Michael Brown Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Bart Ehrman vs. Michael Brown on Suffering

In my post on Saturday I discussed the issue of death and laid out briefly my view that this life is all there is. That does not mean, however, that I think we should just party-hard since there is no life to come. I have long been intrigued by the "problem of suffering," and I have never, in fact, taken it to be just an intellectual problem. I think as human beings we need to deal with suffering if we want to lead life to its fullest. But I'm still intrigued with the problem: how can there can be such massive suffering in the world if there is a God in control of it? I have had several debates on the subject, and here is one of the hardest, on video. The debate was with Dr. Michael L. Brown, a very smart Jewish believer in Jesus. We had the debate on April 15, 2010, at Ohio State University. The debate was inspired largely by my book, "God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our [...]

My Views on Suffering Are Not Held by Those Who Suffer

In two of my debates, one with the “Messianic-Jewish Apologist” Michael Brown (whom I had never heard of before, but who was a remarkably good debater) and with the conservative Christian Dinesh D’Souza (whom I had heard of before, loud and clear, and who is also a remarkably good debater), I have been confronted with a point that, in both instances, my opponents thought was a decisive strike against me. My views of suffering are not shared by the people who, unlike me, actually suffer. It’s an interesting point. To explain it, and my response to it, I need to say a few words about the context of these debates. The topic of my debates on the problem of suffering is never whether or not there is suffering. Luckily. Everyone (at least everyone I debate, and most everyone who listens to the debates) agrees that there is suffering. The question at stake is whether it makes sense to believe in God given the nature and extent of suffering in the world. FOR THE REST OF [...]

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Bart Ehrman vs. Michael Brown on Suffering

My Views on Suffering Are Not Held by Those Who Suffer