Dr. Bart Ehrman v. Kyle Butt: Does Suffering Prove the God of the Bible Doesn’t Exist?

A captivating debate. It does begin to spin out of control come time for the question/answer session, especially when they get to the topic of moral prerogatives.

This video is framed by GBN, a Christian network. If you want to jump to the actual debate, it begins at 2:06.

I certainly side with Kyle Butt overall. I do wish he established early that logic is not primarily the language of faith. I also wish that he would have explained to Ehrman the nature of Ecclesiastes as poetry, especially as an expression of a man wrought with philosophical questions of his own, not as a tablet of syllogistic doctrine statements. I wish there had been a discussion over the difference between a proof and an explanation.

It was certainly more substantial than the Ham/Nye debate, and a more important debate than the “geology vs. some Christians’ interpretation of Genesis” debate.

One thing Ehrman said is certain: Christians should not take lightly the problem of suffering, and should not reduce it’s discussion down to a merely intellectual question with a 20-second answer. The book of Job is not a 20-second book. And talk all we might, we must spend a great deal of our resources treating the problem of suffering, not just discussing it. It is part of our mission in the world.

I was most struck by Butt’s words at the end, that the answer to our sufferings is not a syllogism, but a man, the Christ.