The Sean McDowell Show - Prisoners Ask Me About God, Suffering, and Forgiveness

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

I was recently given the opportunity to check out a Prison in Texas with the help of Prison Fellowship. We had them ask me some great questions some of which really surprised me. On Tuesday, we'll be releasing the full tour and you don't want to miss it. Be a part Prison Fellowship’s mission to encounter Jesus with those impacted by incarceration. Donate now and transform lives: https://prisonfellowship.org/SCRestore Learn more about Prison Fellowship: http://bit.ly/2S2OyG4 CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) CHECK OUT: Consider Supporting the Ministry! (https://seanmcdowell.org/give) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Life Audio I could keep preaching and talking, but I understand you have some questions. I'm not going to pretend I have all of the answers to these things, but I will do my best from my thinking and make sense of them. All right, you're first. Hold the mic right up there like ice cream, just don't lick it. So the question that I have is, why do bad things happen to good people, especially of things. Christian faith. That's a great question. I'm going to answer this maybe in a way that you don't expect. Because you said, why do bad things happen to good people? Here's my question. Tell me one good person

who you know. If the Bible's right and our reflection is true, no one is good. No, not one. Paul makes that clear in Romans chapter 3 that no one has good. We are all sinful. Jesus says in Mark chapter 7 that it's out of the human heart that comes sloth and envy and pride and lust and all other sins. So there actually was one good person who lived. There's one person only who never sinned. And this is repeated in the scriptures. And what do we do to them?

we crucified them we crucified them now part of your question behind this is you might say okay i agree people aren't totally good we're broken and we're sinful but still why does god allow bad evil things to happen i would say to you this is the biggest question that people can ask so i have a debate coming up with the leading atheists in the world and i think there's a ton of evidence for god the one side of the scale that people try to say god doesn't exist is the problem of evil. That's about it. Now, with that said, you have the problem of evil over here. We have all this other evidence that Christianity is true. We've got to look at this in light of the changed lives and the origin of the universe and miracles and prophecy and the evidence for the Bible. It's important to

keep that in context. The other thing that I would say is I'm not a Christian because I can answer exactly why evil and suffering happens to every single person. I don't know the answer to that. how could I possibly know unless God tells me? I'm a Christian because I think Christianity offers a better response to why there's evil and suffering than any other faith and religion. So by the way, Muslims have to give an answer to why they're suffering and evil.

Buddhists have to give an answer. Mormons have to give an answer. Atheists have to give an answer. Everybody has to answer this question. So the question is not. Can I tell you exactly why ever? every evil and bad thing happens. The question is, which worldview offers the most satisfying response to the reason why there's

evil and suffering in the world? Now, we tend to think that evil and good are opposites of each other, but they're not. You see, you can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good. You can have good without evil, but you can't have evil without good. Let me explain. Evil depends upon and is parasitic upon good. So imagine you have a wrench up here that's new and it's a good wrench. What happens if it goes bad, it gets what? It gets rust. Good. You can have a good wrench that never goes bad. But what is rust? It's when something good goes bad and gets corrupted. So a wrench is the original design like good. Rust is more like evil. when something good gets corrupted. So evil is parasitic upon good. Maybe one other way will help.

Think about truth and lies. What's more basic, truth or a lie? Truth, exactly. You can have truth without somebody telling a lie. But what's a lie, by the way? Okay, so we've got to be careful. Lies just not saying something that's not true. Because if I said my wife is home right now making lunch, and I was wrong, I'm not lying, I'm just wrong.

So a lie is intentionally saying something that's not true, right? Now, can you tell a lie if there's no truth? Can you tell a lot? No. It wouldn't be a lie, exactly. There has to be truth for somebody to intentionally corrupt. Now, you can have truth without somebody telling a lie, but you can't have a lie. but you can't have a lie unless you first have a standard of truth.

One more example. Think about like on a test right and wrong. What's the standard? Is it right or wrong? The standard is it's right. Wrong is when you miss the standard. So I gave you a test that everybody gets right, but you can only get it wrong if there's first a standard that's right.

