Why Does God Allow Evil?

Seekers and scoffers love to lob the "question of evil" at Christians. In his excellent PlanetWisdom article on the subject, Sean McDowell presents the ancient question this way.

Some people wonder why God couldn’t create the world in such a way that we would never sin, thus avoiding evil altogether. If God is all-powerful, couldn’t he create such a world? If God is all-good, wouldn’t he want to create such a world? Thus, the problem of evil is often stated this way:

1. If God is all-good, he would want to defeat evil.
2. If God is all-powerful, he could create a world without evil.
3. Evil is not yet defeated.
4. Therefore, an all-good and all-powerful God must not exist.

If you haven't yet read the article -- or even if you have -- how would you answer this question for someone who has experienced a difficult tragedy? What would you say to a person honestly asking about God's character in the face of an ugly illness, the loss of a close loved one, or a even a deep depression?

Think about it first, then go check out Sean's carefully argued and well-documented worldview approach to the question.

Never Enough

"If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around."

—Christina Stead, Marxist and Novelist

"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless."

—Solomon, Ridiculously Wealthy King, in Ecclesiastes 5:10

Big News: Teens Still Go Outside

Do these stories drive you crazy, or is it just me? Here's the headline: "Study: Teens value non-online meetings"

Really? You mean students who have Facebook and cell phones still like to talk to real human beings in person? But we keep reporting to people that teens spend all their free time in a hole in the ground staring into a computer monitor or texting friends while listening to their iPods and playing video games while video chatting on MySpace and listening to pirated music while watching downloaded movies.

Are you seriously telling us they also enjoy hanging out with friends in person? That's news! Stop the web presses! We must tell the world students like normal things!

It's almost like people in the media think of "teens" as some kind of tribe or cult group or alien civilization. You've heard them: some guy in a suit with a microphone looking into the camera and saying, "WE talked to some TEENS about how they feel about blah, blah, blah." Cut to a shot of "actual teens" talking like normal human beings. Cut back to news guys with condescending smile, "Well, Anne, that's what the TEENS think. Now back to you."

Okay, I'll stop ranting. But if I were you I'd look forward to the day you turn 20 and become more than just one of that herd of demographically desirable and socially identical TEENS. Until then, I hope you don't let them sucker you into thinking you should be thinking what every other TEEN is thinking or playing or hearing or saying to be a legitimate TEEN. We hope you chase wisdom like an actual person, and let the demographic sort itself out.

Did I say I'd stop ranting? Okay.

Merry Christmas!

This time of year you hear a lot of people talking about "what Christmas means to them." Here's what it meant to Jesus' relative Zechariah. He spoke these words at the birth of his son John the Baptist a few months before Jesus was born.

". . . you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace." (Luke 1:76-79)

All of us at PlanetWisdom hope you have a fun and meaningful Christmas day. Even more, we hope your feet are walking the path of peace through faith in Jesus. Enjoy the day!

Best Astronomy Pix of the Year

Star gazing is a key ingredient of the Christmas story we're all rehearsing again this time of year. Those mysterious Magi kept their eyes on the sky and somehow followed a star right to the doorstep of newborn Jesus. (Cue: "We Three Kings" soundtrack)

You wonder what the Magi would have done with access to modern observatories and the Internet. At the very least, they would have found even more reason to worship the Creator. If you're inspired by galactic images, you'll dig the Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007 on a site called Bad Astronomy. Even better, astronomer Phil Plait explains what you're marveling at in layman's terms and with the passion of a Maji.

And if you like that, you'll love the HD video podcast from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope project. It features jawdropping infrared and ultraviolet images from around the universe. Yes, the story is sometimes told from an evolutionary perspective, but that doesn't silence the gut-level appreciation for the Artist those images provoke. A sky watcher named David said it best.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Barna: Most Americans Believe

In recent months pollster George Barna has been surveying Americans to see what we believe about the Bible's most famous stories. If you spend much time caught up in the "culture wars" debates about faith, science, and truth, you could get the idea that believing the Bible puts you in the minority. Not so.

