One of my consuming intellectual and existential interests is theodicy. It is a fancy term that basically means, “the problem of evil.” When I was a young man and studying philosophy and already reading the greatest books, almost always they dealt to some degree with this issue: Why suffering? Why so much of it? Is it deserved? Is it random? Is it directed and/or resultant? Is it rooted in an extrinsic standard? If so, what is that standard? And by whom is it standardized? Is there a standard to which that standard is appealed? Is there, in short, a transcendent, unchanging, good standard by which good and evil are defined and to be understood?

Or is it just randomness? Unguided billiard balls bumping into one another, but somehow sensing that that they matter?

Who arbitrates?

Are goodness and evil, like Dostoyevsky’s great intellectual said, explainable if and when the Ultimate Transcendent is absent? In short, that’s the issue. What if the Ultimate Transcendent is not absent, but something else?

But here’s the rub: The Ultimate Transcendent is not absent. He is merely suppressed. The issue is explored in Romans 1:18-19 this way:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:18-19, ESV)

This week I completed a read-through of another excellent book on this topic. In it, the author reached a similar conclusion as Paul in the 1st century A.D., when he (Paul) wrote to a body of Christians enduring persecution by wicked structures of power. Not much, I might argue, has changed.

More is to follow, but if interested, I welcome you, as I address this theme we all face. Regardless of our status, wealth, penury, popularity or lack thereof, importance or dismissability, we all wrestle with it: What about human suffering? How should we understand it? Why its prevalence? Whence its origin? How should we, then, live? If interested, welcome. More to come.