For Emmanuel Students

1. RESPONDING TO THE
PROBLEM OF EVIL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFvASiMTDz0

2. RESPONDING TO THE
PROBLEM OF EVIL

3. PROBLEM OF EVIL
 If God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil.
 If He is all powerful, He must be able to abolish evil.
 Evil exists.
 Therefore, an all-powerful, loving God does not exist.

4. IV. ARGUMENTS AGAINST
GOD’S EXISTENCE
Free Will Defense
Greater Good Response
a.Rebuttals

5. IV. ARGUMENTS AGAINST
GOD’S EXISTENCE
An Alternative Syllogism
 God is good; therefore, He wants to abolish evil
 God is all-powerful; therefore, He is able to abolish evil
 Evil has not yet been abolished.
 Therefore, an all-powerful, good God will eventually abolish evil.
Evil Proves God’s Existence
 Evil is objectively wrong.
 Objective moral standards necessitate God for their existence.
 Evil exists.
 Therefore, God exists. (If there is no God ... )
FLIP THE SCRIPT
God-Centered Approach
How can a holy God allow something so contrary to His nature to exist in His
presence?
“I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God
loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistence to the idea of
God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According so some estimates,
200,00 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in
and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in
the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the
carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fasion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming
the perpetrator’s basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the
idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil.
God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.”
Miroslav Volf
(Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace)

6. THE BOOK OF JOB
 1, 2, and 42:7-12 – Beginning and the End
 29-31 – Job’s posture before he experienced God
 38-40:2 & 40:6-41 - God’s Wisdom
 40:3-5 & 42:1-6 – Job’s Response
God is wise; Job is finite (limited). Job can trust that the ALL-WISE GOD
knows what He is doing.

7. IV. ARGUMENTS AGAINST
GOD’S EXISTENCE
The Normative Issue
 Experiential Dilemma
Logic is usually not the problem. By logic, Christians can point to the past and the
future to in part explain the existence and annihilation of evil. Most people focus on
the present: Why is this happening to me now? It is usually more emotional than
philosophical.
 Response
Ultimately, we don’t know, but no worldview is exempt from this dilemma. There are
only a variety of options to choose from in dealing with suffering.
Options = New Age, Atheism, Karma, Christianity

8. HEBREWS 4:14-16 - Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold
firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who
is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who
has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of
need.