I mentioned previously that most apologists argue that the reason God allows evil is that it is a greater good for God to allow evil than to create a world where evil is impossible. For God to create a world with significantly free beings, He must allow these free beings to use their free will …
Beginning on his first page of his chapter on “The Mystery of the Greater Good,” Ehrman relates his disappointment with God (125-126): If (IF!) there is a God, he is not the kind of being that I believed in as an evangelical: a personal deity who has ultimate power over this world and intervenes in …
Ehrman’s Problem 14: He Misunderstood God’s Promises Read More »
Chapter five of Bart Ehrman’s book, God’s Problem, is entitled “The Mystery of the Greater Good: Redemptive Suffering.” In it Ehrman writes, “Sometimes, for some biblical authors, suffering has a positive aspect to it. Sometimes God brings good out of evil, a good that would not have been possible if the evil had not existed. …
Ehrman’s Problem 13—Spanking the Strawman… again Read More »
This is my last post on Ehrman’s errors regarding his understanding of the classical view of suffering—that God punishes people for their sins. Here I will focus on what he calls “unfortunate historical realities.” Ehrman complains that the “predictions of future success and happiness” promised Israel if they obeyed “never did come to fulfillment” (89). …
My first two posts on Ehrman’s discussion of the “classical view” of suffering—that God punishes people for their sins—were mostly about clearing up ambiguities and misapplications. In this blog we come to some unambiguous examples of God punishing people for their sins which Ehrman protests. For example, Ehrman is dismayed about the destruction of the …
Ehrman’s Problem 9: He Minimizes the Horror of Sin Read More »
Ehrman points out that the “classical view” of suffering—that God is punishing people for their sins—does have some merit: “The prophets, in short, were concerned about issues of real life—poverty, homelessness, injustice, oppression, the uneven distribution of wealth, the apathetic attitudes of those who have it good toward those who are poor, helpless, and outcast. …
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 »
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 »
