Your Own Personal Jesus – Ep.276 – Faith Has Its Reasons – Calling People To Encounter God In Jesus Christ – Part 2
Your Own Personal Jesus For the final three apologetic questions answers, the Fideist point to the fact that one has your own personal Jesus. In that when it comes to the problem of evil or miracles or who Jesus is, it should always lead to answers in the personal nature of God and one in […]
Evil, Miracles, & Jesus As Evidence – Ep.260 – Faith Has Its Reasons – Presenting Evidence That Demands A Verdict – Part 2
Evil, Miracles, & Jesus As Evidence The final portion of the positive case for evidentialism is on evil, miracles, & Jesus as evidence. Evidentialists have developed 2 theodicies and also a 3 fold test for miracles. They’ve responded to Hume’s critique of miracles. They’ve also developed the minimal facts approach to the Resurrection. Timeline: 00:00 […]
Cave To The Cross Apologetics – Scott Christensen Interview Redux
Scott Christensen Interview Redux In this redux episode, we talked with Scott Christensen and interviewed him about the book we spent almost a year on, What About Evil? This book does an excellent job of laying out the issue, giving the definitions, the different answers, the issues with other theories, and the answer Christensen has […]
Why? For God’s Glory! – Ep.181 – Scott Christensen Interview On What About Evil – Part 2
Why? For God’s Glory! Scott Christensen has written an amazing book that is not just a dry, academic look at the question of why evil exists. Why? For God’s Glory! Pastor Christensen joins us to talk about his Greater-Glory Theodicy that places God at the center of the picture of the ultimate story of reality. […]
Free Will Theodicy Failure – Ep.180 – Scott Christensen Interview On What About Evil – Part 1
Free Will Theodicy Failures We have the pleasure of welcoming back to the show our first guest, our first returning guest, and author of the book we recently finished “What About Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory” – Pastor Scott Christensen. This was such a great discussion we wanted to break it up into […]
The Greater Glory Effect – Ep.179 – What About Evil? – The Grace And Glory Effect – Part 2
The Greater Glory Effect And now comes the end. The Great-Glory Theodicy showcases the greater glory effect. It is seen in the forgiving nature of the Christian as it reflects the forgiving nature of God. Even the worse of humanity, the most painful, the most destructive nature of man is no match for the grace […]
How Should We Then Live? – Ep.178 – What About Evil? – The Grace And Glory Effect – Part 1
How Should We Then Live? We live in a world infested with evil. We live in a world held in the sovereign hand of God. How should we then live? The Christian life is one led in a moment of three simultaneous instances of sight. We look back on our lives that were in rebellion […]
The Coming Redeemer – Ep.177 – What About Evil? – The Cosmic Redeemer – Part 2
The Coming Redeemer No, we’re not doing The Return Of The King, but we are looking forward to the end of this book as we are looking forward to the end of The Book of the Coming Redeemer. These books will have a single ending unlike a certain 3rd movie you might be thinking about. […]
The Resurrection Explained! – Ep.176 – What About Evil? – The Cosmic Redeemer – Part 1
The Resurrection Explained! Why was the end of the Incarnation of Jesus on Earth important? What does it mean to people before, during, and after the Cross? How does the Resurrection ensure a believer’s redemption? Well, this is the first part of the Resurrection explained! What does it all mean? Everything! With the Resurrection of […]
The Suffering Redeemer – Ep.175 – What About Evil? – The Suffering Redeemer – Part 2
The Suffering Redeemer The Christian story emphasizes a focus on the suffering of Jesus Christ. He is our suffering Redeemer. Being born, living in the ancient Near East, being hungry and poor, and ultimately being nailed on a cross illegally as the most innocent person ever involves suffering. Not only does this not seem to […]
Does God Have Emotions? – Ep.174 – What About Evil? – The Suffering Redeemer – Part 1
Does God Have Emotions? When we talk about Jesus as God and as the Suffering Servant the question of, “Does God have emotions?” is to be asked. Is God able to have emotions like us humans? Is He surprised at the evil He sees in the world? Is prophecy, then, just a lucky guess by […]
Fully Man & Fully God – Ep.173 – What About Evil? – The Peerless Redeemer – Part 2
Fully Man & Fully God Jesus not only is fully man & fully God but He must be both in that full capacity to accomplish everything He must for our salvation. To deny His humanity is to not have a stand-in for humanity. To deny His Godhood is to not have the ability to pay […]
