For some time now, there have been many responses to the concept of what is known as the “Problem of Evil.” Sometimes this is also called the “Problem of Pain” or the “Problem of Suffering.” It is an argument offered to challenge the idea that there exists a God who is all powerful and simultaneously all loving.
Over these many centuries since the time of Jesus of Nazareth, many ideas have been offered to attempt to explain certain things about Him and about God in general. Many of them have been denounced as heresies throughout this time. However, now and again, these same ideas that were written off as unbiblical or heretical crop back up in different ways.
The world is full of irony. Of the many things people use against Christians, much of the ammunition non-believers use against us has been provided to them…by us. Not always on purpose, of course. Often it can be a simple mis-application of scripture.
Once again, we are coming up on the time of year when we celebrate one of the greatest events in the history of…well…history. It’s a celebration of the incarnation, when the divine took on human form and lived among His creation.
One of the “internal” debates these days within the Church is regarding the days of creation. There are basically two camps on this issue. First, there are the “Old Earth Creationists” who believe that the Earth is millions (or billions) of years old. On the other side, there are the “Young Earth Creationists” who believe that the Earth is fewer than 10,000 years old.
