When I first typed out my editorial on viral non-evil, the coronavirus was still novel and the panic not quite a pandemic. But as I type now, close to a 1.5 million have died worldwide and the virus proliferates relentlessly, a conflagration with plenty of wood yet to burn as we await a vaccine and…

I am grateful to the organizers of this Areopagite for the invitation to consider this spiritually demanding question, one that reaches down into the heart of our confidence in the Good God, and in our constant need for repentance, confession and renewal. Of course such a question touches on complex doctrines—of sin, of providence, of…

Before I reveal the One Correct Way Christians ought to understand the coronavirus, let’s clear some brush out of the way and establish some basic principles. It would seem that something can be neither good nor bad, just existing. An icicle hanging off the edge of a roof seems devoid of moral valence—until it suddenly…

Jesus once told a parable about a farmer who sowed good seeds in his field. Once “the plants came up and bore grain,” however, his servant discovered that the field also contained weeds. The servant approached his master and asked him, “Where . . . did these weeds come from?” The good farmer replied, “An…

Every time there is a natural disaster the question of God’s goodness and the nature of evil resurfaces. How can a good God allow bad things to happen? Is what we experience as evil bad in itself, or is our suffering from it part of the fallen order of creation? What do we say when…

Nobody thinks that the ultimate consummation of the Kingdom God will be a place where rogue viruses kill hundreds of thousands of people, or hurricanes ravage whole communities, or cancer cuts lives short. So we Christians believe it is possible for there to be that kind of place. But was creation originally a place that…

Is the coronavirus evil? Daniel Harrell posed that question as editor in chief of Christianity Today. He stirred up a hornet’s nest. His editorial begins with a poignant remark from Karl Barth near the end of his life. The German theologian was dying from kidney disease: This monstrosity does not belong to God’s good creation,…

The topic of religious belief and evolution is quite notorious for its potential to arouse heated debates that easily become acrimonious (even this forum has not entirely escaped from such responses). In this way, the Dutch precursor of Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory met with some fierce criticism that sometimes misstated both its content and…

As Gijsbert van den Brink carefully demonstrates elsewhere in Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory, evolutionary theory is rarely as threatening to Christian theology as many might fear. While some traditional doctrines may need to be reimagined or reframed in light of evolutionary insights, the core tenets of Reformed belief seem not to be necessarily undermined…

In Chapter Seven on “Natural Selection and Divine Providence,” van den Brink faces head-on the challenge that Darwinian evolution poses for a Reformed account of providence. For the sake of the argument, he accepts the neo-Darwinian synthesis of natural selection and genetic mutation. Focusing on the alleged randomness of the latter, he explores its compatibility…

It is difficult to talk about human beings without telling a story. In a manner that transcends the existence of trees and turtles, human beings are creatures of history. Human beings come and go in history. They make history by the feats they accomplish, and they leave their mark on history in the monuments they…

Having worked through a number of theological challenges posed by evolutionary theory in the first four chapters of Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory, van den Brink moves to the difficult question of common descent and its impact on theological anthropology. He identifies two primary concerns. First is whether the scientific evidence for common descent is…