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Does Evil Defeat God? Making Sense of Evil
September 25th, 2025 | 5:30pm *UPDATED TIME*
Physical Sciences 120 or via Zoom
Dessert reception to follow
It is impossible to deny: horrendous evil exists in our world. Children are killed while praying at Mass. Humans are trafficked and sold into slavery. Entire people groups face starvation and death as casualties of war and genocide. Where is God as all this takes place? Why doesn’t God protect these precious creatures made in his image? Why isn’t God more active in battling the evil that exists in the world?
Is God willing to act, but not able? Then isn’t he weak? Is God able but not willing? Then isn’t he evil himself? Is God both able and willing? Then why is there any evil at all? What if the right question is not “why does a good God let these things happen?” but rather “which philosophy provides the best resources for responding to evil?” The presence of evil in this world is a problem for atheists as much as theists– but what if the very fact that Christians name what is seen as “evil” shows that Christianity takes evil more seriously than other philosophies? What if the very idea of evil does not ultimately call God’s existence into question, but serves as an argument for God’s existence?
Join us as we consider these questions and welcome award-winning author Paul Copan, the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has authored more than 50 books, including the popular Is God a Moral Monster? and its companion volume, the award-winning Is God a Vindictive Bully? Drawing from years of experience researching, teaching, writing, and speaking, Professor Copan will tackle this most difficult problem for Christian theology and attempt to show that God’s existence makes better sense of the problem of evil than atheism does.
Paul Copan; Ph.D., Philosophy, Marquette University
Paul Copan (Ph.D., Philosophy, Marquette University) is the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, Florida. He teaches in the M.A. in Philosophy of Religion at PBA, which also offers an undergraduate degree in Christian Apologetics. For six years, he served as president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.
He is author or editor of 45 books, and his books have been translated into over a dozen languages. He has also contributed essays to over 70 books, both scholarly and popular, and he has written many articles published in professional journals. He has done work in the philosophy of religion, ethics, human dignity and rights, Old Testament ethical challenges, Christian apologetics, the impact of the Christian faith in history, and various theological topics as well. His books include The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues, A Little Book for New Philosophers, Christianity Contested: Replies to Critics’ Toughest Questions, An Introduction to Biblical Ethics, Is God a Moral Monster? and Is God a Vindictive Bully?
Paul is currently chair of the Tyndale Fellowship Philosophy of Religion Study Group (UK). In 2017, he was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University and once again at Oxford (Oriel College) in 2024. Paul and his wife, Jacqueline, have six children, and they reside in West Palm Beach, Florida. His website is www.paulcopan.com. He is also part of the team that contributes to the online Worldview Bulletin—a site that explores issues related to the Christian worldview, apologetics, philosophy, science, and culture (https://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/).
