This is a short teaching session Jon the freelance theologian was asked to do on the subject of evil. Instead of addressing the standard ‘Problem of Evil’ as classically stated, this was a study of some theological ideas about the absolute origin of evil in a world created that Christian theology would claim was created as ‘good’ by a good God.

There were six theological ideas put forward:

• Evil originates in God and is misunderstood.
• Evil occurs when God ‘withdraws’ from a place.
• Evil is entropy/chaos seeking to reassert itself in a world that has been placed in order by God.
• Evil is the ‘no’ inherent in the ‘yes’ of God’s creative act. It is the ‘nothingness’ that exists apart from God.
• ‘Evil’ is down to natural probability.
• ‘Evil’ is a force in the world that springs from our collective psychic experience – interiority.

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Question 148 from Emma, United Kingdom

Can you lose your salvation? How can we be sure that Jesus won’t turn to us on Judgement Day and say “I never knew you”?

The short answer is that in almost every branch of Christian theology, there are no guarantees about salvation, unless a person is living a life marked by Christian discipleship.

In terms of believers losing their salvation, the Bible and later Christian teaching place great store on ‘perseverance’. The Apostle Paul famously described his own quest for perfection when he said: (more…)