In today’s episode, a theologian and a philosopher discuss some of life’s biggest questions, like: Who are we? What’s wrong with the world? And what can make it right?
You’ll hear from N.T. Wright, a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, and Heidi Maibom, a philosophy professor at the University of Cincinnati. In this conversation, they explore what philosophical traditions and the Christian story say about human identity, the problem of evil, and our ability to fix the world’s problems.
This forum was held in 2017 at the University of Cincinnati. Thank you to the forums team for making this event possible.
What's wrong with the world? You do not sit on a position of moral neutrality yourself and say, "If there's wrong in the world, it's all out there, and I am the one who can sit above it and judge it." We are all in this mess together, and if we are talking about what's wrong in the rest of the world, we have to be prepared to have the critique bounce back at us.
The God who made the world has launched the project of healing and renewing the world in the middle of history. This is what the story of Jesus is all about — the Kingdom of God not as an abstract idea, but as a new way of being human —which has been inaugurated and in which we are invited to participate.
In Christianity, virtue is always a team sport. You can't do it by yourself. It needs to be done in community.
C.S. Lewis once said that you can deduce most of theology from the fact that people feel uncomfortable in the presence of a dead body.
When I look out at the world as a Christian, I see all sorts of things that are wrong. I see it as symptomatic of a larger out-of-jointness, which I believe the God who made the world is in the business of putting right.
I am loved; therefore, I am.
If you are loved, then the most natural thing to do is to love in return and in turn to be part of that wider community of love.