Fully 75%(!) of Americans believe in the literal truth of both the virgin birth and Christ's resurrection from the dead. It's tough to get 75% of the population to agree on any one thing. Barna's breakdown indicates that not all of those who agree are "born again Christians," as we understand the term. Still, its a surprising number.

Here's the percentage of American belief in the literal truth of the other 10 stories:

Jesus turning water into wine: 69%
Jesus feeding the 5,000: 68%
Daniel and the lion's den: 65%
Moses and the Red Sea: 64%
Noah's flood: 64%
David and Goliath: 63%
God's six-day creation of the world: 60%
Jesus (and Peter) walking on the water: 60%
Eve and the serpent: 56%
Samson's strength: 49%

Of course, we don't judge the "truthiness" of our faith by the number of people who agree with us. Something is either true or its not. But one strategy of those who take joy in shaking your faith is to make you feel like you're standing along against the crowd for believing in the supernatural events described in Scripture. That may be the case in any given classroom or message board, but it's not true (for right now) on a national scale.

If you dig stats, the site is worth checking out to see how belief in these stories breaks down by sub-groups (religion, politics, gender, region, etc.).

The Bible + Google Earth

Cool idea reported on the Creative Review blog from an Australian creative group called The Glue Society. They created four scenes from the Bible as if captured by satellites and viewed on Google Earth. It's not necessarily a Christian group, and a couple of the images are questionable in terms of biblical accuracy, but what an amazing notion.

How exciting would it be to see history from God's vantage point with our own eyes? Of course, God could have done it that way. He could have revealed everything via online video. Seems like it would have saved a lot of arguing. But of course it wouldn't have. As the artists for this project mention, even satellite images won't be trusted for long.

". . . with this piece we felt technology now allows events which may or may not have happened to be visualized and made to appear dramatically real,” say The Glue Society’s James Dive. “As a method of representation satellite photography is so trusted, it has been interesting to mess with that trust.”

Just as we question the words of God, we would all question the "pictures of God," had He e-mailed them to us. The truth is we do have "God's eye view" of history on the pages of the Bible. Gaining wisdom is the practice of making His view our own.

(HT: kottke.org)

Evolution Keeps Pregnant Woman Upright

Curious AP story about scientists who claim to have discovered why pregnant women don't "topple over" due to the extra weight carried in their bellies. According to these researchers it has to do with a previously unnoticed wedge-shaped vertebra and a larger hip joint. Fair enough.

What interests me is that while evolutionists in the media loudly dismiss any talk of "intelligent design," they just can't avoid using the language of design when describing "what evolution did." To read this story, you'd have to conclude this evolution guy is a genius. See what I mean:

AP Science writer: "Evolution provided them with slight differences from men . . ."

AP Science writer: "This elegant engineering is seen only in female humans . . ."

Liza Shapiro, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas, on pregnancy: "You experience discomfort. Maybe it would be a lot worse if (the design changes) were not there."

Shapiro: "Evolution has tinkered ... to the point where they can deal with the challenge. It's absolutely beautiful. A little bit of tinkering can have a profound effect."

I know. I know. They don't really believe "evolution" is an intelligent entity, just an effective process. Still, some evolutionists just can't seem to help but describe the process as something more personal, something that engineers with elegance and beauty and tinkers and even designs. Not that "it" does any of those things on purpose. We're all just fantastically lucky it "provides" what we need to not fall down. To suggest anything else would be crazy talk.

Shameless Plug Day: Represent PW

Say, are you one of those people out and about on the Interweb, chatting it up and leaving your witty socializations scattered across one or several message boards? If so, why not represent your PW love with an officially branded icon or avatar. You'll find a whole collection of cool designs on our free Downloads page. (Examples over there. -->)

Or maybe you're more of a wearer of fine T-shirts. We have those, too, only not as free. But for a modest fee, you can tell your world that you're a wisdom seeker (or just that you like cool tees). Actually, from our current stock, you can warn them of their impending death or command them not to hate or be a fool. I guess our T-shirts aren't exactly polite. Still, they make awesome Christmas presents.

