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Welcome!

Ratio Christi (“reason for Christ” in Latin) serves to defend the Christian faith in honest dialogue with both our skeptical & believing friends.

Weekly Meetings: Thursdays @ 8:30pm

tx.ag/RatioChristi

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Scan this to *Get Involved* with Ratio Christi!

If you want to learn more about Ratio Christi or take a look at our communication platforms, YouTube channel, and other resources, please scan this QR code! You’ll learn more about what you can find here later, but I’ll let you scan it now while I introduce myself.

My name is Landry Graves, and I am the president of our chapter of Ratio Christi. I’ve been involved with RC for several years now and manage the chapter’s operations. I came to A&M for mechanical engineering, and I graduated with my bachelors and am now in my first year of graduate school - I’m getting a PhD in robotic control systems. So, if you want to talk about Ratio Christi, how I got involved in it, - or robotics, mechanical engineering, ETAM, and grad school - I’m happy to do so after the meeting.

Today’s meeting is a little different than normal. Since it’s the start of a new school year, we wanted to give you all a crash course about what Ratio Christi is. But when we were thinking about how to do that, we realized that to truly understand why we do what we do, we need to give you a bigger picture. What’s going to happen is that I’ll start by giving you the larger background that emphasizes the importance of what we do, and then our Curriculum Officer Ben Torno will use that context to explain how we do that and where you can get involved.

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The Problem of Animal Suffering

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How well will I understand the material?
Very Easy	Simple	Moderate	Challenging	Very Difficult


How much of the material is grounded in scripture?
Zero Bible	Unbeliever Friendly	Half Bible	Experienced Readers	Purely Bible

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AIM

Explain the problem of animal suffering.

Explain why it matters.
Provide a solution.

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The Argument

If God exists, He is all-powerful and all-good and would prevent animal pain and suffering.

There exists vast amounts of animal pain and suffering.

Therefore, God does not exist.

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What we mean by animal suffering:

Predation

Deadly Parasites

Mass Extinctions

Starvation

Diseases

Wildfires

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The “Biggest” Problem Matters

Skeptics and Atheists

Believers

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Alvin and Carol

Carol the Christian

Alvin the Atheist

How could your God allow the vast amount of animal pain and suffering

I trust that God has good reasons for allowing animal suffering, but I am not in a position to know the reasons.

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Causes of the Problem

Focus is God & Humans

Animal death before the Human Fall

Augustine (430 AD)

Evidence for Animal pain

Typical Theodicies Fail

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What to expect

Our solution is not like this:

It’s more like this:

Animal Suffering

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A Solution - The Fallen Angel Theodicy

Spiritual Beings were created first.

Job 38-4-7

Fallen Angels

Gen. 3

Some of these spiritual beings rebelled against God and through either their

actions or negligence corrupted God’s good design in the animal kingdom.

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Two Options for Fallen Angel Theodicies

Demonic Action Theodicy- Fallen spiritual beings have corrupted God’s creation by direct action.

Omission Theodicy - Fallen spiritual beings have indirectly corrupted God’s creation by neglecting their responsibilities.

(NOTE) The Omission Theodicy was recently developed by Brian Cutter and Philip Swenson in their paper

published in April 2025.

Brian Cutter

Notre Dame

Philip Swenson

William and Mary

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Church Fathers Weigh In

Origen

(253 AD)

Athenagoras (190 AD)

Justin Martyr (165 AD)

Tertullian (240 AD)

Nature and the animal kingdom reflect both the wondrous creativity of God and the corrupting influence of demonic free creatures.

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Modern Proponents Weigh In

Alvin Plantinga

(1932 - )

J. R. R. Tolkien

(d. 1973)

C. S. Lewis

(d. 1963)

“If there is such a power, as I myself believe, it may well have corrupted the animal creation before man appeared.” Lewis, Problem of Pain, pp.134-5

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Sam’s question after Sauron’s defeat

Gandalf said, “A great Shadow has departed.”

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God’s Ultimate Defeat of Evil

John Hick

(d. 2012)

“ No theodicy without an afterlife.”

Isaiah 11:6-9

Revelation 21:1

*Romans 8:19-22

*The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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There is a Hierarchy of Spiritual Beings

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Spiritual Beings have Responsibilities

Job 38:4-7 The sons of God were created before God created the world.

I Kings 22 Divine Council governance

Job 1:6 Divine Council meeting

Deut. 32:8-9 God divided mankind at Babel, according to the number of

the sons of God. God will judge their rebellion.

We can assume that some free spiritual beings had the responsibility to prevent the animal suffering we find in our world.

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Why would God give this job to spiritual beings?

Angels, like humans, are not simply programmed to act in their roles without thought. God intended that they freely choose to serve God, and worship Him. The created spiritual beings are not autonomous.

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Hold on. . . I don’t believe all that Satan stuff!

“

“You’re claiming this is a problem for Christians and I am giving a solution that is consistent with my Christian worldview. I can readily admit this is a speculative theodicy. I could be wrong.”

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Spiritual beings can’t interact with the world !!

An Angel freed Peter from prison

An Angel moved the stone from Jesus’ tomb

Two Angels visited Lot

Abram visited by two angels and God

Jacob wrestling with God

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Biblical Data reveals Satan’s activity

Satan is “lord” of the world (John 12:31).

Satan is god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4).

Satan owns all the authority of all the kingdoms of the world (Lk 4:5-7).

Satan holds the power of death (Heb 2:14).

Satan is the enemy who planted weeds in the wheat field (Matt. 13: 24-30).

The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)

“Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13)

Christ came to break the power of him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil.

(Hebrews 2:14)

If spiritual beings can directly interact with humans and the material world, it is reasonable to think they could also be negligent in their duties.

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Natural Evils seem to be randomly distributed

The omission theodicy makes better sense of the apparent randomness and indifference of natural evils. The fallen angels’ negligence also makes sense of the default tendency of evolution to produce predation, violence, and parasites.

Direct Action

Theodicy

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Conclusion

We have explained a major part of the problem of animal suffering.
We can see why it matters.
We have offered a solution that is consistent with God’s nature and the Christian worldview.

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Takeaways

The Omission Theodicy, along with God’s ultimate defeat of evil in the afterlife is a reasonable solution to part of the problem of animal suffering. An enemy has done this, but will ultimately be defeated.
We should stress this is a speculative theory. It is ok to say, “I could be wrong.”
We live in the already/not yet time of paradox. God calls believers to cooperate with Him in rescuing the world from these destructive forces.

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Resources

“The Omission Theodicy” by Brian Cutter and Philip Swenson

Death Before the Fall by Ronald Osborn

The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser

Satan and the Problem of Evil by Gregory Boyd

Demons by Michael Heiser

“How did Evil Come into the World? A Primordial Free-Will Theodicy” by Johnston

“The Nonviolent Character of God, Evolution, and the Fall of Satan” by Emberger

“The Problem with the Satan Hypothesis: Natural Evil and Fallen Angel Theodicies” by

Kent Dunnington

“The Suffering of Invertebrates: an Approach from Animal Ethics” by Alejandro Iglesias