Now, why does this matter? When somebody looks at the world and says, why is there evil, what does that presume? They're saying something's broken, something's not right. Things shouldn't be this way, which only makes sense to say something's wrong if there's for something that's right. It only makes sense to say things shouldn't be this way if there's a way the world should be. It only makes sense to say there's evil if there's first good.

So ironically, when an atheist or somebody complains about evil in the world, that's a good reason to believe there's objective good. And friends, there's only objective good if there's a God. That's what I would call the beginning of a Christian response to the problem of evil. Evil actually points towards there being objective good and the existence of God, ironically. And in Christianity, God steps into it and experience it and knows it and promises someday to redeem it all for good. Thank you for asking that question.

I hope that helps some. I want to go back to the beginning. I want to go to Genesis. And so this was something that always stumped me in the beginning of my fate, and I still would like a little bit of clarity here, right? So we go back to Genesis where it's Adam Eve, Cain and Aidon. When Cain kills his brother Abel, he is cast from the garden. Who is it that he marries if there's only these four people?

Oh, that's a great question. So you're going to find differences among theologians how they address this. So here's where you're going to see the teacher come out and me, lay out two options, and then invite you back in the text to see which one you think is most compelling. Now, one answer would be, Adam lived how long according to the text, like 900 some years. So I've got three kids, I just turned 50. In 900 some years before like the falleness of the world, you can have kids and grandkids and great, great, great grandkids

who are spreading out, filling up the land all over the place. So in one sense, one reasonable interpretation is they lived, we don't know exactly how long, go out to these other lands that are removed significantly from them, some kind of distant ancestor that came, went out to. That's probably the traditional response that people would give. A different response, which raises other theological questions, is some theologians would argue that God created different people apart from Adam and Eve. And so we all trace back to Adam and Eve, and the story is uniquely

about them, but God created other people groups. Now, that's going to raise some theological questions about how we're biologically, physically related and connected together, and how Jesus' death, does it atone for them? Like, it's going to raise some different theological questions. But some theological questions, but some theologicalans have written some pretty in-depth book trying to give reasons why God could create Adam and Eve and then other people groups as well. But the typical answer would be the first one that I gave you, that they were living a lot

longer at that time, and generations and generations and generations, would have been removed from them. So it's a great question. Is there something that I could refer to that would show me that Jesus was God? Okay, so to make sure I understand, are you looking for passages and evidence that Jesus is really God in human flesh? That's the question. Okay, great question, by the way.

There are certain theological questions that are important in their peripheral. This is about as central as you can get of a question. question, who is Jesus? And the Christian narrative is he's a human being and he's divine. So how do we know that Jesus is divine? I would encourage you, if there's any book to read, I would really go through the gospel of John. One of the way I studied the Bible is I don't just read one book and move on to the next. I read a book over and over and over again. Then you see patterns, then you see connections, then you start to see themes. And I think it's really clear and mark the earliest gospel that Jesus God. And we could circle back to that if you want to. But I think John makes it so

explicit. He starts off by saying, and he began was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. And he says, all things were created through him, apart from him nothing was created that has been created in him was the life and the life was the light of men he goes on notice what john says he goes in the beginning was the word and if you keep reading in john one the word he's referring to jesus was god but then he's with god so how can he be god but also be with God. And the answer is, we see that Jesus and the Father are fully, truly God, but there's also a distinction that's there because he is God, but he's with God. So early church is trying to make sense of, okay, wait a minute, how can he be God but be distinct? And that's when we get

to the Trinity, which we could also circle back with. But I think John 1 makes it very clear that Jesus, in the beginning was the word, he was with God, and he was God. Now, you don't have to stop there. If you're reading John chapter 5, you're reading John chapter 8, it's very, very clear that John is arguing that Jesus is God.

