The Problem of Evil with Dr. Josh Rasmussen 

One of the most helpful discussions on the topic of the problem of evil I have ever come across. Thanks much!

I found Josh on capturing Christianity’s RU-vid channel, he’s a great guy

My love for Josh is incomprehensible.

That was an extremely moving story about God's providence amid Josh's suffering.

The conversation was a blessing! I appreciate the openness as I lost a son to COVID this past year. To tell you the truth I walked away in pain but I know the purpose behind it and know that I would not have changed otherwise. As a licensed clinical social worker I have come to appreciate the power of life as a story being written that somehow God has written the outline and we are left to live out the detail. For me, that final, hidden chapter, is left to be experienced. Again, thanks for the discussion! Especially for such a weighty topic. BTW, I appreciate the depth of his ending thoughts on forgiven much…loving much. Let us not squander these lessons!

Oh, I’m so excited to listen to this conversation.

Looking forward to listening to this Gavin. The problem of Evil is something that any Christian will inevitably deal with given even the smallest amount of introspection. I’ve dealt with chronic illness all my life, and the problem of “why does God allow this evil/suffering to rule my life” is something that always tinges my prayer and scripture reading. As a Calvinist, how do you answer the accusation that a sovereign God must allow for or will some to suffer, when scripture shows us that God doesn’t bring suffering? “For He [God] does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” Lamentations 3:33 That doesn’t seem to imply a God who is sovereign over all wills, since suffering does manage to make it into the world. Is there a way to mesh a verse like this with the rigidity of Reformed Systematics? I’ve talked to some of my Presbyterian friend about this, and aside from some vague answers about compatiblism they’ve not been able to deal with it. Apologies if you answered this in the video, as I’ve not been able to watch it just yet. God bless, and thank you for all the work that you do for us.

Wise words to weep with those who weep!

I can listen to Dr Josh Rasmussen all day.

Awesome discussion! Thanks for sharing.

Such a great interview! I really like Josh’s work and have followed him for some time now. Thank you for bringing about this conversation!

Thanks for the great video. What I loved the most about it was learning how many philosophers agree with me.

Loved this whole conversation but I will never forget the quote, "What makes it bad for me to rip your face apart is that your face is so beautiful." That makes me laugh soooooooo much! 😄

I love his TV analogy - brilliant!

Alistair Begg made a great observation on stories today in ecclesiastes, he said we rarely remember or get any meaningful lasting experience from a comedy, but a tragedy may affect you for a life time, and he cites Spurgeon who said the lasting benefits of the pleasantries of his life could fit on a penny, but the tragedies were life building, GREAT ENDING GUYS, LOVED THE DISCUSSION.

Wish this channel was on apple podcast.

Amazing discussion. Great treatment for the mind and heart. Thank you!

Please bring Josh back on to talk about animal suffering!

I would ask my pastor what can I do? When someone was suffering. He would always say invite them to lunch or take a meal to their home. He never have me a Bible verse. It worked.

For the longest time I thought Dr. Josh Rasmussen was inspiring philosophy...

Pleeeeeease read (or watch on RU-vid) Bernardo Kastrup's work on Idealism (nonduality)... you mentioned Kastrup's name in your talk here, but, wow, if you ONLY sincerely understood his well-reasoned conclusions on the nature of Reality.--> so, so beautiful!

It always seemed so ad hoc, the new theodecies just make it more ad hoc "i created you to suffer a few seconds, and then die" i call it 'soulbuilding'" or "for the greater god" The only use for theodecies is to see your own blindspots. I think reading pessimist philosophers would solve these blindspots, but people aren't willing to go there. Especially the whole 'evils is the deprevation of good', it can be easily reversed "the suffering of hunger is the base state, fullness is mere 'goodness'"

My response to the problem of evil is the problem of goodness: "if God does not exist, why do good things happen?"

Though YHVHJESUS slay me yet will I trust in him for I shall see him in my flesh on the day of answers, BUT I KNOW THE CROSS.

At 29:46 I love Josh's answer. Another answer that I give to this objection is that a world in which God provides atonement for evil is a better world where he does not. The best possible world includes God offering himself to die for humanity to save them from evil, and that would be impossible in a world with no evil. Just a thought along similar lines as Josh's answer.

