Defeating Evil: How God Glorifies Himself in a Dark World (Scott Christensen)

Description

Revised, adapted, and condensed for a broader audience, this companion edition to Scott Christensen’s lauded What about Evil? shows how sin, evil, corruption, and death fit into redemptive history. Exploring the storyline of Scripture and addressing practical concerns, Christensen shows that God’s ultimate end in creation is to maximize his glory before his image-bearers by defeating evil through Christ’s atoning work.

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Endorsements

“The problem of evil is widely considered the hardest of all theological conundrums: If God is omnipotent, sovereign, and good, why does evil exist? Where did it come from? Why does it persist, if a benevolent God has the power to eliminate it? Scripture is full of truths that shed light on those questions, and Scott Christensen skillfully brings them together in this helpful, insightful, and ultimately satisfying analysis. As a matter of fact, the ultimate biblical answer to the problem of evil is condensed and implied in this book’s title and subtitle: Defeating Evil: How God Glorifies Himself in a Dark World. I don’t know of a better or more readable unfolding of that truth than Scott’s excellent, well-written work.”

—John MacArthur, Pastor-Teacher, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, California; Chancellor Emeritus, The Master’s University and Seminary

Table of Contents

Foreword by Joel R. Beeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

1. Encountering the Darkness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduces the problem of evil, theodicy, and the basic Christian

responses to the problem.

2. Confronting the Darkness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Introduces two theodicies: the free-will defense and its problems and

the greater-good defense.

3. The Grand Author of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Shows how a proper understanding of God’s holiness, sovereignty, and

goodness is the critical starting place to establish a biblical theodicy.

4. Who Is to Blame? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Addresses moral responsibility, compatibilism, and whether God is

the author of evil.

5. Tell Me the Old, Old Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Examines the universal patterns in storytelling and shows how

the storyline of Scripture (creation, fall, and redemption) sets the

framework for a biblical theodicy.

6. The Greater-Glory Theodicy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Introduces the greater-glory theodicy and shows why it makes the best

sense of Scripture.

7. The Grand Hero of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Focuses attention on the person and work of Christ as the center of

the greater-glory theodicy, especially his redemptive suffering as the

incarnate Son of God.

8. The Rest of the Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Shows how Christ defeats evil through both his atoning sacrifice and

his coming reign and judgment of all other evil, which includes the

restoration of the cosmos.

9. Finding Hope in the Darkness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Examines the practical implications of the greater-glory theodicy and

what Christ does for the believer ravaged by sin and the curse.

10. Transforming Grace, Amazing Glory . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Demonstrates how the response of believers to evil in the world is one

of the greatest apologetics of the Christian faith as it highlights God’s

grace and glory.

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Index of Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Index of Subjects and Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Product Details

Title: Defeating Evil: How God Glorifies Himself in a Dark World 

Author: Scott Christensen

Publisher: P&R Publishing

Pages:240

Binding: Paperback

Size: 21.5 x 14.0 x 1.5 cm

ISBN: 9781629959238