I have just finished reading God’s Problem by Bart D. Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His earlier book, Misquoting Jesus, made the New York Times bestseller list. A former fundamentalist, Ehrman graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, did graduate work at Wheaton College (Billy Graham’s alma mater), and obtained a doctorate at Princeton Theological Seminary. Slowly over the years, he lost his faith in Christianity. His new book explains why. It is the latest in a surprising spate of books defending atheism. The book’s subtitle is How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer.
If we lacked free will, Gilbert Chesterton liked to say, there is no point in thanking someone for passing the mustard.
Like all writers on the topic (theist, atheist, or pantheist), Ehrman distinguishes two main aspects of the so-called “problem of evil”: 1) Evils caused by human behavior. A demented man fires an automatic into a crowd. The lives of those killed are as irrationally ended as if they had been killed by an earthquake. Hitler murders millions of Jews. Stalin murders even more without regard for race, color, or creed. 2) Evils caused by nature.
Christian theologians, going back to St. Augustine and earlier, have reasoned that God is unwilling to prevent such crimes by withholding his gift of free will. If we lacked free will, Gilbert Chesterton liked to say, there is no