Why The Incarnation Had To Happen – Ep.172 – What About Evil? – The Peerless Redeemer – Part 1
Why The Incarnation Had To Happen The Greater-Glory Theodicy centers on the character of who God is and the reasons He has in glorifying Himself in a world of evil. With that in mind, why the incarnation had to happen was to uniquely and completely deal with all the evil in full. Once Christians were […]
Romans 9 Answers Why Evil Exists – Ep.171 – What About Evil? – God’s Redemptive Glory In Scripture – Part 2
Romans 9 Answers Why Evil Exists The promised chapter on how Romans 9 answers why evil exists is here! Continuing from our look at the Old Testament we look at Paul’s answer to why there exists evil and how God uses it for His glory. We are unable to divorce ourselves from the Old Testament […]
God Redeeming Evil In The Old Testament – Ep.170 – What About Evil? – God’s Redemptive Glory In Scripture – Part 1
Redeeming Evil In The Old Testament One of the goals of the Greater-Glory Theodicy is to find not just the best logical explanation for why evil exists. It is also to see if the special revelation of God details its reason. In this episode we look at how is God redeeming evil in the Old […]
Was The Fall Necessary? – Ep.168 – What About Evil? – The Fortunate Fall & God’s Greatest Glory – Part 3
Was The Fall Necessary? One of the biggest questions that comes from the Greater-Glory Theodicy is this – Was The Fall necessary? Because that’s what it seems to imply. Well, that’s actually what it comes right out and says. It’s nothing to blush at or be embarrassed about. It’s the necessary outcome for God’s purposes. […]
God’s Glory Seen In Evil – Ep.167 – What About Evil? – The Fortunate Fall & God’s Greatest Glory – Part 2
God’s Glory Seen In Evil Now that we’ve laid out the Greater-Glory Theodicy that Scott Christensen has presented we unpack what it actually does that others don’t. In this theodicy, God’s Glory seen in evil is established. This doesn’t come from a novel, clever way to get around popular theories. This comes from the overall […]
The Greater-Glory Theodicy – Ep.166 – What About Evil? – The Fortunate Fall & God’s Greatest Glory – Part 1
The Greater-Glory Theodicy We’ve knocked down the standard explanations. We’ve established who God is and what He desires. We’ve told His story in history from a story tale. Now, we get to tackle what Scott Christensen believes is the best explanation for evil with all those elements put together – The Greater-Glory Theodicy. In this […]
God’s Purpose With Evil – Ep.165 – What About Evil? – The One True Story – Part 2
God’s Purpose With Evil After setting the scene with Creation and The Fall, we are now able to see what God’s purpose with evil is. Following the story paradigm, we see God’s story played out in the rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. Each part covers an evil plot point where God is able […]
Evil’s Purpose In God’s Story – Ep.164 – What About Evil? – The One True Story – Part 1
Evil’s Purpose In God’s Story What is evil’s purpose in God’s story? To begin to understand the answer we look at the fact that God’s written story, The Bible, is more than just propositions and commands – it is also stories. As it is the first story by the original Author we can call it […]
The Structure Of God’s Story – Ep.163 – What About Evil? – Everyone Loves A Good Ending – Part 2
The Structure Of God’s Story Now that we looked at what myths are and what the monomyth of God’s story is; we look at what the structure of God’s story is – as well as all other stories follow. The shared collective consciousness of humanity reflects what it cannot help – the reflection of their […]
God As The Monomyth Storyteller – Ep.162 – What About Evil? – Everyone Loves A Good Ending – Part 1
God As The Monomyth Storyteller The term “myth” has a colloquial understanding of being made up or fake. But that’s not the true meaning of the word. Myths are stories told in a worldview used to relay information to a group and that story is made to stick. This universal concept derives itself from God. […]
God’s Responsibility In The Fall – Ep.160 – What About Evil? – The Challenge Of Moral Responsibility – Part 2
God’s Responsibility In The Fall Continuing to look at God’s responsibility when it comes to evil, we look at God’s responsibility in the Fall of mankind. Both sides of the choice debate have to recognize the Fall as something unique and comes with their own set of questions. Which side is the most consistent AND […]
God Is Free Of Evil – Ep.159 – What About Evil? – The Challenge Of Moral Responsibility – Part 1
