? In this important book Gregory A. Boyd mounts a thorough response to these ages-old questions, which remain both crucial and contentious, both practical and complex. In this work Boyd defends his scripturally grounded trinitarian warfare theodicy (presented in God at War) with rigorous philosophical reflection and insights from human experience and scientific discovery. Critiquing the classical Calvinist solution to the problem of evil, he advocates an alternative understanding of the sovereignty of the trinitarian God and of the reality of Satan that sheds light on our fallen human condition. While all may not agree with Boyd's conclusions, Satan and the Problem of Evil promises to advance the church's discussion of these critical issues.

Wrestling with the question, Is God to blame?, Gregory A. Boyd offers a hopeful picture of a sovereign God who is relentlessly opposed to evil, who knows our sufferings and who can be trusted to bring us through them to renewed life.