Now that I've done my part to contribute to the crass commercialization of the season, I return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Prayer for Shooting Victims

I'm sure most of us have been following the stories of the shootings in Colorado and last week in Omaha. Our hearts here go out to the families of those killed and wounded. Like you, we're praying for them.

One of my most emotional writing assignments was doing a story on the shooting at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, several years ago. In 1999, a gunman walked into the church during a service and killed 7 people before killing himself. I interviewed a high school student the shooter just missed and a man who tried desperately to stop the killer. Some time had passed since that moment, but both were still struggling to figure out what it means to trust God in the wake of that. Both gave Him glory. Both saw how God used that evil for good. And both still hurt deeply.

In this story from the BP news, Al Meredith, the pastor of Wedgewood Baptist, describes how their church is praying and offers advice to all of us in the Christian community who want to help anyone devastated by sudden and unexplainable tragedy.

"We just prayed for them as people prayed for us, that God would give grace to the survivors to hang on, that God would bring healing to those who were wounded and grace to the doctors who were operating on people in critical condition, and that somehow the Lord's name would be honored in all of this," Meredith said.

Having been in a similar situation, Meredith had some advice for how people in the local community and around the nation might respond to the tragedies.

"Resist the urge to have words of wisdom to make sense out of it all. That's one thing, because platitudes do more harm than good," he said. "Just pray for them and encourage them and write a letter or note or an e-mail or something, some kind of response just to tell them you're praying for them.

"When the tragedy happened to us eight years ago, we got over 20,000 cards and letters and 13,000 e-mails. What we did for a month afterwards, we wallpapered our hallways with these cards and letters. When we walked in, we felt the presence and the prayers of the body of Christ around the world," Meredith said.

Poopsmith Song

We know you don't come to PlanetWisdom looking for songs about poop. (At least, we hope you don't.) But as longtime fans of (the alternative folk/rock band/couple with a special appeal to, among others, artsy Christians) Over the Rhine, we wanted to point out that their out-of-the-norm kid's song is available for a free listen (along with nine others) over at NPR Music's official "Top 10 Kids' CDs of 2007" page. (You've got to scroll down to the album called For the Kids and click on the play button.)

Warning 1: This is a funny song about potty training that will remain in your head for the rest of your life and especially for the next three weeks. It's even funnier/more obnoxious if you happen to know any tykes in the midst of acquiring this difficult skill.

Warning 2: Over the Rhine makes all kinds of cool music and none of the rest of it has anything to do with poop. You can sample their mellow/heartfelt sounds (including two cool Christmas CDs) on their web site.

Prince Caspian Trailer

We're hoping to have our review of The Golden Compass available by late in the day on Friday. In the meantime, check out this very cool new trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (coming next May).

I liked the first film well enough, but I didn't feel all that passionate about it and the coming sequels. This trailer does its job, though. I'm now officially pumped for Caspian.

Foolish Digital Friends

Here's a bit of wise teaching about digital friends from an interview of C.J. Mahaney on biblical manhood (read to the whole thing over at The Shepherd's Scrapbook):

I would also say to that young man, when Proverbs says “the companion of fools will suffer harm,” you will not prove to be an exception to that (Proverbs 13:20). A wise son, a wise man, hangs out with wise men and therefore becomes wise. Proverbs warns us (as an expression of God’s kindness), “the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Now that harm is not always immediately obvious to a fool because often that harm begins in the form of a conscience that goes from sensitive to seared. So that harm isn’t always evident in consequences that are obvious to all. But be assured, the companion of fools will suffer harm.

And . . . we must understand that this category of “companion” is broader than just . . . individuals. Television is a companion. The Internet is a companion. The iPod is a companion. These are all means of transferring foolishness to one’s heart. . . .

It's a good question for all of us who live online and plugged-in. How much of our time do we spend in the company of entertaining fools? How much harm are we willing to endure to keep it up?

Visuwords

Very cool site for all you word geeks out there -- or even those who just have a paper due in a writing class. Visuwords calls itself an "online graphical dictionary." Type in any word and see how that word relates to dozens of other words via a color- and shape-coded graph. Then hover over any word on the page for a quick definition.

Fun and edumacational!