Do You Still Think God Is Good?: Candid Conversations About the Problem of Evil

by Clayton Brumby

Overview

What is evil really?
Where does it come from?
And if God is really God, why doesn't he do more about it? This world is out of control-so violent, painful, unfair and destructive. Doesn't God care?


The Greek philosopher Epicurus is credited with saying:


Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can but does not want to; or he cannot and does not want to. If he wants to but cannot, he is impotent. If he can and does not want to, he is wicked. But if God both can and wants to abolish evil, then how comes evil in the world?


This is known as the Epicurean paradox. Obviously, mankind has been wrestling with the problem of evil for some time; Epicurus lived between 340-270 BC.


Fast-forward twenty-three hundred years. Eric Jennings is a freshman at the Universityof Florida. He and his older sister, Libby, have moved in from the mission field to enter the premed program to become medical missionaries. Eric's roommate, Todd Rehnquist, though a baseball teammate and a good friend, is an atheist. And he poses the "problem" to Eric using an interesting quote. This sets in motion a conversation between Eric, Todd, Libby, Ray Cohen, the Jennings' former science teacher, and Mike Murphy, a local youth minister and one of Eric's spiritual mentors. The conversation happens at an area breakfast haunt, the Gator Skillet. Follow them as they wrestle with this most profound of issues and connect the dots. You'll find that the answers are as simple as they are surprising.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630470654
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Series:	Morgan James Faith Series
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Clayton Brumby graduated from Florida State Universityin 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in speech communication. He spent ten years in youth ministry, both urban and high school, before entering a sales career in 1986. His articles have appeared in Touchstone (the Society of St. James) and Your Church magazine.

Read an Excerpt

"No, only the basis of them," Mike replied. "Animal rights is a very Christian idea, actually. William Wilberforce, the English statesman who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery, was an animal rights advocate, but his rationale was decidedly different from Williams' or Singer's. To Wilberforce, mankind was truly different from the animal kingdom, not in degree but in kind. Man is made in God's image, but as such we don't own the world-we can't do with its creatures anything we like. We are, in fact, stewards of the world and, that being the case, have a responsibility to treat our fellow creatures humanely. The Bible speaks to the humane treatment of animals. So in raising and harvesting animals for food or clothing, we need to be aware of their basic needs and welfare. And if we are going to kill them as part of that harvesting we don't do it brutally or callously; we do it humanely. God will hold us accountable. So conserving habitats for manatees and owls and protecting dolphins and sea turtles from the tuna nets are all very Judeo-Christian ideas.

Table of Contents

Preface Two Challenges

Chapter One It Always Begins with a Question

Chapter Two No Apologies Necessary

Chapter Three Inescapable

Chapter Four Alone

Chapter Five The Professor's Questions

Chapter Six The Tale of Two Timeframes

Chapter Seven Connecting the Dots

Postscript Where Do I Sign?

Appendix I: Exposing a Darwinian Straw Man

Appendix II: The Question of Dinosaurs

Appendix III: The Fall of the Angels

Bibliography