What do you want readers to take away from If God Is Good? (video)

Unbelievers and believers have the same heart-cry in response to evil and suffering: “Something's terribly wrong.” We know we were made for something far better. But our heart-cry itself is revealing—why do we expect more or hope for more? Why are we outraged by evil and suffering when if the atheists are right it’s no more than we should expect in a world of random chance and survival of the fittest? Where do we get the standard of goodness by which we judge evil to be evil?

In If God Is Good, I appeal to unbelievers and believers alike to consider these questions: Why is there so much good in the world? Why do the great majority of suffering people want to go on living nonetheless? Is evil and suffering just bad luck, or is there a rational explanation for it? Is there a redemptive purpose for it? Can we as hurting people, and as those trying to help hurting people, find perspectives that recognize the full force of evil and suffering, yet offer hope? I suggest the answer is yes.

God’s Redemptive Purposes for Evil and Suffering

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The stronger our concept of God and Heaven, the more we understand how Heaven resolves the problem of evil and suffering. The weaker our concept of God and Heaven, the stronger our doubt that Heaven will more than compensate for our present sufferings.

If Heaven did not exist, we could never solve the problem of evil and suffering, for we would never receive any lasting compensation for it.

Nanci read me letters written in 1920 by her grandmother, Ana Swanson, to her family in Sweden. Because Ana suffered severe health ...

What is the problem of goodness? (video)

While atheists routinely speak of the problem of evil, they usually don’t raise the problem of goodness. But if evil provides evidence against God, then shouldn’t goodness count as evidence for him? And wouldn’t that be evidence against atheism?

From a non-theistic viewpoint, what is evil? Isn’t it just nature at work? In a strictly natural, physical world, shouldn’t everything be neither good nor evil? Good and evil imply an “ought” and an “ought not” that nature is incapable of producing.

Why does God allow evil and suffering? (video)

In my life, I’d already seen enough evil and suffering to feel deeply troubled by it. What I needed was to find perspective on what troubled me. In this process of writing If God Is Good, I’ve taken most pleasure in focusing closely on God, exploring his attributes of goodness, love, holiness, justice, patience, grace and mercy. While my journey has offered no easy answers, I’ve felt bowled over by how much insight Scripture gives us.

I’ve looked at a God who says, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exodus 3:7). I found great comfort in hearing God speak of a time when he could bear his people’s misery no longer (Judges 1:16). I revel in God’s emphatic promise that he will make a New Earth where he will come to live with us, and on which “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

Is there a purpose for evil and suffering we overlook? (video)

Our inability to understand all God’s purposes in evil and suffering should not surprise us.

Why did you write a book about evil and suffering?

Before I get to today’s blog, I wanted to mention an upcoming event I’ll be speaking at that the men from your local church might be interested in getting involved with. On Saturday, September 12, I’ll be speaking on the subject of Heaven at the Game Plan for Life: A Champion's Guide to a Successful Life national simulcast event, broadcasting live from Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. The seminar will offer a straight-talking, winning strategy for applying God’s truth to everyday issues, and speakers will include Joe Gibbs, Dr. Tony Evans, and Dr ...

If God is Good...what is this book about?

My new book If God Is Good addresses what is arguably the greatest issue in human history: the problem of evil and suffering.

The question is this: Why would an all-good and all-powerful (and all-knowing/all-wise) God create or permit a world with so much evil and suffering? This is not merely a problem, but the problem. Not only do atheists raise it, a poll of Christians revealed it is the question people would most like to ask God.

God promises to return and finalize his redemption of his once-good creation, to remove once and for all the evil and ...

What to Pray for, beyond Physical Healing

My friend Barry Arnold pastors Cornerstone Church here in Gresham, Oregon. Last year he sent an email to his church regarding prayer. It’s worth quoting:

I think our prayers are unbalanced—in the direction of just physical needs. We can and should pray for people with infirmities—but it might be wise to change the emphasis of our prayers from physical healing alone to God accomplishing His purposes in and through afflictions.

Here’s a partial list of things the New Testament tells us to pray for:

Pray for people who give you a hard time (Matthew 5:43-44 ...

Joe Bayly Still Speaks to Me

Those who read my post The Christian Book Expo, and "Stunned by J.I. Packer" might be interested in checking out Tangle.com, which has posted the entire video of the panel discussion "A Guided Tour of Heaven and Hell." It's a ninety minute panel, but Dr. Packer's part that stunned me was toward the end of his opening statement. If you break in at about twenty minutes into the session and watch it for a couple of minutes you'll see it, and my reaction.

When I was a young Christian, one of my favorite writers was ...

Lincoln's logic on slavery extends to all human rights

Happy birthday to my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. While he still held to some racist stereotypes, he managed to rise above the worldview of his era and affirm the wrongness of slavery and the rights of all people.

What Lincoln wrote below applies not only to slavery and racism, but to other human rights issues such as sexism and abortion:

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a ...