The problem of evil is very convincing for me. The amount and intensity of pain and suffering far surpasses the amount and intensity of good. So the greater good can only make sense if there is an eternal life. The big problem is that the suffering is so vivid and manifest, while the prospect for eternal life so fragile and unobvious and full of questions, so it's no wonder that people lose their faith in the face of great, seemingly pointless suffering. So I don't think that the suffering as a faith-test is fair...

While I loved this discussion, I was a bit concerned about Dr. Josh talking briefly about possible soul contracts prior to life. I am FRESH out of the new age and trying to ground my Christian faith, but soul contracts and the belief that we choose our life ahead of time and this is ultimately why it is free will on earth is a pretty solid new age teaching. Can that be a christian teaching too?

My question is why didn’t “you” go help those birds yourself? In similar situations I have taken the time to help a prey animal against a predator.

The smile that comes across these 2 christians when they are imagining the answers to be "Story theodicy " and character building and Joshs callous explainations about the souls having agreed to this character building shows one the true nature of Christianity. this makes evident the "Calvinsitic mindset that most christians hold in their heads. These "typical" Christians beleive that they are the heroes of the story of existence and as long as they find their heroic end why should they even care about he gross evil that Jesus does every single day. Kinda sums up the entity that is christianity in a nut shell.

In the Garden of Eden is 1) a snake 2) a serpent (lion-headed) Also, consciousness can be expressed mathematically using Hamilton's 4D quaternion algebra UPDATED from Newton's 1D-4D nonsense to Leibniz's 0D-3D. Cheers.

I have no experience with losing a child but in my view, If God wanted to take a life for any reason is not evil. Even if it was through someone murdering them. That person never actually dies. Especially an innocent child. My understand to evil is simply that our life is but a vapor and this life is the shortest thing we will ever do. So there really is not much suffering in God's eyes. Because whatever God does is Justified and is perfect so there's no arguing it

The whole "relationship building" as a solution to PoE doesn't really hold water for me. Things like two guys working on a car together develops relationships. It doesn't seem like evil is necessary for that.

I wonder what Rasmussen thinks of Bruce Russell’s paper “the problem of evil and replies to some important responses”. The argument from excessive unnecessary suffering seems to be the strongest PoE I’ve run across.

How does this have to deal with evil?

So your saying some people don't believe we are conscious??

Intelligence implies a fundamental goodness." How so?

I was thinking of the Story Theodicy yesterday...except I had no idea that was already an existant idea. I thought "we don't consider authors immoral for subjecting their characters to suffering...if so, why do we blame God?" Oops, turns out someone already thought of that before! 😂

Philosophizing is beneficial, and I understand that the discussion was framed from the perspective of philosophy of religion, but these men were talking about the God that exists. Thus, I'm disappointed that neither of these men referenced Scripture to speak into the problem of evil and suffering. Philosophy and theology must flow from a consistent understanding of Scripture.

I would recommend everyone interested in the topic read 'Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil' by Brian Davies.

I'm an open theist, so I don't think God could guarantee that everyone is always in a situation where they would always choose rightly.

My favorite movie in example is A KNIGHTS TALE, with Heath Ledger, in the scene where Jocelyn says "if you want to prove your love you will lose" and compare this to the black knight who even cheats to win, and when he loses they all quote the writing on the wall "you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting " . I think that is what YHVHJESUS wrote in the sand on the temple mount with his finger when the woman caught in adultery was brought to him, MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN. Fits well with, whoever is without sin (and it's the temple mount).

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I like the idea of the story theodicy and agree no one answer is going to cover everything.. Two arguments I don't often hear drawn out is the evolutionary argument for natural suffering - if God were to biodiversify life from single called organisms it will require recycling of organic material, balances in nature, and evolutionary pressures. If this is how biodiversity came about, could he not have done otherwise? Certainly we could posit he could, but he also saw this as a world in which he also knew we his image bearers would use our will to fall, and would become subject to these same forces we might have avoided had we not fallen. And the second is that in a world where God does not permit the fall of mankind from happening, he would neither display and exercise his righteous justice against sin nor show the depths of love in dying a brutal death for sinners and transforming them into sons of God.

