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How does Christianity explain good and evil? How does Christianity uniquely address the problem of suffering? What tools are we given in the face of suffering?
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11 Replies
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God is fully the embodiment of good. His creation, the earth and human experience, was created as good. But through sin it has been corrupted and brought evil into the world. We require redemption through the person of Jesus. The Psalms, Job, and Lamentations have given us the “skill” as the lecturer refers to it, of lament in the face of suffering. We do not always see the bigger picture, or the ultimate good that will result, but all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.
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Christianity says that, although God is all-good and all-powerful, man himself had chosen to sin. This had plunged the world into a state of fallenness, so that there is now natural evil, human evil, and supernatural evil in the world. Evil brings injustice and suffering often. But this world has been definitively redeemed by Christ, and God is still working to bring his kingdom. In the meantime, for every evil that occurs, God has sufficient reason for its occurrence. In the end, there will be a culmination of restoration to justice and good.
For now, the Christian, knowing he has a good and powerful God as Father, has the tool of lament to cope with suffering. He cries to his God, and his God hears. His woeful situation can be offered to his God with hope.
#apologetics
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Mark 10:18 Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
When Adam & Eve fell in the garden evil entered into the world. Yet our God is sovereign, and his loving grace had a plan for the redemption of mankind where we were created in the image of God. Evil has been stalking humanity ever since the garden as a lion ready to devour its victims. Good is the light of Christ, which shines into the darkness, bringing the love of Christ to a dying world.
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Suffering is part of the human condition all the way back to the original sin. God gives us the tool of lament for suffering. “Christ’s absolute suffering on the Cross for the redemption of us is the lament of all laments.”
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The Christian’s explanation of Good and evil is anchored on the sovereignity of God and his love for sinfull man. God is love and holy and therefore hates sin. But he provided standards through which sinfull man can be reconciled with a holy God, who loves the sinner but hates his sin.Christainity addresses sufferring through the tool of lament which is supported by many passages in scripture including the book of lamnetations.
