Dr Paul Allen

By Randy Alcorn I first posted about “the problem of goodness” on my blog 14 years ago, but it is still relevant to conversations I’m having today with others (nothing has changed other than that I am 14 years older!). People always talk about the problem of evil, and how it threatens the Christian worldview, but they almost never talk about the problem of goodness and how it threatens non-Christian worldviews, including the evolutionary framework, survival of the fittest, materialism, and naturalism. That people would sacrificially do great good for the benefit of others—who naturalism sees as weak links in the chain that deserve to cease to exist—is absolutely extraordinary and cries out for an explanation. —Randy While atheists routinely speak of the problem of evil, they usually don’t raise the problem of goodness. But if evil provides evidence against God, then shouldn’t goodness count as evidence for Him? And wouldn’t that be evidence against atheism?  From a non-theistic vie...

We are living in an age of profound cultural shift. Up until the early twenty-first century, Western history was dominated by a form of Christianity that was legally established and culturally honoured. While not everyone was a Christian, being a Christian was respectable, and Christianity was generally recognized as the dominant cultural and moral outlook in society. That has dramatically changed in the last ten years, signaling the end of that cultural establishment. Many Christians feel disoriented. What is this new world, and how should we relate to it? These are questions that we find ourselves rather ill-prepared to address because up until recently, we could assume things that can no longer be assumed regarding how people think and how they react to Christianity. Amid these changes, I have found considerable help in thinking through these issues in the life and work of Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper (1837–1920), a Dutchman, lived in a place and time when the issues we face today were al...

At the end of Psalm 86, David even fears for his existence, and the main message of the psalm is how to lay hold of God in times of personal need. The key to the whole psalm is the last phrase of verse 11: “Unite my heart to fear your name.” There is nothing like pressure to show how divided our hearts are. It is as if the circumstantial pressure exposes the spiritual fault lines of our hearts. The structure of the psalm is like a sandwich; verses 1–7 and verses 14–17 are a cry for help, and in between, in verses 8–13, is the meat with a section on the praise of God. The psalm begins with David pleading for God to answer him:  “Incline your ear . . . answer me . . . be gracious . . . gladden my soul” (Ps. 86:1, 3, 4). He addresses himself to the “LORD,” using the name that God revealed to His covenant people. David recognizes that he is in a relationship with God. It is as if he is saying: “This is who I am, and this is who You are, so Lord, be all that You are to me.” As we move i...