Did God Create Cancer?: If God created everything, why did He create cancer? As a Christian mother, I still struggle with these sorts of questions.

Q&A question: Did God Create Cancer?

God’s Creation of Those Who Would Fall: If God is all-knowing and foresaw the suffering that would result from the fall of Satan, Adam, and Eve, affecting billions, why would He create them, knowing the pain that would follow?

Q&A question: God’s Creation of Those Who Would Fall

The Sadness of Animal Suffering: Why is there such a great amount of suffering that animals need to go through? Wouldn’t a good God create it to where the animals didn’t have to suffer and still feed us?

Q&A question: The Sadness of Animal Suffering

Discouraged by Free Will: My son is bothered by free will because it causes so much pain and suffering and that God foreknew we would sin. How can I encourage him?

Q&A question: Discouraged by Free Will

Attitude towards Suffering

Peter following Jesus "at a distance" is a literal physical description, not an allegory for halfhearted discipleship. Allegorizing clear narrative details damages biblical literacy and leaves congregations unable to handle false interpretations they will encounter later. Peter's actual situation shows a man confused by suffering he couldn't reconcile with his vision of the Messiah.

Warning against allegorizing historical narrative; proper interpretation of Peter's presence

Isaiah's four Servant Songs (Isa 42, 49, 50, 53) form a unified prophetic arc pointing to Jesus. Isaiah 50:6 — "I gave my back to those who strike me, my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting" — is fulfilled in the mocking scene at Jesus's trial, showing the OT and NT are deeply integrated, not incidentally connected.

Isaiah's Servant Songs as OT prophecy fulfilled in Jesus's suffering

Winger shares from his own childhood: an absent/indifferent father, an abusive stepfather, and poverty — all three conditions the note-writer listed as grounds for abortion. His life was redeemed and transformed through Christ. He argues the pro-choice logic, applied to him, would have called for his death, yet God demonstrated that suffering circumstances do not determine a life's value or potential.

Personal testimony used to refute the claim that bad circumstances justify abortion

The pro-choice logic of "this child will suffer, so it's merciful to kill them" parallels suicide logic: if a life is going to be hard, end it early. Applied globally, it would justify aborting virtually all children in sub-Saharan Africa. The Christian answer to suffering is not termination but redemption, care, and help — the "take care of them" solution rather than the "kill them" solution.

The "merciful abortion" argument compared to suicide logic; global poverty counterexample

The note-writer describes death as a tragedy but then proposes death as the solution to potential suffering. This self-contradiction reveals the deeper issue: pro-choice reasoning treats the baby as "not yet in the world" because they haven't crossed the threshold of the womb — a distinction without moral significance, since the baby exists and has biological life inside the womb.

Internal contradiction in the note: death as both tragedy and solution; the "not yet in the world" fallacy

The maximal data argument for the resurrection has two steps: (1) establish that the gospel and Acts accounts represent genuine eyewitness testimony, then (2) evaluate what best explains the content of those claims. The apostles voluntarily suffered imprisonment, persecution, and death for their testimony — making the conspiracy/lying hypothesis highly implausible (William Paley, 1794).

The maximal data argument: apostolic suffering establishes sincerity; conspiracy hypothesis fails