Finally we come to what seems to be Ehrman’s major objection to the free will defense. He asks, “If he [God] intervenes sometimes to counteract free will, why does he not do so more of the time? Or indeed, all of the time?” (13). Later he writes, “I can’t believe in that God anymore, because …
Ehrman’s Problem 5: God Should Intervene More to Prevent Free Will’s Evil Use Read More »
Bart Ehrman’s fourth objection to the free will defense is this: “Most people who believe in God-given free will also believe in an afterlife. Presumably people in the afterlife will still have free will (they won’t be robots then either, will they?). And yet there won’t be suffering (allegedly) then. Why will people know how …
Ehrman’s Problem 4: Why Won’t We Abuse Free Will in Heaven? Read More »
Bart Ehrman asks why God didn’t give humans “the intelligence they need to exercise it [free will] so that we can all live happily and peaceably together? You can’t argue that he wasn’t able to do so, if you want to argue that he is all powerful.” (13) This objection is Ehrman’s slant on the …
Ehrman’s Problem 3: God Could Have Made Us So We’d Always Do Right Read More »
As I mentioned yesterday, Ehrman admits that free will can explain much human evil, but he asks how it can explain malaria, dysentery, drought, hurricanes, mudslides, or a “tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands overnight.” (12) In other words, how does the misuse of free will explain “natural” evil? Although there are other answers to …
Bart Ehrman, in his book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer, tries to make the case that neither Christians nor the Bible can answer why God, if He were to exist, would allow “the cesspool of misery and suffering” that many people endure. Ehrman says that he …
Ehrman’s Problem: He Misreads the Bible and Impugns God’s Fairness Read More »
I need to begin with two important qualifications. First, Christians are commanded to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15) and we are commanded to care for the sick. Compassion must always be our first response to tragedy but, sadly, too often that is not the case. In what follows I’m not writing on how …
Since I teach on why God allows evil, I often talk about Job. I have learned that many Christians have missed a major lesson of that book, if not the major lesson. Although many rightly conclude from Job that we should be humble when it comes to why God allows this or that suffering, there …
Sound the alarm and bar the door! We’ve been robbed! Two doctrinal jewels are missing: human depravity and the Christian’s glorification. But I wonder how many Christians consider them jewels? After all, who likes to talk about the depths of human sinfulness (“Yes, I know we’re all sinners, blah-blah-blah”)? And eternity sounds tedious (we’re not …
