Brian Vroman

Is something good because it is pleasing to God, or is something pleasing to God because it is good? Is something good because God commands it, or is what is good inherently good regardless of what God or anyone else happens to think about it? If "the wages of sin is death," how does the death of an innocent satisfy such an obligation? How one answers these questions has profound implications.

In 1984, Josef Fritzl lured his teenage daughter, Elisabeth—whom he had already abused on previous occasions—into the basement of the family home. What Elisabeth did not know was that her father had converted the basement into a dungeon, in which Elisabeth would be confined for the next twenty-four years. During this period, Fritzl raped his daughter on numerous occasions, and Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, some of whom never saw the light of day until they were rescued many years later. How might a Christian apologist such as William Lane Craig explain the suffering of Elisabeth Fritzl and her children? What we will see is that Dr. Craig's attempts to explain evil and human suffering in conjunction with the existence of the traditional God of theism fall far short of meeting their mark.