Clay Jones — Why God Permits Evil

Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

The Christian Research Institute

Education, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2017

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Clay Jones, associate professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University and one of the pre-eminent scholars on the issue of theodicy, answering why God permits evil. This conversation is an exploration into why God allows sin and suffering.

Topics discussed include: why does God allow evil? (3:30); why did God let that child die? (5:30); why it’s hard to reconcile determinism and theodicy (9:00); why do people want determinism to be true? (14:30); how God uses suffering (19:30); why do bad things happen to good people? (27:00); transgenderism as child abuse (36:00); the Christian Research Journal article “Killing the Canaanites” (42:00); what difference does belief in original sin make? (48:30); why people who think heaven will be boring are wrong (51:00); the importance of making our lives on Earth count (57:30); what does God want our legacy on Earth to be? (1:01:30); finding ways to be useful to God (1:04:30).

Transcript

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0:00.0	And welcome to another edition of Hank Unplugged.
0:26.5	It's the podcast, not the broadcast, and I'm bringing some of the most interesting and insightful people in the world to you through Hank Unplugged.
0:35.6	And today's no exception, Clay Jones. He joins me. He's a professor
0:41.4	of apologetics at Biola. He specializes in issues related to why God allows evil. And we're
0:49.9	going to get into that subject today. He's the author of a brand new book titled Why Does God Allow Evil?
0:56.2	And he has been a frequent contributor to the Christian Research Journal. Clay, welcome.
1:05.2	Thank you, Hank. It's a pleasure to be on. And if I may, let me say, I love the Christian Research Journal.
1:11.8	And if you don't mind my plugging it, just briefly, I think everybody ought to have a subscription to it. So there I said it.
1:17.8	Well, great. And, you know, people can subscribe on the web at EQUIP.org. I appreciate you doing that.
1:22.6	I love your name, Clay Jones. Where did that come from?
1:26.4	Well, you know, actually, my mom, before she was even
1:30.1	as Christian, was kind of spiritual, and so she liked the idea of me being shaped into the image
1:36.2	of God, even before she was a Christian, and that's where Clay came from, and obviously Jones
1:40.8	is a family name, and sometimes people think my name is Clayton, which it's actually not.
1:45.2	It's just Clay.
1:47.1	But then when she became a Christian, when he became Christians,
1:50.5	and it was like, the Lord is going to shape you and mold you and the person he wants you to be.
1:55.3	And I kind of appreciated that.
1:57.3	So word on the street, Clay, is that your father was a womanizer, your mother was into the occult, that you were a shoplifting, rebellious punk, and yet the three of you identified as Christian.
2:15.3	Yeah, that's true.
2:16.3	And I think that, you know, the three of us attended the United
2:19.5	Methodist Church. And we would if, if you'd say, are we Christians? All of us would have said, sure,
	...

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