Lord Our Savior By Dave Earley: An Analysis

Jesus' death was an act of love that represents his final testimony to his trust in the faithful and loving God he proclaimed as his father.

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and enlarge his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. He wanted to understand what changed her like this. He wanted to relate with his wife so he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel began his journey and interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament. Strobel splits the case for Christ into three basic sections: Examining the Record, Analyzing Jesus, and Researching the Resurrection.

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and expand his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once declared atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. To relate with his wife he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament.

On this very debatable topic the common question that is commonly asked is “How can the two objective claims (1. Evil exists. / 2. God exists.) Both are true in the same universe?” First I’d like to talk to you about a philosopher by the name of Augustine who was born in 354 AD. Augustine offers two solutions to this intriguing question. The two solutions are that there is an all-powerful God and there is such thing as “free will”. Free will is simply just the willingness to make a decision by yourself without help or influence from anyone but your self-using your own logic or self-conscious. Augustine believes that God is all knowing and all powerful and that evil still exists only because

In this text, Hungry for Worship, authors Frank Page and L. Gray write about the hunger for worshipping God that all leaders should possess. In chapter 1, both authors begin the text with the concept of how the body has fallen in love with the method of worship and not the actual act of being in the Presence of God. They

Why do bad things happen to good people? If we have a God that is all powerful and has the ability to affect the world for the better, why does he allow evil to exist? This problem has been termed Theodicy. People for centuries have been trying to answer this question or at least to justify to existence of God when evil is allowed to prosper. A person could say that if God cannot remove the evil, then he is not omnipotent. You could also say that if God could remove the evil, but chooses not to, then he is not all good. Maybe God can remove the evil; however, he allows mankind to have free will in making the choice whether to do good or not. This may help to understand why people are allowed to do bad things, but

“When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer.”

Evil is the privation of goodness; in other words, evil is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good. There are forces of good and evil constantly working against each other in this world. Although it may seem as if evil has won sometimes, good will always prevail in the end. In Genesis 1-2, we can read that God created all things and called them “good.” Evil, or sin, is inescapable for humanity. We were born with a sin nature, and God loves us and has given everyone a chance for redemption anyways. God has and always will conquer sin in the end, but for now, it is our choice to side with either evil or good. God created us in his image, but he does not want to hold absolute control over us. Part of his promise to us is our power of free will. Of course, God only wants what is best for his children, but he cannot live our lives for us. Just like an earthly mother or father loves their child with all their heart and only wants the best for them all their lives. But, there always comes a day when they must let their child go and experience life on their own and make their own decisions. And that is exactly what God has done for us; he has let us go, only in hopes that we will make the right decisions and return to him. God’s love for us is unconditional and unwavering, no matter what we may do to disappoint and betray him.

Throughout my grief, I realized God will move heaven and earth so we can grow and become more like Him. In times of affliction, humans contemplate why God allows bad things to happen. I doubted God’s ability to bring good into my hopeless situation until God showed me His healing hands at work in my life. I have never lost someone close to me until October 20, 2015 when a tragic car accident killed my good friend, Noah Whitaker. Less than three months later, my grandmother suffered a heart attack and entered paradise. As I sat outside my grandma’s viewing, I let a breath of air go from my mouth onto the window and saw a fog appear. A few second later, the fog slowly dispersed until I saw clearly again. The foggy image we have of how God works becomes clear to us when we put our trust in Him. Although our trials in life may be difficult to understand, I have learned that God will transform pain into purpose.

There are eight reasons that are often used to explain how both God and evil can coexist and that defend the rational belief in God. First, the argument is that God is not responsible for evil as He is not technically a person and for this reason cannot carry the blame for evil (Creel, 2013, p.154). The next two ignore the problem of evil, the first saying that evil is merely an illusion, it is simply the absence of goodness, just as darkness is the absence of light (Creel, 2013, p.155;

God, according to definition is an (omnipotent) all-powerful, (omniscient) all-knowing and (omnibenevolent) all-loving creator. The Problem of Evil is one of the major arguments against the existence of such a God. It has the following structure (Chapman, 2015):

The idea of moral evil is that in a negative event, a person is always be held accountable for whatever happen. The action of evil is always intentional which creates speculation against God's morality, questioning if god is really omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. If God truly knew all, why doesn't he prevent all the disastrous things that go on in the world every single day? God should be able to prevent the worst sin imaginable since he is all knowing, all powerful and all loving. For example, murder is a severe sin, and is even stated in the Ten Commandments given by God, that one shall not murder. If God is all knowing, then he should be able to identify a murder before anything happens. As all knowing as God is portrayed, he should be able stop the traumatic event. Lastly, God is all loving so he wouldn't want this happen upon anyone. All aspects of god being characterized

In today’s world it seems the capacity for those that carry out evil deeds is growing every day. If there is a God in the world, why does evil continue to exist? “Either God cannot abolish evil or he will not; if he cannot, then he is not all powerful; if he will not, then he is not all good.” (McCloskey, 1962) McCloskey goes on to say that if theists believe in an omnipotent God they must also explain the presence of evil. If God is powerful why does evil continue to take place? Why do people continue to suffer? This would mean that God is either imperfect or he is not powerful at all. (p. 187)

In the religious world, Christians believe that the God they serve is a good God. If the God that Christians serve is such a good God, All knowing and all powerful, and if the God Christians serve only wants the best for human kind then why is there evil? How do parents lose their life leaving their young children alone? Why do babies and children die of leukemia? How is there so much hate, violence, and evil in the World? Evil is defined as wickedness, and depravity, especially when regarded as a supernatural force. Good, however, is defined as having the qualities required for a particular role or a desired approval of righteousness. If God is all Good, and the creator of all things why does evil exist?

Understanding the meaning of human pain and suffering is one of the most complex challenges of the Christian faith. Indeed, we can ask ourselves, If God is love, and almighty why does he allow pain in the world? Why does not He eliminate suffering, making all His creatures happy? Suffering is a theme that has accompanied man throughout history. Since the