Much of the four previous posts on the problem of evil have been highly philosophical and a little inaccessible to some of us (and those we are trying to reach). Greg Koukl is a master of taking difficult topics and packaging them in ways that virtually any Christian can put into use. He’s done just that in his Sixty Second Theodicy article. I highly recommend you take a look at this brief article.
NB: Those of you who do not accept the classic defense (that God’s making man as free moral agents with the possibility of doing evil is a good that outweighs the good of making mankind with out that freedom) will probably not think much of this article either. Sorry about that. The good news for everyone is that this post concludes my treatment of this topic, at least for now. 🙂
I actually like to argue from the stanpoint of the existence of moral absolutes- it is a good evidential argument.
This has been a great discussion that I have learned from. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.
Haven’t read the article yet but I was reminded this week off a Chris Rice lyric:
I’ve also heard the question that if God was going to get rid of all the evil then where does he begin? With you or me?
I too greatly enjoyed and learned from these discussions. I am just happy that most of the in depth portions corresponded with my spring break so that I could throw my two cents in every once in a while. For those interested in a little more reading on this subject I have a few book recommendations:
The Problem of Evil – Selected Readings editted by Michael Peterson.
This book has a bunch of articles by a bunch of different philosophical and religious positions. Some of it is a little dry and some parts are more technical than others. Not the first book I would read on the topic but if you are really into the subject there are some good chapters.
God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga.
Plantinga is probably the most widely respected Christian philosopher by non-Christian philsophers. This book deals with the problem of evil from a libertarian free will perspective – similar to Geisler’s but goes into details on such things as middle knowledge as well.
The Many Faces of Evil by John Feinberg.
To be honest I haven’t finished this book. I started to read it for a paper and just picked out parts of his arguments which I could use to strengthen (quote) for what I already believed. That being said he seems to approach the problem of evil from a more Reformed theological position. Not sure if it will satisfy everyone who took part in this discussion though.