Why Is Evil Possible | Henri Blocher
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 09/09/2022

2015 Kantzer Lecture #1 - Introduction: Evil Possible—A Misleading Facility

At the outset of his 2015 Kantzer Lectures, Henri Blocher recognizes three central questions that arise from the fact of evil: Whence does evil come? What is evil? How long, O Lord? Blocher admits there is legitimacy of the human search for a rational explanation of the evil and notes the important role that the idea of “possibility” plays in many theodicies, including, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Barth, Maritain, and Ricoeur. Despite the concept’s widespread appeal, Blocher’s overriding concern is that the concept has been insufficiently “interrogated” in these various approaches to account for the whence of evil. In characteristic fashion, Blocher suggests that because reason cannot be deployed without presuppositions, it must be deployed from within the “fiduciary framework” of a biblical worldview, which this lecture series hopes to develop.

Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.

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