DEFEATING THE DEFEATER. Session V, Reason for Hope Team Spain, Feb 2016 Pastor Chris Brauns /

Transcription

1 DEFEATING THE DEFEATER Session V, Reason for Hope Team Spain, Feb 2016 Pastor Chris Brauns /

2 REVIEW 1. There is reason for hope, so reason for hope. The right question is not, Do you realize how bad things are? Rather, Do you realize how hopeful things are? 2. The anthropocentric turn which began with the Enlightenment laid the seeds for Christianity to become unbelievable in the West. 3. In particular, the defeater belief of expressive individualism makes it hard to share basic terms of the gospel message including original sin and union with Christ. We need to creatively strategy about how to share the gospel. 4. The expressive individualism of our late modern moment cannot be countered with facts. Instead, we need to counter with community. God makes bricks with a building in mind.

3 NOVEMBER 1, 1755 WHAT? WHY SO DIFFERENT?

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5 NOVEMBER 1, 1755 WHAT? WHY SO DIFFERENT? The Enlightenment - Leibniz and theodicy - The Lisbon Earthquake - Voltaire responds -

6 I CAN T CONCEIVE THAT WHAT IS, OUGHT TO BE... ALL NOW IS WELL; TIS AN ILLUSION VAIN. VOLTAIRE

7 The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defence for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock. C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

8 IDENTIFYING THE DEFEATER Our late modern moment presumes that we can have exhaustive understanding of all the ways of the universe. Once this premise is accepted, it becomes very difficult to consider orthodox Christianity.

9 DEFINING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL / SUFFERING The problem of evil is the question that asks, How it can be simultaneously true that: 1.God is all-powerful 2.God is good 3.Evil exists The problem of evil presents both an emotional (how can this be?) and an intellectual (how can I understand it?) problem.

10 The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith. John R.W. Stott

11 Strictly speaking, human misery, or the larger sum of evil in all its forms, is a problem only for the person who believes in one God who is all-powerful and all-loving. Frances Anderson

12 We cannot, and we must not, soften the blow; we cannot and we must not pretend that evil is not all that bad after all. That is the way back to cheap modernism. N.T. Wright

13 SO WHAT IS THE STRATEGY? FIRST: Avoid simplistic answers. Ask the other party to concede the premise of universal good and evil. There are instances in which something is always wrong. Establish that love is real.

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15 SO WHAT IS THE STRATEGY? SECOND, DEVELOP 4 STRANDS: 1.Life is inscrutable. (Consider, for instance, Big Bang or Chaos Theory). Debt 29:29 2.God can be trusted because he gave his only begotten Son. 3.Through faith, we can be part of God s family. 4.The resurrection means evil can become untrue.

16 A god small enough to be comprehensively understood is not big enough to be worshipped. Evelyn Underhill

17 The problem of evil, as lived rather than as thought, is a problem in a story, in time, and Scripture s one-word answer to the problem is wait. Peter Kreeft

18 One day, John knew, Heaven would come down and mend God s broken world and make it our true, perfect home once again. And he knew, in some mysterious way that would be hard to explain, that everything was going to be more wonderful for once having been so sad. And he knew then that the ending of The Story was going to be so great, it would make all the sadness and tears and everything seem like just a shadow that is chased away by the morning sun. I m on my way, said Jesus. I ll be there soon! Sally Lloyd-Jones