Freedom and Sin: Evil in a World Created by God

By: Ross McCullough

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Synopsis: A fresh argument for a venerable but recently neglected solution to the problem of human freedom and divine sovereignty. If God is the creator of all that is, then God is the creator of everything we do. This basic premise of Christian theology raises difficult questions. How can we have free will if God is the source of all our actions? And how can we explain the existence of evil without ascribing it to God? Freedom and Sin resolves this conundrum through a classical position known as compatibilist indeterminism: the idea that God can determine our free choices while not determining all our choices. This solution, which insists that God&’s agency is both non-competitive with ours and is not implicated in our sins, has been neglected in recent years but remains the most compelling response to philosophical objections to Christian doctrine. In this volume, Ross McCullough provides a detailed defense and exposition of compatibilist indeterminism, showing how human freedom is not compromised but perfected by being fixed to the will of God. With a novel re-working of Hans Urs von Balthasar&’s account of analogy, with an attention to everyday Christian concerns about suffering, and with a consideration of challenging scriptural passages—Jesus&’s cryptic explanation of parables in Mark 4 and Paul&’s account of election in Romans 9—McCullough demonstrates a commitment both to formidable theological questions and their concrete applications.