War, Peace, & Violence: The Christian Debate You Haven't Heard w/ Paul Copan

War, Peace, & Violence: The Christian Debate You Haven't Heard w/ Paul Copan

From Truth Changes Everything by Dr. Jeff Myers: President of Summit Ministries

March 17, 2026 · 52 min

About this episode

The episode explores the Christian perspective on war, peace, and violence through a discussion with philosopher Paul Copan.

If you went back in time and you had the opportunity to be involved in an attempt to remove Adolf Hitler from the scene before WWII, would you do it? How you answer this question may determine your position on war, peace, and violence. Is violence sometimes necessary to produce good? Or is war and violence always wrong, no matter the circumstances? How does the Christian worldview best answer this predicament, and how should we as Christians view war in general? Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, so we need to be able to define exactly what that means. Our guest today is Paul Copan, Professor and Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He's a Christian theologian, analytic philosopher, apologist, and author, having written or edited around 45 books and contributed chapters to over 60 more. Paul is perhaps best known for tackling tough questions about God and the Old Testament in books like Is God a Moral Monster? , Is God a Vindictive Bully? , and Did God Really Command Genocide? He's also served as president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and currently chairs the Philosophy of Religion Group for the Tyndale Fellowship in the UK.

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Jeff Myers

Guest: Paul Copan

Topics covered

  • war
  • peace
  • violence
  • Christian worldview
  • ethics
  • philosophy

Keywords

  • Christianity
  • ethics
  • violence
  • war
  • peace
  • philosophy
  • Paul Copan

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Palm Beach Atlantic University, Evangelical Philosophical Society, Tyndale Fellowship

Books & works: Is God a Moral Monster?, Is God a Vindictive Bully?, Did God Really Command Genocide?

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