Yes, sometimes you are like, what the heck God? You do everything right and something evil and painful happens. You just don’t understand how it could have happened when you given all your faith and hope to him. Why? I know evil always comes in if someone opens a door to evil. But you still wish that our Lord could have given you some kind of protection or intuition for what’s coming at you. We wish we have some explanation for these kind of situations.

What's most amazing about all of this is that people literally make things up and, with a straight face, believe that what they just made up is some kind of a revelation from God. Why do some people clearly see this process of imagining things into existence for what they really are - a product of imagination , while others see it as discovering something tangible and real, completely unbothered by the fact how wildly different people's imaginations can be, and that them feeding their imagination to each other influences what they might imagine next???

I think the more important question to ask is the hypothesis that had Adam not sinned all mankind would have remained in paradise free of all forms of evil equipped with a free will that only desires to do what is righteous being beneficiaries of Adam's obedience without working for it, which is in contrast to the concept of the New Earth where only those who did the hard work based on their own individual merits would be rewarded with an eternal existence free of sin. Which leads to another question, why we can't all share in Jesus' redemption when the Scriptures tells us that Jesus is the next Adam who will undo what Adam did. If God can punish mankind collectively - as one unit sharing Adam's sin, why can't we share Jesus' salvation also as one unit. Would this verses offer some answers to the problem of evil and man as free agent: Isaiah 45:7 I am the Lord there is no other I form the light and create the darkness, I bring peace and create evil, I the Lord I do all these. Proverbs 16:4 The Lord made everything for it's own purpose even the wicked for the day of trouble. 1Samuel 18:9 Then an evil spirit from the Lord came to Saul.

@ 35, Joshs story about his 4 year old is a clear example that Josh doesnt feel shame when he makes up stories and starts lying to people. I have never seen a 4 year old having such deep philosophical concepts as "evil" before or maybe I am wrong but the chances of josh making up stuff is more probable than him having a genius 4 year old. People who are wacthing this video 'pay attention to the times that he looks away from the screen and the changes in the "quality of his tone" when he starts fabricating stuff.

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@ 56 min mark, these 2 religious guys finally agreed that Bible and quoting it is absolutely worthless at certain times in our existance and they finally understand that quoting the bible at the most important times could actually make people leave this cult altogether. This is actual progress, Christians realising that their holy book is limited in its capacity to be helpful to human beings brings tears to my eyes that these guys could place more value to humanbeings than their imaginary sky daddy and his holy book, I wish them well and hope in the future that they realise that their holy book is worthless in many other aspects of the lives of human beings and finally climb up from the ditch they have put themselves in.

