Problem of Evil

By John Trapasso

This book review was written by John Trapasso. He is a freshman at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX. During his free time, John enjoys studying theology and the philosophy of religion.

Yujin Nagasawa’s The Problem of Evil for Atheists seeks to transform the debate on the problem of evil by demonstrating that it poses a significant challenge to almost all worldviews—not just traditional theism. In addition, Nagasawa claims traditional theists are better equipped to deal with the problem than their competitors.

Part 1 begins with a systematic analysis of the problem of evil for traditional theists. Nagasawa shows the general “scheme” of the problem always consists of three essential variables: (I) God, (II) evil, and (III) an allegedly conflicting relationship between (I) and (II).

On April 24, 2024, Dr. James P. Sterba, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, debated Dr. Adam Lloyd Johnson, president of Convincing Proof Ministries. They debated the question “Without God, Can There Be an Objective Ethics?” Dr. Sterba took the affirmative position that there can be an objective ethics without God, and Dr. Johnson took the negative position, that there cannot be an objective ethics without God. The debate took place at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was sponsored by the Ratio Christi chapter at UNL.

Without the existence of the all-good, all-powerful God of traditional theism can there be an objective ethics?

What is apologetics? In short, it is giving good reasons and evidence to believe that Christianity is true. Apologetics focuses on some big questions about the truth of Christianity such as the following: Does God exist? Who was Jesus? How do we know Jesus was God? Is the Bible even historically reliable? Questions like these often appear front and center in our culture where skepticism of religious claims is the norm. The lectures below can help prepare you to address these questions in a Biblical manner, giving a "defense for the hope that you have" in Christ "with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). Follow along with Adam’s Introduction to Apologetics class to learn about the good reasons and evidence for God, Jesus, and the truth of the Scriptures.

The problem of evil is something we probably all struggle with at one time in our lives. If there really is a good God out there, then why is there so much pain and suffering in this world? There are two ways to look at the problem of evil: the logical version and the probability (or evidential) version. The logical version argues that if God is all powerful and all good, then evil wouldn’t exist because God can and would want to eliminate it. Thus, since evil does exist, it is impossible for God to exist. In response, Alvin Plantinga has proposed the free-will defense, which says that God allowed human beings to have free will, and no matter how God could have created us, there would always be a way we would choose to do evil. This is known as “transworld depravity,” and it sufficiently responds to the logical problem of evil. But since all this evil exists anyway, isn’t it the case that God probably doesn’t exist? This is called the probability version of the problem of evil. Christians have offered various explanations, called “theodicies,” of why God would allow evil. Examples of these include the Greater Good theodicy or Adam’s own Divine Love theodicy, which says that God allowed evil because he wanted to create beings who could love like He does, but love requires free will. In order to allow His creatures to truly love Him and love each other, they had to have the free will to do so. God can’t force us to love, because then it’s not truly love.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Why is it that God and Satan talk as described in the book of Job? In the book of Job, God let Satan ruin Job. I know that it was a test of Job’s faith, but was God so heartless that it didn’t bother Him to kill off Job’s children for a test of faith? So what if Job had more kids that were more beautiful afterwards? That doesn’t replace the lives lost.

It seems strange to me also that God and Satan still talk. I don’t understand everything about the spiritual world. The book of Job is a good reminder for us that we can’t, nor do we need to, understand everything.