Why does evil exist? If there is a God, why does he let evil exist in the world? These questions and more will be addressed in an upcoming debate hosted by Ratio Christi, a campus ministry dedicated to examining the historical, philosophical and scientific reasons for following Jesus Christ, partnering with Southern Evangelical Seminary. The title of the event is “Is a Good God Logically Possible?” and will take place on Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. in McBryde Hall.
The formal debate will be between two philosophers, Dr. James Sterba of the University of Notre Dame and Dr. Brian Huffling of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, centering around the logical problem of evil. This event will be the first formal debate between professional scholars hosted by Winthrop’s chapter of Ratio Christi. According to the organization’s president, junior math major Christian Alter, the debate began as a casual discussion between the two professors over email.
“[Dr. Sterba] recently wrote a book on the problem of evil, and trying to take some of it into perspective,” Alter said. “[Dr. Huffling] actually was reading Dr. Sterba’s book and they were emailing each other back and forth, and they decided, ‘hey, this would be an easier conversation to have in person’.”
“From what I understand, not a lot of philosophers will use the logical problem of evil, so i’m really interested to see if Dr. Sterba is bringing a different perspective to that,” Alter said.
According to Ratio Christi’s co-chapter director Melissa Pellew, “They were having a friendly discussion back and forth, but some of these topics can be hard to have that discussion that way.”
Sophomore human nutrition major and RC secretary Eden Crain hopes people will benefit from hearing a respectful debate between the two different viewpoints. “They’re talking about the problem of evil from two different perspectives, so it’s really important for people on both sides to hear the other side and be challenged,” Crain said. “Whether you’re a Christian or an atheist or something else, you’re hearing different arguments and just having to really think about it in a way you probably haven’t thought about it before.”
“I’m excited to hear what they say. I’m just really interested in what the arguments are and what they’ll say in response to each other, and how they deal with different aspects of the issue. It’s just a really interesting topic,” Crain said.
Junior English and Spanish double major Scarlett Black is the vice president of the organization, and also hopes to see a “calm discussion instead of angry arguments or just not thinking through what [they]’re saying on either side of things.”
Alter says the problem of evil can be difficult to approach, as people’s beliefs regarding evil often stem from trauma. “The problem of evil is a tricky one because people often come to this with a lot of traumatic experiences that have a huge emotional factor in them. And it’s tricky to really capture the significance of that in a debate, we’ll be talking mostly about how evil and god are compatible,” Alter said. “We don’t want to brush aside the emotional aspects of it, but we do want to sort of ground things in reality a little bit, that there’s still good in God.”
According to Pellew, Winthrop’s campus has often been very open to discussing Christian apologetics and Christian philosophy. “The environment here is open enough for these discussions to happen, and some environments are not. So that is one of the reasons we chose to hold the debate here,” Pellew said.
Black says she hopes that people of various viewpoints will feel comfortable attending the event. “I just really want people to feel welcome. If you come and you’re a Christian you’re not going to be smacked down for not knowing all the details of things, and if you come and you’re not a Christian then you’re not going to be hated on for not being a Christian. It’s supposed to be an open discussion. Come with your questions [and] be ready to engage,” Black said.
The debate between Dr. Sterba and Dr. Huffling will be Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. in McBryde Hall. The event is open to the public, and a free cultural event.
Graphic provided by Ratio Christi