You present the gospel, right? Faith, right, that we got. Jesus calls it my faith in Revelation's 213, right? And the fruit of the hope, one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is faith.

right and the bible teaches that he's the author and finisher of our faith right is faith something that is given to us supernaturally like like the fruit the name fruit of the holy spirit because um in john chapter six jesus says no one come to me and there's the father draws him right so the faith that we got and believing in God is giving to us supernaturally, right? You know, do you understand what I'm saying? I think I'm tracking with you. Yes, yes.

You know, it's, you know, the faith that we got, you know, because it's like I would say it would be like the document of predestination and election, right, that we're given, right, you know, the faith. That's my question. That is a big question, Herman. So I'm going to put my teacher hat on here. used to teach high school Bible for a decade full time. And there's some questions I would answer my students, and some I wouldn't.

I wouldn't tell them where I landed on this. What I would try to do is give them different perspectives how to make sense of this. So Jesus being the God man, if you don't believe that, you're out of the Christian fold. Now, how you reconcile God's sovereignty with human free will, there's different models and ways of making sense to this. that Christians have and probably always will disagree over. And you're going to have to answer this by really wrestling with Scripture as you are and asking what you think is most consistent and philosophically sound and go with it. So on one side, you'd have more what is Armenianism,

not Armenianism, Arminianism, that leans into human free will. God is sovereign, but we have a choice to respond to God or not. if you come over to the Calvinist side, it's far more God's sovereignty. And he comes in and flips the switch to turn on your means of salvation and from beginning to end accomplishes it. So the Armenian wouldn't say, I save myself. They just say God, nobody, like for example, the passage in John, nobody can come to the Father unless God draws them.

Well, God is actually drawing all of us in different ways through creation, through conscience. some people through dreams, some people through testimony. So he's drawing all of us, God gives the credit, an Armenian would say. They just say we have a choice, so to speak, if we respond or not. In the middle is something very interesting. It's a position called Molinism. And it's basically, so it's called, it's from Luis Molina. And it's a very creative way of trying to reconcile God's sovereignty with human free

will. And very simply, it's the idea that God not only knows what will happen in the future, he knows every conceivable thing that would happen. So you think if there's a phrase about like if these miracles had been done in Tyron Seidon, here's how they would have responded. That never happened, but God knows these contingencies. So in his sovereignty, what does he do. He selects a world, so to speak, knowing what we will freely choose, but he sovereignly has selected that world with knowledge of the contingencies of how it plays itself out. Hey listeners, it's Kelly from Life Audio. We know life gets busy, and sometimes it's easy for your faith to get pushed to the side. That's why we created the good word, a free weekly

newsletter designed to give you a moment to slow down, be encouraged, and reconnect with what matters most, God's Word. Inside, you'll find devotionals, guided prayers, podcast recommendations, and other faith-filled content we think you'll love. No ads, no clutter. Just good content to help you stay rooted in God's Word throughout your week. Sign up for the Good Word today at lifeadio.com forward slash the good word. That's life audio.com forward slash the good word. Now, you got to decide which one you think is most reasonable. I'm not going to answer that for you.

But what everybody agrees on is that we have free will. They'll just differ over what free will is. So on the Armenian and really it's called Molanism in the middle, they'll say we have what's called libertarian free will. I could use A or I could choose B. And decisions are up to me. On the count some you might find hard Calvinists that are pure determinists. Others hold of you more that's called compatibilism that is just acting according to my desires.

So I can't choose God unless God comes down and turns on the light and enables me to choose him. So almost everyone's going to say, well, we have free will. They're just going to differ over what free will is. All sides are going to say that God is. sovereign, they're just going to differ over what God knows, how he knows it, and how God sovereignly interacts with the world. Now, that might be profoundly unsatisfactory to you, but the teacher in me wants to resist telling you one and to push you back to the scriptures and keep saying, all right, what does the Bible mean by this? And by the way, when the Bible says,

