Where is God? Searching for a new way to justify God’s existence in the face of evil.

1.0  Introduction The fact of evil constitutes the most serious objection to the Christian belief in a God of love. (Hick 1988: ix) The above quote from John Hick explains that the biggest problem faced by belief in the traditional Christian God of love, is the fact that evil and suffering exist in the world, and that these notions are incompatible with each other (Bowker 2004: 968). One may often hear the question asked: “why if God is so loving and all-powerful, does He allow bad things to Continue reading [...]

12 Theses of Theology from a Liberal.

As the end of my formal theological education approaches, I thought I'd share my theses for theology that should be considered when taking this age-old discipline into the future¹. Of course these theses demonstrate a fairly radically liberal approach to theology, but hopefully when read as a whole, they will make sense and convince you that if theology and belief in religion is to continue into the future, there is no other way to approach Christianity but from a liberal perspective. I shan't Continue reading [...]

In defence of Deism.

By recommendation from Dr Ann Christie at York St John University and inspired from a lecture I attended yesterday regarding how theology can help us understand the environmental crises we now face, it is to an extension of a previous article I wrote¹ that I turn this afternoon. The theologian at the centre of discussion in the lecture was an American eco-feminist named Sallie McFague; her approach to theology was, at first, something I actually sympathised with! She's in favour of the use of metaphor Continue reading [...]

A step backwards for the Church?

Evening everybody. As some of you may be aware, the General Synod of the Church of England, for the past few days, has been deliberating on the issue of female bishops and whether or not to move forward and change Church legislation, allowing women to hold the role.  In what some might consider a shock move, the Synod voted against the movement, loosing by a small minority in the House of Laity. I ask the question, is this failure of the Anglican Church to allow the ordination of female bishops, Continue reading [...]

Why God exists.

Evening folks. The title of this one may have you asking: "What on earth does Clarke have to be doing (or incidentally, not doing) to possess him write such a piece at 1am?" Well I'm not out partying for a start, and seeing as though I've had such a long day travelling to and from Harrogate - not for fun, I'm on work experience at my old secondary school - I fell asleep earlier after a feast of Dominos and tea and thus, I'm not tired anymore. I mentioned my work experience. Nothing overly important, Continue reading [...]