apologetics.pro

Evidence · Case 06 · Problem of Evil

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians on death defeated

One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.

Suggest a correction
Paul writes that at the resurrection an old promise comes true, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” and then taunts death, asking where its sting has gone. For Paul the resurrection is not a private hope about the afterlife. It is the defeat of death itself as a power over people.

Sources

Objections & responses

“Death is swallowed up in victory” hasn’t happened. People still die. Doesn’t two thousand years of “not yet” look like a promise that failed?

Paul is explicit that the victory is inaugurated, not complete: Christ is the firstfruits and the rest follows at his coming. Whether two thousand years is too long is a fair question, and the New Testament writers themselves expected sooner; the second letter of Peter, cited later in this case, is the fullest early answer to that delay. What this claim asserts is that Scripture presents the resurrection as a verdict already rendered, which is what the text says, not that the sentence has been fully carried out.

A future in which suffering ends doesn’t justify the suffering. If I torture you for a year and then give you a million dollars, the money doesn’t make the torture right. “Heaven fixes it” isn’t an answer.

This is Ivan Karamazov’s objection and it is the strongest one in this case. The Christian reply distinguishes compensation from redemption. The claim is not that heaven pays for suffering but that God can take the suffering itself up into a good that could not have existed without it, the way a rescue is a good that requires the danger. Whether every evil can be redeemed that way, or only some, is the question that separates a full theodicy from a defense. The position taken here is a defense: the resurrection shows that evil is not final, not that every evil was worth it.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

Read it in context