5 GOOD REASONS GOOD REASONS

“COME NOW, AND LET US REASON TOGETHER,” SAYS THE LORD. ISAIAH 1:18

5 GOOD ANSWERS

TO THE QUESTION OF SUFFERING

REASON #1 GOD IS LOVE

` If reality is fundamentally physical, then the primary force binding it together is electromagnetic. If, however, reality is fundamentally social, then the most powerful constituting force is that which binds persons together, namely, love. MILLARD J. ERICKSON, THEOLOGIAN, AUTHOR

CREATION CONFLICT COVENANT

“The world looks like a war zone because it is one.”

THE BIBLE OPENS WITH ACCUSATION (GENESIS) AND CLOSES WITH THE SILENCING OF THAT ACCUSATION (REVELATION)

` And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. REVELATION 12:7-9

` So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. REVELATION 12:7-9

` This disclosure explains why the antagonist in the conflict cannot be brought to heel by force. The deceiver must be unmasked. SIGVE TONSTAD, SAVING GOD’S REPUTATION

` When the slaughtered lamb is seen “in the midst of” the divine throne in heaven (Rev 5:6), the meaning is that Christ’s sacrificial death belongs to the way God rules the world.” RICHARD BAUCKHAM, THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION

HOW IS THE ACCUSER CAST DOWN? BY WHAT MEANS IS THE ACCUSATION SILENCED?

KILLING A PERSON IS MUCH EASIER THAN KILLING AN IDEA

SO GOD COMMITS HIMSELF TO THE PAIN AND THE PROCESS

“This overwhelming display of love and mercy is not merely the greatest story ever told; it is the greatest story that could be told.”

REASON #2 LOVE REQUIRES FREEDOM

WE TAKE FOR GRANTED individuality freedom love risk meaning

“LOVE, WHETHER HUMAN OR DIVINE, ASSUMES FREEDOM.” —JOHN C. PECKHAM, THE LOVE OF GOD

“LOVE IS BY DEFINITION FREE” —VINCENT BRUMMER, MODEL OF LOVE

REASON #3 FREEDOM INVOLVES RISK

` The necessary condition of freedom bestowed by the love of God, therefore, is the possibility of our rejecting him. DAVID FERGUSSON, WILL THE LOVE OF GOD FINALLY TRIUMPH?

` Love is “something contingent upon God’s willing to enter into such a relationship in the first place, to place himself under certain relational constraints, to be limited in his freedom by the existence of a genuinely free other.” TREVOR HART, HOW DO WE DEFINE THE NATURE OF GODS LOVE?

REASON #4 RISK ENTAILS RESPONSIBILITY

` But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. LUKE 7:30

OPTIONS AVAILABLE make nothing make beings that are not free make free beings which cannot rebel make free beings

OPTIONS AVAILABLE make nothing make beings that are not free make free beings which cannot rebel make free beings

REASON #5 RESPONSIBILITY ENABLES MORAL GROWTH

IF WE ARE NOT FACED WITH MORALLY SIGNIFICANT CHOICES, WE CAN NEVER GROW MORALLY

` Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, JOSHUA 24:15

` or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” JOSHUA 24:15

` What you need to understand is the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision, or of choice. Everything depends on the right action of the will. The power of choice God ELLEN WHITE, STEPS TO CHRIST, 47

` has given to men; it is theirs to exercise. You cannot change your heart, you cannot of yourself give to God its affections; but you can choose to serve Him. You can give Him your will; He will then work in you to will and to do ELLEN WHITE, STEPS TO CHRIST, 47

` according to His good pleasure. Thus your whole nature will be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ; your affections will be centered upon Him, your thoughts will be in harmony with Him. ELLEN WHITE, STEPS TO CHRIST, 47

WE MAKE OUR DECISIONS, AND THEN OUR DECISIONS MAKE US

` Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. CS LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY

` And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature. CS LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY

` For better or worse, we irreversibly become the decisions we make... Self- determining freedom is about what morally responsible contingent beings choose to do on their way to deciding what they are going to permanently be. GREGORY BOYD, SATAN AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

` But an optimally perfect moral world should contain four components: [1]the process leading to the final achievement of a world where humans are free but never will do any evil; NORMAN GEISLER, PHILOSOPHER

` [2]a world wherein is permitted the full and final uncoerced exercise of moral freedom; NORMAN GEISLER, PHILOSOPHER

` [3]a world in which there is permitted the presence of enough evil to provide both the condition for the achievement of higher moral virtues and a comprehensive lesson of the wrongness of evil for free creatures; NORMAN GEISLER, PHILOSOPHER

` [4]a world where free creatures learn for themselves why evil is wrong. NORMAN GEISLER, PHILOSOPHER

REASON #1 GOD IS LOVE

REASON #2 LOVE REQUIRES FREEDOM

REASON #3 FREEDOM INVOLVES RISK

REASON #4 RISK ENTAILS RESPONSIBILITY

REASON #5 RESPONSIBILITY ENABLES MORAL GROWTH

5 GOOD REASONS GOOD REASONS