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- Hodder & Stoughton
- Hodder & Stoughton
Religious issues & debates, Christianity, Christian life & practice
The former religion editor of the TLS Rupert Shortt writes an accessible contemporary reflection on the perennial question of human suffering.
How can a supposedly all-powerful and all-loving God permit evil and suffering on a grand scale?
The question has assailed people across cultures at least as far back as the biblical Book of Job. To sceptics, it forms clinching evidence that all talk of providence is childish -- or even a dangerous delusion. Writing clearly and concisely but avoiding simplistic answers, Rupert Shortt argues that belief in a divine Creator is intellectually robust, despite apparent signs to the contrary. Having cleared the ground, he goes on to show how a Christian understanding, in particular, points the way forward through terrain where raw feeling, intellectual inquiry and the toughest trials of the spirit often overlap.
The Hardest Problem takes its place alongside the work of C. S. Lewis as an essential guide to one of life's deepest dilemmas for a new generation of readers.
More books by Rupert Shortt
Praise for The Hardest Problem: God, Evil and Suffering
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'One of the most cogent writers of our day'
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The book succeeds in presenting a reasoned case for holding fast to the reality of God, as Christianity understands it, and not shirking from the troubling existence of suffering.
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'Wise, informed and immensely thoughtful'
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His arguments are powerful
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'Deep theological knowledge and spiritual discernment'
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'Beguiling'
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Rupert Shortt is clear and incisive in this new work of theodicy
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A stunning challenge to the casual atheism of our age
Rupert Shortt
Rupert Shortt is religion editor of The Times Literary Supplement and a former Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. He writes for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard. His books include Benedict XVI (2005), Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack (2012), Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop (2014) and God Is No Thing: Coherent Christianity (2016).
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