God is the author and perfector of our faith, all sides would agree with that. Even our Minians would say, well, of course that he is. I'm working with God like it says, work out your salvation. I'm not doing this in my own power. God is working with the Holy Spirit, like you said, through me, but I have agency and responsibility. So I'm trying to frame it more for you than I am simply answer it because that's what I would do for my own students. there was heaven and god i guess the god was in heaven with the devil and those angels and those people who were in heaven with them and i believe that somewhere the bible was to depict them what heaven is like and his characteristics and that things in heaven are good as well as all the things that god

created that he said in genesis i believe 131 that all things he created was good so he was asking you know how is it that everything god created was good and for the good, but Satan and these angels were in heaven next to God, with God, and his presence, but they turned evil, jealous, deceitful, all of those things of that nature. And also, for me personally,

when it comes to this right, this is what bothers my mind as well. I believe it's in a story somewhere in 1st Samuel, maybe, or I'm not sure, I'm not a theologian, but I think this is the story with Job. I believe where, God talks to them and he's telling them like, hey, this is my child and I don't think that you can

affect him. And he said, you could do X, Y, Z, but fair as life, which in my mind kind of took me to life, is he giving him power? You know what I've made of a certain extent? And so, how did God create all good as well as create the evil? that's a great question by the way if you're having first off kudos to you for having conversations with the non-christian about what you believe somebody asks you something you don't know the answer you just say great question i don't know the answer let me look it up and get back to you that's how you learn that's how you grow my dad said to me it's fine to say you don't know an answer once but don't do it twice then you go try to find an answer and i'm trying to do that for the most part in my life

now does satan have some power yeah one of the things that's the thing that's the thing temptations we see. What does Satan do? He brings Jesus up and says, I will give you all of this. It kind of implies that God at least conceded and has given some power to Satan. He's considered the ruler of the heir. Now, he's a created being and his power is less than God, but God has given him some power. So how could Satan be in heaven with God with things that are good and turn? and away from God. Now, when the Bible doesn't directly answer a question, and it doesn't actually tell us,

the best guess that church history, people have held throughout church history, is that Satan was like an angel-type figure in heaven, rebelled against God. That comes from Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. But it's prophetic-type language, and it doesn't tell us that explicitly. So that's the most reasonable account.

But we do know that God doesn't create evil and Satan is evil. So at some point he's a created being that did turn against God and rebel against him at some point. So how did he do this? Again, when the Bible doesn't answer, you kind of got to say, here's the best I can do to piece this together. And I think I would say, once God makes beans who have agency, who have choice, these beings, regardless of their environment, can look around and make a decision

of what they think is best for themselves and whether they want to listen to another being or not. That's what it means to be an agent and to be a bean. And probably all of us can think of examples on our life. We look at somebody who were like, you literally had everything and still shows the opposite, like, what's a matter with you?

you. So I think if God makes angel a being, I think angels at least originally, because they're persons, they're not animals, at least originally had some free will to be obedient to God or to rebel. Satan was made as a being, looked around, thought, you know what, maybe this is better for me than somebody else telling me how to live, and rebel against God. I think there's something plausible about that. Now the next question is, okay, well then wait a minute. Then if we go to heaven, I knew you were going to ask this next. Then how do we know we are not going to rebel? Here's the key difference. And people would ask the question this way. They'll say, well, if we're going to be in heaven and not lose our salvation and leave heaven, why didn't God

just make that to begin with so nobody rebelled against him? And I think my answer is he couldn't have done that. So maybe this is a crass analogy, but it came from one of my favorite philosophers. He said, I will no more sin in heaven than if you said to me, you know what, I want to serve you lunch and it's dog poop. It's like there is zero chance I'm meeting that no appeal to me. That pales in comparison to how odious sin will be in heaven. So when Jesus, I'm paraphrasing, when Jesus is on the cross, and you're talking to the criminal next to the repentant criminal that says you will be with me in paradise today. But then in Revelation, it said at the second coming of Christ, says the dead in Christ will rise.

So basically, where do we go as soon as we die? Are we in heaven immediately or does that happen at a later time? Wonderful question. So when we die, Jesus was right. And of course, he's always right. I don't even need to preface that, that the man who died on the cross, the thief would be with him today in paradise. So you're a believer in Jesus and you die, we're with God in paradise. What Revelation is talking about is the new heavens and the new earth.

