Iain Shaw retired as a secondary school teacher in 2014 and studied theology alongside lay readers and ordinands at the Lindisfarne College of Theology.  During this time, he became fascinated by the issue of suffering and evil in God’s world.  In one of the standard theology textbooks, a local professor wrote that he thought the ‘most common reason’ people don’t believe in God is the question of ‘how God could allow all the suffering… in the world’.  Since 2019 Iain has been working on a study of Ministers in the Church of England exploring how their experience of God, suffering and evil has helped them with this Problem of Evil.

These three talks go through this work and the tentative conclusions drawn so far and will be taking place on Thursday 5th, 12th and 19th September 7:00pm-8:15pm

The Zoom will be set up in a way to protect the confidentiality of those in study

(1) Philosophy of Religion and the Problem of Evil

– A general introduction to the project, the reason for doing it, and what will be covered in the three talks.

-The Problem of Evil: Looking at an ancient, a modern, and a biblical version.

– A Brief History of the Problem of Evil starting with a view from Ancient Greeks through the Enlightenment to the start of the 20^th

– A reflection on key writers on the Problem from the last hundred years.

– How this led to a mapping out the Problem, with a focus on the Views of God & the Views of Evil.

– The idea of Philosophical Pathways as solutions to the Problem of Evil.

– A question to think about.

(2) Practical Theology: How might we study the question of God, Suffering and Evil?

– A Brief Recap of what we are talking about.

– So… What is Practical Theology? Where did it come from?

– Looking at the emergence of Practical Theology over the last few decades in the UK with a focus on four theologians who have influenced the work.

– The debate on what Practical Theology can achieve.

– A short reflection on Ontology (Being) and Epistemology (Knowing).

– What has ‘Experience’ got to do with Theology?

– Using a method called Grounded Theory.

– How coding groups ideas together.

– How the study progressed over the years.

(3) Pathways of Belief

– A brief recap of the previous talks.

– Profile of the participants in the study.

– Questions asked on God’s Power, God’s Knowledge and Beliefs about Evil.

– How Grounded Theory leads to a proposal of three ‘Pathways of Belief’ and theories of God, Suffering and Evil.

– Drawing tentative conclusions on God, Suffering and Evil.

– Developing a possible theory from the study.

To book please fill out this Form