Steven Bartlett Gave John Lennox One of Christianity's Hardest Problems
The Christian Take
16,893 views
If God knows the future and has the power to intervene, why does He allow terrible suffering? And if most people inherit the religion of the family and country they were born into, can God's judgment really be fair?
In this conversation, Steven Bartlett puts some of Christianity's hardest objections directly to Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist John Lennox.
Their discussion moves from the “religious lottery” of where we are born, to the suffering of innocent children, the problem of hell, and one of the most difficult questions of all: how can Christianity say that a repentant murderer can be forgiven while a morally good person still needs salvation?
Here on The Christian Take, we examine these debates from a biblical Christian perspective while preserving the original arguments and context.
This discussion comes from The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett. The full original conversation is available at the link below.
Original video:
No.1 Christianity Expert: If You DON'T Bel...
20 Comments
@AtamMardes 3 weeks ago
"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool."
-- Mark Twain
-- Mark Twain
@why7020 3 weeks ago
The man in hell I believe knew that he would never get out and so he didn’t want his brothers to end up in hell with him. Not that he didn’t want to leave but that he received a full understanding that this is where he belongs in the judgement
@WJTM88 3 weeks ago
When you ask a question that involves life and death and the response is TRUST ME BRO!!
think about it
think about it
@Jaco3688 4 weeks ago (edited)
Bartlett didn’t “grow up Christian”, he grew up in a Christian environment.
Ultimately, our final disposition as recipients of abundant splendor has little to do with the temporary trials we may face here on earth. Bartlett is being very short-sighted, if THIS is all there is (on earth, during our brief existence) on which to judge God.
Ultimately, our final disposition as recipients of abundant splendor has little to do with the temporary trials we may face here on earth. Bartlett is being very short-sighted, if THIS is all there is (on earth, during our brief existence) on which to judge God.
@brucedonaldson3627 2 days ago
If the "good" people care, why aren't they doing more to help? I'm thinking that God, thru Christ, has done all there is to do, and we are responsible, now, for the rest.
@wymanspace4173 5 days ago
How is god compensate the love ones of the poor sick child? Is any explanation or excuses acceptable? Is saying that the child is in a better place sufficient?
@marietteperera6821 1 day ago
I only hope that he will read the conflict of ages serious by Ellen G white. HE will have more understanding. about all this.
@WJTM88 3 weeks ago
He didn't answer his question Will you go to hell if you don't buy what he is selling??
It's a simple question yet why some CHRISTAINS Get tongue tied
Ask a good Pentecostal and they will not try to be politically correct
It's a simple question yet why some CHRISTAINS Get tongue tied
Ask a good Pentecostal and they will not try to be politically correct
@davidvenz237 3 weeks ago
But did god compensate the grieving parents who had to watch their defenseless child go through that agony and then have to live with haunting memories for the rest of their lives and then possibly be punished in hell if they never believed because they could not understand why a loving god would allow such a thing?
@gagereichert8636 2 weeks ago
If its real, its real. Every religion just references itself to proove itself. 9:58
@quinn-tessential3232 3 weeks ago
Atheism is not a "faith." Faith is believing in things without evidence. Atheism is NOT believing because there is no evidence. Lennox happily conflates faith with belief in his attempt to say something clever. He didn't attempt to answer the question about why God would damn people to burn in Hell if they were born and raised in a different religion. The Catholic Church taught this up until the last century, when it made a clarifying statement that God's mercy could allow those with "invincible ignorance" of Jesus to find their way to Heaven. But the dirty flipside to that statement is that any good person who becomes aware of Christianity but remains in their native religion is destined to burn, which of course makes no sense.
@KyleFrancome 3 weeks ago
All religions are cherrypickers of so called gods book of contradictory laws
@andinetamare8031 3 weeks ago
Dear brother, i hope you know the history of Abraham who found God while living in the midest of idolatry. Dear, God communicate us through our spirits not like we talk eachother. Our Lord knocks the doors of our spirits, hence listen His Knock deep inside your spirit, look around and see His marvelous creations, read His Loving Words in the Bible, And you will find Him where you are beside you. Salivation is not hidered by geography!
Suffering is the result of our original sin which resulted in curse and also mismanagment of our body and envirnoment. We can also tackle them, if we work together and make our bests.
Suffering is the result of our original sin which resulted in curse and also mismanagment of our body and envirnoment. We can also tackle them, if we work together and make our bests.
@allancavanagh6992 3 weeks ago
Go and ask a rich man say I am a good person can I live in your house he will say no God knows you are going to die even if you are a good person and is opening a door saying come in the choice is yours
@johnstewart4309 3 weeks ago
Human intelligence does not qualify man to logically reason what or why a God would or would not do something. There is a difference between what God tells man to do and what God allows a man to do. Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, yet, God stopped him before he did it. We see a similar act when God tells man to destroy a nation and then we see where it was not allowed. A test of faith as it were. God also allows man to have free will but also puts some restrictions on mankind's rude ways. Exodus is a prime example. Many treat Exodus as Gods' Law, it is not. They are Gods' judgements, Exodus 21:1. Judgements are passed to correct a wrong or punish a crime. So God does not endorse or command slavery, God addresses it and does so in favor of the slave. Read the ENTIRE text starting at Exodus 21:1 to see how God keeps the slave family together and curbs their mistreatment and then in 7 years grants them freedom as a FAMILY unit no matter what is left of their debt.