When Jesus comes back, what's going to happen? These are the last two chapters of Revelation. Then we have a new creation that is made. And it talks about Jerusalem coming down and the pearly gates and the gold and everything. That's the new heavens and the new earth. So people right now, you might say are in God's presence. It's beautiful. It's amazing. We are waiting for Jesus to come back and return, end sin once and for all,

and then make the new heavens and the new earth. Those new heavens and new earth will be physical, by the way. We're not just spirits floating up in whatever. It is creation renewed, kind of like God intended in the first two chapters, the Bible, Genesis 1 and Genesis chapter 2. So we die. We're in God's presence. At some point in the future,

Jesus is going to come back and make the new heavens and the new earth and transform creation. Great question. My name is a trend for it. I want to know how do you know Christ's risen? Oh, that's a great question. I think we can know Christ has risen two ways. I really believe if somebody gets into the scriptures,

and reads the Gospels, which are the Word of God and contain God's power, I think God can speak to us directly and give us confidence that this is true. Now, how do we know it historically? Like, is there evidence outside of an experience for the Bible? And this is where I teach a whole class, a graduate class over a semester, on the evidence for the resurrection. So I'll try to give you the quickest response I can give. historians as a whole will agree that there are certain facts around the life of Jesus that are so well

corroborated you can't ignore them so certain facts are like that Jesus lives that Jesus was crucified and by the way how do we really know Jesus is crucified first off we have four gospels we have the other letters in the New Testament we have early church historians we have Josephus a Jew that the end of the first century, Tassus Roman early second century, all confirmed that Jesus was crucified. By the way, if you're trying to start a movement with a Messiah, do you invent the most shameful, dishonorable death imaginable for your alleged Messiah? Of course not. It makes no sense. So we know Jesus lived when it was crucified. We actually have really good evidence that Jesus was buried. Have you ever thought about the fact that we know that Jesus was crucified? Have you ever thought about the fact that we know

the name of the person who buried Jesus, and it was Joseph of Hermitius. So we know his name, we know where he's from, we know his economic status. He was wealthy. He's a religious leader. We're given a lot of details of the burial of Jesus in multiple accounts, and there's no other early competing accounts. By the way, again, if the Gospels are going to invent an honorable burial. Why would they pick somebody from the Sanhedron who put Jesus to death to give him an honorable burial? Do you see why they wouldn't invent that? So Jesus lived, crucified, he's buried.

We actually have 21 arguments. I won't give you all the arguments that the tomb of Jesus was found empty. 21 arguments. Now I'll give you a couple. All the Gospels report that the tomb. Empty tomb was discovered by who? By Mary and the women. Discovered by the women.

Now, why is that significant? In that culture, a woman's testimony was not considered as significant as a man's. It was a patriarchal culture. Men were more educated. They wouldn't invent it. It would be counterproductive to their message. Now, to get a risen Jesus, you have to have an empty tomb. So why invent?

that women discover the empty tomb if you want anybody to believe this. By the way, if the men are writing the narrative, men are men across cultures, they're certainly not going to make up a story. Yeah, we were confused and cowards and the women were the heroes. Are you with me on this? That's one argument. A second argument that's really interesting is in what city was Jesus crucified? Jerusalem.

Fifty days later, that's what Pentecost is. Pentay for five tens. Fifty days later, where did the Christian movement begin? Jerusalem. Now, Jesus was publicly crucified and put in a known man's tomb. If these events were not true and they made it up, where would be the most difficult city on the planet to invent a movement of an empty tomb and a resurrected Christ

if it weren't true. Jerusalem. They don't go to Corinth. They don't go to Egypt. They go right back to Jerusalem. Minimally, that shows a lot of confidence in their story. Third evidence for the empty tomb is what's the first story that's told by the religious leaders to explain away the empty tomb? Then what happened? Disciples stole the body. I want to think about this for a second. If they saved the disciples stole the body, what are they conceding about the state of the body and the tomb it's empty you don't say the

