God, Gethsemane and Grace: How can God allow Suffering?

Again as part of our Uncover apologetics series, I looked at the issue of God and suffering on Sunday (my previous in the series was on the historicity of the gospels). For many, this really is the big one today. Belief in the divine seems palpably absurd in a suffering, chaotic, apparently uncontrollable world of forces, reactions and atoms.

However, it’s not quite as simple as that. I deliberately avoided some of the traditional apologetic angles, not least because they don’t really help people going through the midst of it. Instead, the focus was on Christ and his suffering in Gethsemane to the Passion. Hope it’s of use to some at least.

You can download the talk here

Following up

Here are some of the most helpful books I’ve come across over the years on this subject. Not an exhaustive list, nor are they all trying to do identical things. Each should be fairly self-explanatory though once you check out their details.

I’m half way through Keller’s new book on it – great so far, though more in-depth than many will be used to from his previous books, perhaps.

Here are the slides

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Here is a transcript of the talk

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