Why are bad things allowed to happen? Jesus answered this a long time ago. While walking with the disciples they saw a child who was born blind. They asked which parent sinned that the boy was born blind. Jesus said neither, he was born that way that they could see the glory of God. That glory is manifested in many ways. We will not always know how or why, but it is true. It comes down to why we are here on earth to begin with. The book of Job sheds light on the subject with how and why Job suffered. We also see the reward Job got and it was for an eternity. If I could trade 100 years of blindness for an eternity of happiness, I would. The Bible says we will judge Angels, 1 Corinthians 6:3. This is indirectly. We, being lower than the Angel, if we obey God out of faith and not sight then how much more should they who have seen God had obeyed Him(?) Satan is always trying to justify himself and his angels by putting forth trial after trial, just like he did in the book of Job. If a person with free will, faith and not sight, and with trials and tribulations...if such a one can obey God then the devils have no excuse for what they did.
All that is going on and yet God took the time to secure our fate as long as we don't follow Satan.
Why are bad things allowed to happen? Jesus answered this a long time ago. While walking with the disciples they saw a child who was born blind. They asked which parent sinned that the boy was born blind. Jesus said neither, he was born that way that they could see the glory of God. That glory is manifested in many ways. We will not always know how or why, but it is true. It comes down to why we are here on earth to begin with. The book of Job sheds light on the subject with how and why Job suffered. We also see the reward Job got and it was for an eternity. If I could trade 100 years of blindness for an eternity of happiness, I would. The Bible says we will judge Angels, 1 Corinthians 6:3. This is indirectly. We, being lower than the Angel, if we obey God out of faith and not sight then how much more should they who have seen God had obeyed Him(?) Satan is always trying to justify himself and his angels by putting forth trial after trial, just like he did in the book of Job. If a person with free will, faith and not sight, and with trials and tribulations...if such a one can obey God then the devils have no excuse for what they did.
All that is going on and yet God took the time to secure our fate as long as we don't follow Satan.
@angeladyson7748 3 weeks ago (edited)
We have this false idea that we are somehow better than the next person but when we stand before God we will all be judged by the same standard, God's commandments and according to Christ and the Bible if we so much as hate someone we're guilty of murder in the heart. Who of us hasn't hated someone or who of us will not have hated someone at some point by the end of our lives?
I have a great deal of respect for John Lennox. He's a fellow brother in Christ but I don't think his view of hell is entirely biblical. Jesus Christ spoke of hell as being a place where our worm never dies and the fire never goes out. This fire is speaking of the wrath of God and the worm most likely represents our sin, conscience, punishments, griefs, fears, sorrows, angers etc internally eating away at those present there. Yes there'll be an absence of everything good about God (His love, light, kindness, blessings, friendship, our favourite pets/animals, good music, good food and drink, a clear thinking mind and well functioning body, work we enjoyed, gardening etc) but His wrath certainly will not be absent. Remember that Christ took the wrath of God for every true (born again) believer upon Himself so we would not have to bear it but for all those Christ did not atone for because of their adamant rejection of Him and for breaking the eternal God's law they bear their own eternal punishment, hell, God's eternal prison for every criminal, idolators, blasphemers, haters of God, those who dishonour their parents, parents who abuse children, murderers, adulterers (those who look with lust), the sexually immoral, liers, thieves, the covetous etc.
God is so serious about sin that He gave those of us who break His law the death sentence... The wages of sin is death (we all die) but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. What we must do is repent sincerely and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, believe Him, who He is and claimed to be. He is God and He said "No man comes to the Father but through Me". Will you stand before God with Christ as your advocate or will you stand there alone, guilty before God for breaking His law and having to bear the punishment yourself. Trust the Saviour, Christ. Eternity is an unquantifiable amount of time.
I have a great deal of respect for John Lennox. He's a fellow brother in Christ but I don't think his view of hell is entirely biblical. Jesus Christ spoke of hell as being a place where our worm never dies and the fire never goes out. This fire is speaking of the wrath of God and the worm most likely represents our sin, conscience, punishments, griefs, fears, sorrows, angers etc internally eating away at those present there. Yes there'll be an absence of everything good about God (His love, light, kindness, blessings, friendship, our favourite pets/animals, good music, good food and drink, a clear thinking mind and well functioning body, work we enjoyed, gardening etc) but His wrath certainly will not be absent. Remember that Christ took the wrath of God for every true (born again) believer upon Himself so we would not have to bear it but for all those Christ did not atone for because of their adamant rejection of Him and for breaking the eternal God's law they bear their own eternal punishment, hell, God's eternal prison for every criminal, idolators, blasphemers, haters of God, those who dishonour their parents, parents who abuse children, murderers, adulterers (those who look with lust), the sexually immoral, liers, thieves, the covetous etc.
God is so serious about sin that He gave those of us who break His law the death sentence... The wages of sin is death (we all die) but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. What we must do is repent sincerely and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, believe Him, who He is and claimed to be. He is God and He said "No man comes to the Father but through Me". Will you stand before God with Christ as your advocate or will you stand there alone, guilty before God for breaking His law and having to bear the punishment yourself. Trust the Saviour, Christ. Eternity is an unquantifiable amount of time.
Steven Bartlett Gave John Lennox One of Christianity's Hardest Problems
The Christian Take
16,893 views
If God knows the future and has the power to intervene, why does He allow terrible suffering? And if most people inherit the religion of the family and country they were born into, can God's judgment really be fair?
In this conversation, Steven Bartlett puts some of Christianity's hardest objections directly to Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist John Lennox.
Their discussion moves from the “religious lottery” of where we are born, to the suffering of innocent children, the problem of hell, and one of the most difficult questions of all: how can Christianity say that a repentant murderer can be forgiven while a morally good person still needs salvation?
Here on The Christian Take, we examine these debates from a biblical Christian perspective while preserving the original arguments and context.
This discussion comes from The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett. The full original conversation is available at the link below.
Original video:
No.1 Christianity Expert: If You DON'T Bel...
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