God Is Free Of Evil God is free of evil because of who He is and His transcendence over His creation. But is He still considered the “author of evil”? Looking at people like the authors of the Westminster Confessions, Jonathan Edwards, and John Frame we see the Reformed tradition is not caught off guard […]
God’s Work In Evil – Ep.158 – What About Evil? – Walking Through The Bible’s Dark Forest – Part 2
God’s Work In Evil Now that we’ve established the character and nature of God and seen that The Bible doesn’t shy away from attributing God’s control to evil actions of humans, we look at two other aspects of evil The Bible talks about. In divine hardening, we see that God steers the desires of humans […]
Is God The Author Of Evil? – Ep.157 – What About Evil? – Walking Through The Bible’s Dark Forest – Part 1
Is God The Author Of Evil? Is God the author of evil? That’s the question that Reformed Christians must be able to answer especially after dismantling libertarian free will. Here we begin to look at the characteristics God embodies that informs the discussion of his sovereignty over evil. Looking at God’s absolute goodness and holiness […]
What About Compatibilism? – Ep. 156 – What About Evil? – The Transcendent Author Of History – Part 2
What About Compatibilism? We delve into the topic of God’s choosing and man’s choosing as it relates to evil. If you’ve ever wondered, “What about compatibilism? What is it and is it true?” this episode will break down the concept for you. First, we finish up the last two secondary characteristics that stem from God’s […]
God Is Transcendent – Ep. 155 – What About Evil? – The Transcendent Author Of History – Part 1
God Is Transcendent Now that we’ve toppled over the main theodicies that have been preeminent in the discussion of evil; we turn back to what should start off any conversation rooted in the Christian worldview – the character and nature of God. Specifically, God is transcendent. God didn’t just happen upon the universe; He made […]
Divine Judgment & Hell – Ep. 154 – What About Evil? – Working For The Greater Good – Part 3
Divine Judgment & Hell Looking at one of the last main theodicies, we look at the topics of divine judgment & Hell. After laying out the argument from the divine-judgment defense we see that while this argument does have some merit to it, it is not an all-encompassing view of evil. With two interesting problems, […]
Soul Making In The Best Possible World – Ep. 153 – What About Evil? – Working For The Greater Good – Part 2
Soul-Making In The Best Possible World Two of the subset theodicies of the Greater-Good Theodicy are the Soul-Making Theodicy and the Best-Of-All-Possible-Worlds Defense. In these, soul-making in the best possible world gives a purpose to evil existing as a means to an end. From the soul-making side, we see this as a desire in our […]
Greater-Good Theodicy – Ep. 152 – What About Evil? – Working For The Greater Good – Part 1
Greater-Good Theodicy – Good From Evil Looking at another explanation for why there is evil in the world, we turn to the Greater-Good Theodicy. With this, we see a focus on the good that is accomplished as a result of the evil that occurs. From the evil actions of people or evil in the natural […]
Gratuitous Evil, Free Will, & Natural Law – Ep. 149 – What About Evil? – Guarding The Sacred Treasure Of Free Will – Part 4
Free Will, Gratuitous Evil, & Natural Law Free Will, Gratuitous Evil, & Natural Law are all topics that are related in the free-will theodicy. Free will must deal with the same implications that compatibilists deal with and that’s the appearance of evil without purpose. We look at the different theories free will theists put out […]
Free Will & God’s Foreknowledge – Ep. 148 – What About Evil? – Guarding The Sacred Treasure Of Free Will – Part 3
Free Will & God’s Foreknowledge The concept of free will & God’s foreknowledge can be a heady concept. We attempt to accurately cover three different answers free will advocates attempt to allow God to have foreknowledge (or not have it). We do our best to break it down while attempting to be accurate to supporters […]
Problems With Free Will – Ep. 147 – What About Evil? – Guarding The Sacred Treasure Of Free Will – Part 2
Problems With Free Will We continue to look at problems with free will in light of the explanation it supposedly gives Christians when it comes to answering the problem of evil. We see why the Reformed position rejects parts of libertarian free will in exchange for soft determinism. Libertarian free will undermines the doctrine of […]
Do We Have Free Will? – Ep. 146 – What About Evil? – Guarding The Sacred Treasure Of Free Will – Part 1
