How to Ward off Despair

Without exception, human beings come face to face with suffering and evil. We may entertain only the vaguest and most cliché-driven grasp of such matters until we ourselves suffer, or until we ourselves recognize the sheer malignity of evil in ourselves or others—and then suddenly we swirl around and gradually sink into faith-devouring despair. Far better is it to build the mental and emotional structures generated by Scripture itself that train us how to think about suffering and evil before the evil day comes. This lecture seeks to establish six major pillars that together support a way of thinking about such matters—or, to change the metaphor, a kind of prophylactic medicine to ward off the most debilitating elements of despair.

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