Evil and the Justice of God

N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, (London: SPCK, 2006)


p46 ‘Theologies of the cross, of how God deals with sin through the death of Jesus, have not normally grappled with the larger problem of evil, as I set it out in the first chapter. Conversely, most people who have written about ‘the problem of evil’ within philosophical theology have not normally grappled sufficiently with the cross as part of both the analysis and the solution of that problem. The two have been held apart, in a mis-match, with ‘the problem of evil’ on the one hand being conceived simply in terms of ‘how could a good and powerful God allow evil into the world in the first place?’, and the atonement on the other hand being seen in terms simply of personal forgiveness, of the various categories set out movingly if ultimately inadequately in the hymn, ‘There is a green hill far away’.