Do We Have Free Will? The free will defense has done a lot in answering the logical problems of evil. While determinism has become more popular in the past decade among academics; the culture at large still has the embracement of free will. But do we have free will? We want to ask, “By what […]
Can God Answer Evil? – Ep. 145 – What About Evil? – Justifying The Ways Of God
Can God Answer Evil? Can God answer evil and the problems caused by suffering? That is what a theodicy attempts to do. It provides a justification for why suffering and evil exist and that God exists as presented. This is a reason why one has to stake a claim in a specific God like the […]
The Battle Of Two Moral Standards – Ep. 144 – What About Evil? – Probing The Darkness – Part 2
The Battle Of Two Moral Standards After finishing with defining our terms we look at ways in which those definitions play out in our worldviews. Here’s where the battle of two moral standards starts to interact and separate. Each side has a burden of proof since each side has a problem of evil. Where the […]
Defining Evil – Ep. 143 – What About Evil? – Probing The Darkness – Part 1
Defining Evil Definitions are one of the most important parts of having any conversation. A lot of times people use different definitions as a result of their worldview. So when it comes to the topic of evil, defining evil is vital. In this chapter, we look at a secular version as well as the Christian […]
Crisis Of Secularism – Ep. 142 – What About Evil? – Theodicy And The Crisis Of Our Secular Age – Part 2
Crisis Of Secularism Picking up where we left off last time; now that the world has shirked off God because of the evil all we are left now with is us and evil. Ut oh. We are in a crisis of secularism. The second part of the modern worldview is the advancing of secularism leading […]
The Enlightenment And Evil – Ep. 141 – What About Evil? – Theodicy And The Crisis Of Our Secular Age – Part 1
The Enlightenment And Evil We ended up going long on this chapter and so we split it up into two episodes so there is a hard cut and no outro at the end of this episode. There’s a lot to cover with the Enlightenment and evil. Where did the problem of evil really become a […]
What About Evil Summary – Ep. 140 – What About Evil? – Introduction – Part 2
What About Evil Summary Along with the answer to the question, “What about evil?”, at the beginning of the book; Scott Christensen also gives us a What About Evil summary of the book too. Here is the chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book with just a small take on what’s included. Within the book, we get […]
The Answer To Evil…Already? – Ep. 139 – What About Evil? – Introduction – Part 1
The Answer To Evil…Already? Scott Christensen takes the first part of the introduction to his book “What About Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory” and does something interesting – he gives you the answer to evil at the start! First, he presents the idea that there does, in fact, exist evil and suffering in […]
Andreas Köstenberger Interview – Ep. 124 – Andreas Köstenberger Interview
He’s Written On Everything! We are beyond delighted and honored to sit down and interview Andreas Köstenberger. Dr. Köstenberger was a co-author in one of our recent chosen books, “Truth In A Culture Of Doubt” which was a response to many of Bart Ehrman’s writings and showing that Christianity provides answers to the critical historians’ […]
Ep. 101 – Truth In A Culture Of Doubt – Is God Immoral Because Of Suffering – Part 2
Covering the second part of Bart Ehrman’s critique of the Bible’s explanation for the existence of evil and suffering, we cover a few critiques of the critiques. Ehrman doesn’t seem to like the reasons the Bible gives and doesn’t find them satisfying. He also finds them contradictory. There are answers there and hopefully, this gives Christians better motivation to understand the doctrines they hold to in order to be able to give answers to someone even if they are as prolific and impressive as Ehrman is.
Ep. 100 – Truth In A Culture Of Doubt – Is God Immoral Because Of Suffering – Part 1
Responding to one of Ehrman’s lesser-known book, “God’s Problem”. We discuss the introduction to some of the problems Ehrman raises and dig into the first objection of is there a contradiction of God being sovereign and God being good with all the evil and suffering in the world. Ehrman is not much known for him being a theologian or a philosopher so an odd subject for him to tackle. However, this is a subject which everyone comes to ask themselves about and should ask if their worldview gives a consistent argument to explain the existence (or non-existence) of evil and suffering.