For those of you tracking through Proverbs these past thirty-one days congratulations! You made it! Sometimes setting in motion a pattern of rest, of slowing down, and of introspection starts out by taking one step, followed by another, one day at a time, followed by another. I know this exercise is benefiting my heart and my soul, and I hope looking at Solomon’s wisdom in Proverbs throughought this past month was also beneficial to Proverb Curb readers.
The great news about our Proverb a Day format is that anyone can pick it up at anytime. Just track through days 1-31. So if you want to walk through Proverbs again or if you know someone else who might benefit from the disciplined challenge, feel free to pass it along.
When I set off to begin this journey, the question “what’s next” was already on the horizon. One of my passions is “The Larger Story,” which basically means stepping away from my own life and looking at it from a 10,000 ft perspective. In fact, I don’t know of anything that would fit the Proverb Curb mission better than taking a moment to get my bearings. After all, even though I am a guy and don’t really like to ask directions, but directions are pretty important if you want to get from point A to point B in life.
However, if I don’t know where I came from and, of course, if I have no clue where I’m going, then asking for directions is pointless. So I would like to take this next season of the Proverb Curb and run with challenge of gaining my bearings. I’ll look at the Christian Bible and outside of it to try and make sense of everything. Feel free to chime in along the way.
This next category of thought will likely be more organic than the Proverb a Day category, but I hope will elicit more conversation and better moments you and I can pull over to the curb.
Filed under: Challenges | Tags: Challenge, Core Assumptions, Problem of Evil, Worldview
A few days ago I leveraged a challenge to consider your core assumptions about God and evil and how they interact together. This was all based on a challenging statement by Solomon in Proverbs 15:3. This follow up is to provide you with some resources for reading more and to perhaps challenge your own core assumptions. Maybe this is old stuff, maybe new, but the better we can deal with understanding the role of evil in the world the more wise we become!
If you’re interested in reading more about the problem of evil, I recommend you first establish a baseline and examine how you feel today- your core assumptions about evil and about God and about their intersection in your heart/mind first.
Recommended Resources:
- The Problem of Evil by Kreeft
- The Problem of Evil by Casey Carmical
- Crazy in depth philosophical consideration in “Logical Problem of Evil” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Definitely read Lewis’ The Problem of Pain – you can probably pick up a copy at your local library, too
Filed under: Challenges | Tags: Challenge, Core Assumptions, Problem of Evil, Worldview
In Proverbs 15 we read “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” That raised a fundamental and challenging question- how can God “keep watch on the evil and the good” and let the evil continue?
Quite simply this brings up the problem of evil. It is one of the major objections to Christianity or for that matter Theism as a whole- how can a god be good if he created or allows evil? Kreeft defines it best:
The problem can be stated very simply: If God is so good, why Is his world so bad? If an all-good, all-wise, all-loving, all-just, and all-powerful God is running the show, why does he seem to be doing such a miserable job of it? Why do bad things happen to good people?
Before researching any apologetic thoughts or checking out any other resources I’d like to see your thoughts. Given that I believe in God, how can I deal with the existence of evil? Or, maybe you are asking yourself the polar opposite question: Given that evil is a reality, how can I deal with the existence of God?
Please chime in with your thoughts below. Establishing a baseline of my core assumptions is an important step in dealing with the problem of evil in my own heart.
In a day or two I’ll post a follow up with further resources to consider regarding the problem of evil.