disciples stole something if you have the body to produce the very claim that the disciples stole the body actually shows the tomb is empty she asked me how we know jesus rose and grave we know jesus lit we know he's crucified we have really good evidence he's buried we have good evidence for an empty tomb. And then we have multiple accounts of appearances of Jesus. Now we have appearance to the 500. We have appearances to the 12. We have appearance to those without Thomas. And then the appearance to Thomas. You might be saying, well, these are all believers. Friends, we have at least two that were not believers Jesus appeared to. One was James, the brother of Jesus. John 7 and Mark 3, his family did not believe in him during his lifetime. James becomes the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Just read

Acts chapter 12 and into chapter 15. What about Paul? Paul was persecuting Christians. We have Paul in his own words saying Jesus appeared to him. And by the way, second Corinthians chapter 11, what's Paul willing to do? Shipwrecked, beaten, persecuted, refuses to recant Christ. So we'll leave. Jesus lived, crucified, buried, tomb is empty, multiple appearance counts. The last thing I'll say is I actually did my doctoral dissertation on this, my PhD, is the apostles are willing to suffer and die for the belief that they had seen the risen Jesus. Most people aren't willing to walk across the street for what they believe. They were willing to suffer and die for it.

You say, well, wait a minute. What about 9-11? 15 Muslims willingly died for their beliefs. Friends, here's the difference. People will not die. People will die for what they believe is true. But no one will die for a known lie. The 15 Muslims who died in 9-11 were minimally 13,

13, 1,400 years removed from the time of Muhammad, the apostles traveled with and saw and knew Jesus personally. So if it weren't true, they were willing to suffer and die for something they knew was false, that's hard to believe. So does that make sense? I think we have good historical evidence Jesus, risen for the grave. Now the skeptic can't say, I just don't believe you. What the skeptic has to do is say, given these known facts, I'm going to give another narrative that explains why people

believed Jesus had risen and explains the origin of the church. There's no convincing narrative that can account for all the details. One quick one and say, well, the Apostles hallucinated. Well, who can tell me of the facts that I gave? Which, hallucinations, if that accounts for their bleach, she had arisen, which fact would that not account for? Well, the 500 is interesting, but of the specific facts that I gave, which would not be explained away by hallucination? Empty tomb. So if they hallucinated, the body would still be in the tomb. And by the way, if they hallucinated, how do you get Paul who wasn't one of the 12? And how do you get James who wasn't one of the 12? So you can come up.

up with these theories that account for a few of the facts. But there's no a theory that accounts for all the facts unless you believe Jesus has risen from the grave. I think the main reason a lot of people don't want to believe it is because you can't just believe Jesus risen from the grave and move on with your life. If you really believe that, it demands life change. And that means he is Lord and Savior the universe and Lord and Savior of my life. Does that help? In the back, in the Toomey study, they have a book by Gary Habermas, who is the world's expert

on the resurrection. That book alone is 700 pages on the evidence for the resurrection. There's evidence if you want to explore and study this and go further. But hopefully that's the quickest answer I could give you with any substance. So I hope that helps.

Thank you so much. Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every review helps.

Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual formation, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Hey friends, Nicole Eunice here from the How to Study the Bible podcast. I want to invite you to experience a fresh look at the story of Joseph and what it means for you today. Life can totally throw us for a loop, whether it's your family or your marriage, work, church, or something else entirely. Maybe you have found yourself in a season that you never would have expected and that you certainly wouldn't have signed up for. In this six-week Bible study together, we're going to talk about the biblical story of Joseph, a man who lived an unexpected life and trusted God through it all. We'll talk about the blessings he experienced, the promises God keeps, the way that tests of our character can actually refine our faith.

We'll talk about patience, we'll talk about loss, absolutely talk about redemption. So come join us for the six-week series over on the How to Say the Bible podcast. Can't wait to dive in with you.