GCN's Holds Virtual Forums on Theology and the Pandemic

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt business and commerce on a global level, many people are offering opinions about why difficult hardships happen and how we should respond. Renowned theologian N. T. Wright, in late March 2020, wrote an article for Time magazine about this topic. Wright says that the primary response should be “lament.”

However, we at GCN believe that deeper thinking about the pandemic, and other serious problems in the world, is in short supply. So, we invited Dr. Darrell Dooyema, who is a contributing author of the book Reasons to Believe, to lead a virtual seminar on the classic “problem of evil/suffering.”

The first session was held with about 40 young professionals from around the country. Dr. Dooyema first addressed the philosophical problem: If God is good and all powerful, how can evil exist? He demonstrated that there are strong, sufficient answers to that question. Among them is the “free will argument,” which says that freedom creates to possibility for human’s to choose evil, but that freedom is also necessary for human life, love, virtue, and character. Thus creating a world in which human beings are endowed with freedom is good because it is essential for the highest good—love—to exist. Dr. Dooyema also offered numerous other theological answers to the problem.

Due to the positive response we received after the first virtual seminar, we held a second presentation by Dr. Dooyema for about 50 Brazilians (with English-to-Portuguese translation).

In both cases, GCN was able to demonstrate the importance of integrating thoughtful, reasoned theology with business and culture—a task that is central to our work in publishing and conferences since our founding in 1994.