My understanding of consciousness is in the TRINITY BUT NOT THE ORTHODOX VERSION, and the Bible gave me language for that as I grew in experience and understanding the Hebrew prophets, or God's, terminology, the "words" . And from childhood, this wrestling match with primarily old testament language centered on consciousness, to KNOW and be KNOWN by God. I think that I exist is a statement of pure knowledge (notice I use THAT rather than THEREFORE, it's a more relaxed nuance that doesn't reflect that I created myself through thinking. I don't see that Descartes intended that either. ) YET my knowledge of knowledge is imperfect, how do I know I know and am I wrong? FROM THERE I HAVE THE ARGUMENT FROM DOUBT, I CAN'T BE SELF CAUSED IF I DOUBT (contingency), THERE MUST BE A PREDICATE SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE OF EXISTENCE KNOWLEDGE IN A BEING WHICH HAS NO DOUBTS AND IS CORRECT NOT TO DOUBT HIS KNOWLEDGE (necessary). NOW, THE BEST I CAN DO IS INTROSPECTION AND ANALYSIS OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS, 1. I'M A BEING 2. I REASON 3. THE REASON CONSISTS OF A MOVEMENT, WIND, OF THOUGHTS WITH COHERENCE AND CONSISTENCY (ONTOS/Father, LOGOS/Son, PNEUMOS/Spirit, CORRESPONDING TO LOGIC IN IDENTITY A=A, SIMILARITYA=B, AND TRANSITIVITY, if A=B, and B=C, then A=C). Using that analogy, that would be all I have to work with because I can't actually relate to omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence (THESE MUST ALSO BE ONE, TO BE OMNISCIENT REQUIRES OMNIPRESENCE, AND OMNIPOTENCE REQUIRES BOTH A FOREGOING BECAUSE EACH FUNCTION RELIES ON THE OTHERS SIMULTANEOUSLY. You can't DO without being THERE, or KNOWING, therefore A KNOWING-BEING-DOING=I AM in the absolute). THEREFORE THE PREDICTION AND APPEARANCE OF MESSIAH PROVES the trinity that i am, is reflexive with THE TRINITY OF I AM, i.e. image of God. HOW CAN I KNOW HE ACTUALLY HAS HIS SOLE REASON FOR HIS OWN EXISTENCE WITHIN HIMSELF? THE RESURRECTION, if he were lying about his claim and be self existent he should have stayed dead but he didn't. AND THAT HE IDENTIFIED WITH HUMANITY DEMONSTRATES THAT PRIVELEDGED PLACE OF HUMANITY IN HIS SELF EXPRESSION, rather than angels, gods, animals, extraterrestrials or what have you, because the one who rose identifies himself SON OF MAN AS HE SITS ON HIS THRONE OF GOD, AND HE IS ETERNAL IN THAT SELF CONSCIOUSNESS (LOGOS ENTHRONED IN THE ONTOS SHARING HIMSELF IN US AS THE PNEUMOS) although we being limited in scope and knowledge see that revealed IN TIME, or the time-space continuum, THE YHVHJESUS MANIFOLD (see definition of mathematical manifold), the manifold wisdom of God. NOW YOU SHOULD KNOW ALL THE BIBLE VERSES I'VE PARAPHRASED.

Has Josh recently become an apostate? He seems full universalist or soft on the Trinity (not that ever heard him argue directly for the Christian God).

This day must be the most exposure Christians have ever had, ever. It is like a reverse silo.. or something. This is the ketchup. Whatever that means..

We not conscience of our birth in our mother's womb. And maybe same after death.

I'm not convinced of the argument from consciousness to God. How does a conscious being arise from the unconscious sperm and egg from which conscious beings begin life's development? Is the egg.. conscious? Since conscious beings arise from unconscious material (Sperm and egg to wit) ..well..that seems a real problem for the argument

Gavin seems puzzled by much of this. It is obvious that he wants to return to the question of natural evil. So do I.

I'm conflicted on some of Josh's stances. For example, he says it may be that reality itself has a kind of intelligence about it. While I could see someone saying God, who is the creator of reality has an intelligence behind him as a mind, that is not what Josh is saying IIRC. To me, that seems problematic and I think this stems from Josh being an ardent Idealist and it may be a natural consequence of that. I did find it interesting that you (Gavin) said you see things much the same way as Josh. That is interesting because I really respect you, Gavin, and I would add some caution to dismissing what Gavin says outright because I have far too much respect for him in that regard. There was also a lot of talk about Free Will. Notable is that Josh seems to be on the heavy side of Free Will even bringing up some forms of Open Theism. Gavin would NOT consider himself an Open Theist in any regard IIRC. Gavin is a compatibilist, I think. I fall in this same line of thinking. Gaven never really "disagreed" with Josh, which I think was intentional. Questions of Free Will and Idealism aside, it was a great conversation.

If we're honest..dont we have to say this discussion didn't really give us an answer to the problem of evil?

Dr. Ortlund, your comments about The Brother's Karamazov and the conclusions you came to in your own loss reminded me of this brilliant bit of a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Stephen Fry (Just 5 minutes)ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fFFSKedy9f4.html

Let's just say we don't really know. Some of this sounds like guess work

God never condescended to let men know why he permits evil. THAT is what theists must contend with

Jesus never debated he done signs to convince them.

Joshua talks about a great story but a story is only good for people watching it. The story with suffering isn't good for the characters. Cosmic skeptic addressed this objection in his debates. Its always easy to talk about suffering from the external ivory tower.

