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This chapter provides an exploration on the manners by which a Christian perspective can affect one's thinking and own judgment on forgiveness positively or negatively. First, it examines a number of central Christian teachings about vengeance and forgiveness that can be accepted in secular terms. Afterwards, the chapter looks into various Christian teachings that can be accepted only in the context of Christian commitment. Two scriptural passages from Romans are cited on this section that shows God's approval of vengeance. However, human limitations inhibit God to entrust his creatures with such task. The chapter ends by drawing some insights from the theologian Marilyn Adams about Christian teachings that has bearing on forgiveness. Four teachings are presented in detail.

Both Marilyn Adams and Eleonore Stump have endorsed requirements on theodicy which, if true, imply that we can never suffer all-things-considered harms. William Hasker has offered a series of arguments intended to show that this implication is unacceptable. This chapter evaluates Hasker’s arguments and finds them lacking. However, it also argues that Hasker’s arguments can be modified or expanded in ways that make them very powerful. The chapter closes by considering why God might not meet the requirements endorsed by Stump and Adams and shows how they can modify their requirements to avoid the untenable implications about harm while still respecting the concerns that motivated their requirements in the first place.

This chapter begins with some remarks about what traditionalism, for all its difficulties, gets right, and why orthodox Christians are rightly reticent to abandon it. The author then moves on to universalism, first identifying what he takes to be its most plausible variety and then presenting select arguments on its behalf that are especially powerful and that pose the greatest challenge to anti-universalists. The most basic and fundamental argument in support of universalism is that the salvation of all persons seems to follow from two theological assumptions that are central to orthodox theism: that God is perfectly loving and that God is perfectly sovereign. Some further arguments from two of the foremost defenders of universalism, Marilyn Adams and Thomas Talbott, are given special consideration.

A. C. Ewing worked on moral goodness; Austin Farrer focused on the value and dignity of persons; George Mavrodes underscored the odd nature of binding moral duties in a naturalistic world. Robert Adams did work in theistic ethics that produced innovative variants of the moral argument; his wife, Marilyn Adams, demonstrated how God’s incommensurable goodness can address versions of the problem of evil. Linda Zagzebski identified three ways we need moral confidence. C. Stephen Evans defended divine command theory and a natural signs approach to apologetics. John Hare did landmark work on moral arguments. William Lane Craig used the moral argument to powerful effect in books and debates. C. Stephen Layman used the overriding reason thesis and conditional thesis in his variant of the argument. Scott Smith, Mark Linville, Angus Menuge, and Angus Ritchie have offered brilliant epistemic moral arguments. Paul Copan has used history to augment the moral argument.

This chapter is concerned with the question (central to the hiddenness problem) of how people who lack the theistic concept of God, or who are unable to attend to that concept because of trauma or other psychological obstacles, might be able to participate in a positively meaningful relationship with God just by trying to do so. The chapter begins by identifying sufficient conditions on trying to participate in a relationship with God, and arguing that these conditions can be satisfied even by someone who lacks the Christian concept of God. Next, it explains why simply trying to participate in a relationship with God by itself suffices for participating in a relationship with God. Finally, it shows that these conclusions imply that anyone who can try to participate in a relationship with God can participate in such a relationship just by trying.