Free Will and The Problem of Evil 👿 Ask NT Wright Anything Podcast

Comments · 225

• PE

  @pearly2131 · 1 year ago

  Justin is a great facilitator 👍🏽👍🏽

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• NI

  @nickrhodes9031 · 1 year ago

  We do indeed need to be more savvy about our histories, both I and Mr. Wright come from a country that used to burn heretics.

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• DI

  @Dionysus3883 · 1 year ago

  It’s incredible how much ego influences the mental gymnastics that people go through trying to reconcile a concept like free will.

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• G4

  @g4p5l6 · 1 year ago

  Thanks for posting.

• RE

  @renebuesa554 · 1 year ago

  Understand that it's a fool's quest to make yourself travel far and wide only to do and to have what can be accomplished close to home. Likewise, you can count on always being lead a stray and come to learn nothing of truthful meaning by listening to contrived and delusional notions while the simple truth that protects is plain to the eyes. In this life some of the best lessons we can learn from are at our very feet. Often times, the more we do things the less we come to realize its whole significance. The seemingly simple chore of walking we do every day belies the early lessons we had to realize when learning how to walk. We can't ever forget that the most significant part of learning to walk is the first-step. We had to learn that if you get the first-step wrong the second-step is to fall down. Every walk begins with the first-step but if you get it wrong the next step in your trip will always be to fall down. Mr. Wright would offer the comment, "if we believe that God is the good and wise creator then evil doesn't make sense.......The danger then is if we as clever theologians or philosophers think we can make sense then we're saying that actually God created a world within which, yeah, there's a place for evil.......which is actually a very dark conclusion to reach." NT Wright would also state, "there is something then about the freedom of God and the freedom which God gives to creation, um, which remains a mystery." This life and the life we all live is not a life of absolutes but rather everything about us bears witness to the creator's paring that unites. There's no such thing as absolute free-will but instead our God given free-will is always paired with the witnessing-of-the-spirit. Free-will and the witnessing-of-the-spirit come in pairs and you can't have one without the other. If the lessons of history teach us anything about free-will is that unchecked free-will is only good for a season. Unchecked free-will is no different than a ship without a rotter. A ship without a rotter doesn't go anywhere but instead it remains in the same place until it gains its rotter. Our God given free-will is no different than a ship without a rotter. Motivation is the rotter to our free-will and in life the spirit will witness us choosing to be motivated by doing what we want or witness us choosing to be motivated by doing what is best. The question was asked, "Tom, many Christians like to use the Bible as a moral guide book and extrapolate from that what their fellow citizens must live by and the debate tends to circle around what good biblical politics looks like, personal moralism on the one side, and corporate moralism on the other, but can Christians really take the scripture and use them to tell the rest of the country what laws they must live under, does this get too close to a theocracy?" In his reply, Mr. Wright said ".......the God who is the father of Jesus Christ, who says I love you so much I'm giving my son to die for you, I love you so much I'm putting my spirit within you so that you can be genuine humans." The only difference between human beings and all of the creatures that exist on this earth is the one fact that our God given free-will always comes united with the witnessing-of-the-spirit. Thus the exercising of our free-will will have to be motivated by either the same impulses that motivates all of the lesser creatures on this earth or be motivated by the higher purpose that makes us genuine human beings. In order for the society-of-men to succeed, now and forever, we have to always assure that the first step we take is supported and balanced by the strength of knowledge and wisdom handed down to us so that the second step isn't one that leads you to fall down and remain in one place, but instead carries you along with peace and safety the full length of your travel. ReneB, Florida.

• TE

  @tedclemens4093 · 1 year ago (edited)

  We might consider evil in context to the love God and love your neighbor commandments. Unlike the other regulations of law, love—if it&apos;s to be sincere at all—can&apos;t be simply commanded. So a Creator God would defeat enemies, heal disability, raise the dead and command nature—and did—with many genuinely loving him with &quot;all their mind, soul and strength&quot; as a result.<br><br>What God could not do by the same authority is make us love our neighbor—at least not without undoing the integrity of his intended image and likeness. The command to &quot;love your neighbor as yourself&quot; would need to be handled in a totally different way.

• RA

  @radupavel5481 · 2 months ago

  People confuse freedom with power. We have freedom to choose between offered choices. But we don&apos;t get to create our own choices. All the way down to choosing to be born. What people want is power not freedom. They want to create their own choices. Down to what they are.. Even though they did not create themselves

• RA

  @radupavel5481 · 2 months ago

  Also ephesians

• CO

  @CovidIslandDiscs · 1 year ago (edited)

  I wonder if the answer to why the problem of evil did not trouble pre-enlightenment people is that they believed in a young earth that was created completely good (no carnivores, no earthquakes etc) &nbsp;that subsequently fell. <br><br>Once you accept that life from its beginning was locked into a titanic struggle for survival, and that drives the development of life itself, then the problem of evil becomes a lot more philosophically demanding because it now seems suffering is a tool used by God to create life.

• TM

  @tmcb2000 · 1 year ago

  The problem of evil and free will may just be one for believers in ancient texts to worry over but it doesn&apos;t reference to an offended god or indeed any notion of a &apos;creator&apos;. &nbsp; Evil committed by one person on another can simply be condemned because it is antisocial.

• HO

  @HoldUpLetHimCook22 · 1 year ago

  Every time I hear about suffering, I point to the cross. Christ obeyed in the MIDST of suffering and gave it purpose. Either it edifies us or frustrates us

• BO

  @borealopelta7284 · 1 year ago

  What does NT wright believe about the Eucharist?