WHAT GOD DOES WITH OTHERS OR ANIMALS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, HE HAS THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN HIS PERSON AND CREATION, but you must respect what he has done and revealed and commanded in YHVHJESUS.

I thought God willed and determined all evil to exist. He's the author of it according to my local calvinist church.

Yeah 30 minutes in and I'm totally lost. Is this guy a Calvinist or not? Where did sin initially come from? How is it possible for a created being (Adam/Eve or the Satan) choose something sinful?

Calvinists are great at inventing problems that don't really exist. No other Christian would even think of assigning creation of evil to God, because it's obvious to us God doesn't want evil, neither did he plan it, or even think it - this is what the Bible tells us. Saying it's God "sovereign will" that sin, death or evil existed is borderline blasphemy. The real answer is childishly easy. Evil exists because of our own, creaturly choices that we take against the desires of God, and the reason we even can make them in the first place is true, actual, libertarian free will. Without it, we're machines. Less then machines even - dolls in God's cosmic dollhouse. This is obviously absurd - we are God's adopted children, so obviously he wants us to have free choice to love him or reject him - trinitarian God is a God that pre-exists in actual relationship. It's only logical he'd want to have genuine relationship with the heir of his kingdom, his children, us.

THE GREATER GOOD, if God created vessels fit for destruction so that you can know the value you have through trust in the grace shown to you in YHVHJESUS, who do you really think you are to argue? IF GOD WERE NOT GOOD THERE WOULD BE NO CROSS, YHVH DID NOT INTEND FOR YOU TO HAVE THE LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD EXCEPT IN THE FACE OF YHVHJESUS THE MESSIAH.

27:40 thats molinism *

Soooo platonic with the etching into souls & soul building 👎🏽

With all respect, you are spinning your wheels if you're assuming a dualistic framework of reality... I hope you would investigate NONDUALISM... Nondualist philosophy 100% solves the mind/body problem. All beings/the universe are INSIDE of Consciousness. Consciousness is Primal. So, God (The One Mind of Consciousness) is all that "exists"... pure being. You mentioned Bernardo Kastrup--> he also believes in what some Eastern philosophies, such as Advaita Vedanta, have figured out millenia ago. Bernardo is a NONDUALIST. AND, it matches well with scientific experiments. Christianity, for example (as well as all Abrahamicreligions), is dualistc and, without a doubt, dualism is dead in the water----both scientifically and philosophically. Nondualism/Idealism is sooo beautiful. I encourage all to seriously look into it via Alan Watts or more recently, Bernardo Kastrup (or, Advaita vedants, etc). With nondualism, the problem of evil is nonexistent. All is "God"/One Mind, so there is ultimately ZERO good or evil in reality. All is in God/Consciousness. We beings are the masks God wears to play out the actors on the stage of reality. God is the only "doer"... no need for redemption. The only "free will" is "God's." No ultimate rewards/punishments for individual egos. We are eternal in/as Consciousness. Not our individual egos, but as Consciousness.

YOUR ANSWERS SHOULD BE PHILOSOPHY IN CHRIST, NOT SOME IDEA OF WHAT GOD SHOULD BE TO SATISFY THE CURIOSITY OF MEN, HE HAS ANSWERED IN THE CROSS AND RESURRECTION.

After the resurection we will have glorified perfect bodies.....we will know as we are known .....how could such beings choose evil ......we will still be free in our choices but we cannot understand now all the inimaginable transformation we will go thru after our resurection .... God knows everything ...He knows who will accept Him and refuse Him since forever God wants all to be saved and does everything He can...circunstances ...but the final décision is ours .... I dont believe animals will go to Heaven ....there will probably be some '' animals'' on the New Earth but we dont know their nature yet.....???? We will see...... God is GOOD HOLY He cannot act to interfere with our FREE WILL to do voluntary conscious evil....like the Holocauste .....even the Jews there rejected God for générations living in Christian Lands??? ....FREE WILL ....we are not ROBOTS .....God speaks ....acts.....but is '' limited'' by FREE WILL....God searches the World looking for someone who will have a minuscule opening in their heart...so that then He can come in and reveal Himself and His help ....God also creates us with the material in our parents genetics ....He cannot put genes in our children that dont come from parents ....as for desease....or miscarryage or stillborn ....

