Is Our Pain God's Problem?
Is our pain God’s problem? If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow so much suffering? These kinds of questions—sometimes called the problem of theodicy—have long bothered believers and nonbelievers alike. These questions are especially pressing now as we face the AIDS pandemic, widespread hunger, and environmental degradation—not to mention the grief that humans can cause one another. Our two guests for this new Beliefnet Blogalogue have devoted part of their lives to addressing these issues. Bart Ehrman is James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of God's Problem and Misquoting Jesus, among many other titles. N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England and has taught at McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge. His books include Surprised By Hope, Evil and the Justice of God, and several other titles.
Friday April 25, 2008
N.T. Wright: The Bible Does Answer the Problem--Here's How
Thanks, Bart, for a further characteristic (and as you say forceful) response and fresh statement. You’ve taken a few more words this time (I’m delighted to see) and I will happily do the same.
Let me begin by trying to clarify the first two matters which you picked up. I’ll take them in reverse order for a reason which may become clear.
posted by N.T. Wright @11:26am Permalink Email This
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Thursday April 24, 2008
Bart Ehrman: God's Kingdom Has Not Come
Tom,
Thanks so much for your most recent post, which clarifies your view considerably. It is a forceful, and I would even say elegant, statement.
Before responding, let me address two minor points that you make in passing, one about my argument and the other about me.
posted by Bart Ehrman @10:49am Permalink Email This
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Tuesday April 22, 2008
N.T. Wright: What it Looks Like When God Runs the World
Thanks, Bart, for your response and further statement. I suspect we are both going to find that we start hares running in one another’s minds which there won’t be time to chase. I think the question of the definition and description of apocalyptic had better be one of those; we could talk another time perhaps . ..
But I want to begin where you end, which is the key question of your book.
posted by N.T. Wright @ 3:54pm Permalink Email This
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Monday April 21, 2008
Bart Ehrman: What About the Actual Suffering?
Thanks, Tom, for a thoughtful and interesting response. I think we both must feel how difficult it is to interact in this kind of forum, where what we want is sustained debate but have chosen to limit ourselves to brief responses. But we – you and I – must muddle along as best we can….
You are right that my goal is not to make agnostics out of people, either in my book or in my postings in this forum. This is because I am not so arrogant as to think that intelligent people should always agree with me! But I wonder if you are willing to take a similar stand, that is, whether you too would be willing to say that you also are not interested in converting people to your way of thinking or believing?
posted by Patton Dodd @11:08am Permalink Email This
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Friday April 18, 2008
N.T. Wright: God's Plan to Rescue Us
Thanks, Bart, for the clear and actually moving account of your former faith, your questionings, and your eventual abandonment of Christian belief. I was glad to hear you say that you wrote the book not to encourage others to follow you into agnosticism (though I guess that is how the book may well work rhetorically for some), but to encourage all of us to think. That is something I constantly tell people: I believe in the authority of scripture, and in Christian tradition as the community of discourse within which Christians hear that scripture – but also, importantly, in the proper use of reason. Our culture has fallen prey to emotivism, leading people to say ‘I feel’ when they mean ‘I think’, and then – an easy shift – to allow feeling to trump thinking, and then to replace it altogether. That way, I think we agree, lie chaos and folly.
There are two large, general elements of your book, and your blog post, which I want to chew over in this first response.
posted by N.T. Wright @11:01am Permalink Email This
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Thursday April 17, 2008
Bart Ehrman: How the Problem of Pain Ruined My Faith
For most of my life I was a devout Christian, believing in God, trusting in Christ for salvation, knowing that God was actively involved in this world. During my young adulthood, I was an evangelical, with a firm belief in the Bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. During those years I had fairly simple but commonly held views about how there can be so much pain and misery in the world. God had given us free will (we weren't programmed like robots), but since we were free to do good we were also free to do evil—hence the Holocaust, the genocide in Cambodia, and so on. To be sure, this view did not explain all evil in the world, but a good deal of suffering was a mystery and in the end, God would make right all that was wrong.
posted by Bart Ehrman @12:07pm Permalink Email This
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Tuesday April 15, 2008
Bio: N.T. Wright
N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England. He previously taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford, and has continued to write and speak on biblical theology and Christian history. Wright is author of Surprised By Hope, Simply Christian, Evil and the Justice of God, and many other titles. Beliefnet's interview with Wright appears here. He has done a Q&A; with Beliefnet readers and written on trusting the gospels and more.
posted by Patton Dodd @12:04pm Permalink Email This
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Tuesday April 15, 2008
Bio: Bart Ehrman
Bart Ehrman is the author of God's Problem, Misquoting Jesus, and several other titles. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Beliefnet's previous interview with Ehrman appears here. He has written for Beliefnet on women and the early church, and Gnostic Christianity, and more.
posted by Patton Dodd @11:58am Permalink Email This
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Recent Posts
- N.T. Wright: The Bible Does Answer the Problem--Here's How
- Bart Ehrman: God's Kingdom Has Not Come
- N.T. Wright: What it Looks Like When God Runs the World
- Bart Ehrman: What About the Actual Suffering?
- N.T. Wright: God's Plan to Rescue Us
- Bart Ehrman: How the Problem of Pain Ruined My Faith
- Bio: N.T. Wright
- Bio: Bart Ehrman
- Counterculture for the Common Good (D. Michael Lindsay)
- The Wrong Perception (Jerry Jenkins)
About Blogalogue
There are always at least two sides to every belief. The Beliefnet Blogalogue pairs writers who differ on important questions about faith, and asks them to debate timely topics.