Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn't Make Sense

by Ravi Zacharias, Vince Vitale

Overview

Why would a loving and powerful God allow so much pain and suffering? In Why Suffering? Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale carefully walk you through a variety of responses that considered together provide a clear, comprehensive, and convincing answer. Responses like:

• Where there is the possibility of love, there has to be the reality of freedom, and therefore the possibility of pain.
• Wishing God had made a different world is to wish yourself out of existence.
• The cross is the key to a compelling and rational explanation for trusting in God in the face of suffering.
• In comparison with other world religions, the Christian response is highly distinctive.
• The reality of evil only makes sense in light of the reality of divine goodness.
• Relational knowledge about God takes the argument beyond reason to the presence of God amidst suffering.
• God's decision to allow temporal suffering is understandable when viewed from an eternal perspective.
• Divine goodness shows how to conquer not in spite of, but even through suffering.

Here is a book written with great respect for the complexity of the issue, recognizing that some who read it will be in the trenches of deep suffering themselves and others questioning the very existence of a loving God. Why Suffering? provides an answer to the problem of pain and suffering with emotional sensitivity and intellectual integrity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455549702
Publisher:	FaithWords
Publication date:	10/21/2014
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	292,339
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ravi Zacharias is the Founder and President of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Austria, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children. He is the author of many books, including Can Man Live Without God and Why Jesus?

Dr. Vince Vitale is Director of the Zacharias Institute. He was educated at Princeton University and the University of Oxford, and later taught philosophy of religion as a faculty member at both universities. During his undergraduate studies at Princeton, Dr. Vitale took an unexpected journey that led him to God. Later, while at Oxford, he developed a new response the problem of evil. This response — termed the Non-Identity Defense — is discussed in his and Ravi Zacharias's previous book, Why Suffering? He is married to Jo, who also works for RZIM.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Question Ravi Zacharias 1

Chapter 2 A Response of Freedom Ravi Zacharias 31

Chapter 3 A Response of Grace Vince Vitale 59

Chapter 4 A Response at the Cross Vince Vitale 81

Chapter 5 Other Responses on Offer: Buddhism, Islam, Naturalism Ravi Zacharias 105

Chapter 6 A Response from Morality Ravi Zacharias 141

Chapter 7 A Response of Hope Vince Vitale 163

Chapter 8 God's Manifold Responses Vince Vitale 192

Acknowledgments 219

Notes 221

Editorial Reviews

"Both for Christians and skeptics alike, this volume is as accessible and helpful a treatment of the problem of suffering that you can find. Anyone interested in apologetics in general-and the argument against God from evil in particular-should own and read it."—Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City

"We are all different, and we all suffer differently, so no one-size-fits-all answer will ever satisfy. But here, two of Christendom's ablest Christian voices present their best responses and give incisive critiques of the major options. Their conversation is an open invitation to help us all reach an 'examined life' for ourselves."—Os Guinness, author of Unspeakable: Facing Up to the Challenge of Evil

"Suffering and evil are persistent and universal problems, but no one has tackled these issues with more penetrating insights, engaging stories, and practical answers than Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale. WHY SUFFERING is both academically satisfying and spiritually enriching. Every reader will come away, as I have, with fresh stimulation, new enlightenment, and personal satisfaction."—Norman L. Geisler, Ph.D., author or co-author of over 90 books including If God, Why Evil? and Professor of Apologetics at VeritasSeminary.com

"In Why Suffering, two of the world's leading Christian Apologists address the world's hardest question. Avoiding the glib or the abstract, they offer us a highly readable, intellectually robust, biblically framed, and truly compelling answer, filled with hope in the God who enters our suffering to end our suffering."—Simon Ponsonby, Pastor of Theology St. Aldates Oxford, author of God is For Us, More, and And the Lamb Wins

From the Publisher