Fool's Mountain: Blogging for China

I am an Englishman brought up as an atheist by my parents, but I attended a Christian primary school. I remember my father catching me at a very early age praying. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Praying to Jesus to help me at School” I replied. “Study”, he said, “it will do much more good!”

In fact my father had been a devout Christian in his youth, and had at one time even considered the priesthood as a career. Later he abandoned Christianity, as so many intellectuals do, because of the problem of evil.

Indeed, the presence of evil, pain and suffering in our world is the most persistent argument raised against Christianity. The argument runs as follows:

1. If God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil
2. If He is all powerful, He must be able to abolish evil
3. But evil exists. Therefore, an all powerful, loving God does not exist

The conventional Christian response is:

1. God created a world of free will
2. Although God therefore made evil possible, man makes evil actual
3. Eventually God will defeat evil
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