[Leibniz's contingency argument for God, clarified] Exhibit A: Ten whole, rational numbers 0-9 and their geometric counterparts 0D-9D. 0 and it's geometric counterpart 0D are: 1) whole 2) rational 3) not-natural (not-physical) 4) necessary 1-9 and their geometric counterparts 1D-9D are: 1) whole 2) rational 3) natural (physical) 4) contingent Newton says since 0 and 0D are "not-natural" ✅ then they are also "not-necessary" 🚫. Newton also says since 1-9 and 1D-9D are "natural" ✅ then they are also "necessary" 🚫. This is called "conflating" and is repeated throughout Newton's Calculus/Physics/Geometry/Logic. Leibniz does not make these fundamental mistakes. Leibniz's "Monadology" 📚 is 0 and it's geometric counterpart 0D. The Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Mathematicians, Plato (the Good on 0D-3D pyramid) and don't forget Jesus and John all speak of the Monad (number 0, geometry 0D, quantum SNF). 0D Monad (SNF) 1D Line (WNF) 2D Plane (EMF) 3D Volume (GF) We should all be learning Leibniz's Calculus/Physics/Geometry/Logic. Fibonacci sequence starts with 0 for a reason. The Fibonacci triangle is 0, 1, 2 (Not 1, 2, 3). Newton's 1D-4D "natural ✅ = necessary 🚫" universe is a contradiction. Natural does not mean necessary. Similar, yet different. Not-natural just means no spatial extension; zero size; exact location only. Necessary. Newtonian nonsense will never provide a Theory of Everything. Leibniz's Law of Sufficient Reason should be required reading 📚.

😞 𝐩𝓻Ỗ𝓂Ø𝓈Ｍ

Ellen G White said something along the lines of what the Redeemed WILL have been willing to experience for God's glory.

God told us not to eat the fruit of good and evil.

@ 32:00 Watching Josh speak makes me cringe everytime, I still am surprised that this guy is an assosciate professor and worse yet is allowed to teach students or be near any of them. The way he looks away from the screen ( because he wants us simpletons to believe that he is experiencing a profound moment with his own thoughts when answering difficult questions) makes me throw up a little in my mouth every time I notice him doing it. He constantly makes up new definitions for common words so that he can make his BS palatable to his cult members( I watched Josh getting absolutely schooled in his convo with TJump, where he coould not stop himself saying worthless things like "Supreme God" and when pressed that these qualifications like "supreme' do not mean anything in the real world (because they do not point to anything physical in this universe) he would look at the monitor with his eyes widened like a Lunatic. Josh confirms my suspicion that even in Academic fields, a religious person is motivated to cheat and confuse people to avoid accepting that their god has zero evidence except for the kind of BS that these religious Philosophers come up with to confuse and hoodwink people. Even in this video, his statements are without any value and can be demolished by simple logic, If his god is an all-powerful and all-knowing entity , you cant simply get over the problem of evil by slithering away hissing "free will, free will". e.g When Jesus drowned all the babies during the noah flood story ,he could have chosen as a punishment for their "sin" ( because his religion promotes that even babies are covered in sin for some reason) he could have chosen not to drown them ( which is the "Actual problem of Evil" (him using the worst part of human nature, "taking revenge" on babies) instead he could have "poofed" them out of existence, he could have spared the babies from the torture of death by drowning (instead Jesus chose to enjoy this horror unfold from his throne in heaven) which is a clear contradiction of his "all-good" nature. The way Josh explains away the "existence of Heaven" where free will does not exist ( if free will does not exist in heaven then heaven must be the actual hell that Christians keep referring to, being a robot who constantly praises God and keeps applauding all the evil that Jesus does) makes me sick to my stomach. Any non-christian watching this video or any person who is capable of critical thinking ( or simply any human with a heart) should find this revolting becuase this only shows that your god is dead-set on taking revenge on certain people for their "finite" digressions and choosing the worst possible methods of punishments. I guess Jesus likes "mindless clones" like Josh more than the babies he drowned.