Posted on 04/24/2011 8:32:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
It’s easy to spot militant atheists who attend my presentation called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. They usually sit with their arms folded and scowls on their faces. During a recent presentation at Michigan State, I knew I’d get push back from one such scowling student sitting to my right. He looked mad and was mad. (He wouldn’t even smile at a hilarious Homer Simpson clip!)
He shot his hand up during the Q&A and yelled out, “You mentioned the problem of evil during your presentation but you didn’t answer it! If there is a good God, then why does evil exist? Why doesn’t God stop it?”
I said, “Sir, that is an excellent question. Sometimes I bluntly answer this way. ‘If God stopped all evil, he might start with you . . . and me because we both do evil every day.’ To end evil on earth God would have to take away our free will. But if he takes away our free will, he takes away our ability to love as well. Allow me to show you a video that beautifully illustrates this in less than two minutes.” I then played this outstanding video (developed by my friend and fellow seminary graduate, Jim Zangmeister), which traces evil back to free will.
Most in the audience appreciated the clip and applauded. But the atheist was unmoved. “Why do babies die, why do tsunamis occur? These aren’t the result of free will!” he protested.
“True, they are not the result of someone’s free will today,” I explained. “But Christianity traces all of our trouble back to a free will choice by Adam. As a result, we live in a fallen world where bad things happen, but God takes the initiative to bring good from evil. In fact, you can sum up the entire Bible in one word—redemption. Paradise lost in Genesis is paradise regained in Revelation. God initiated and achieved this redemption by sending Jesus Christ who suffered and died on our behalf. So we can question God about suffering as the biblical writers did, but God didn’t exempt Himself from it. Jesus was the only completely innocent person in the history of the world, yet he suffered horribly for our redemption. He brought good from evil.”
The atheist didn’t like that either. He interrupted me several times, so I finally asked him, “Are you an atheist?”
He refused to answer but then blurted out, “It doesn’t matter!”
I said, “It does matter because if you are an atheist (I later learned from his blog he is), then you have no grounds by which to judge anything evil. Objective evil doesn’t exist unless objective good exists and objective good doesn’t exist unless God exists. You can have good without evil, but you can’t have evil without good. In other words, the shadows prove the sunshine. You can have sunshine without shadows, but you can’t have shadows without sunshine. So evil doesn’t disprove God—it actually shows there must be a God because it presupposes Good. Evil may prove there’s a devil out there, but it doesn’t disprove God.”
The atheist persisted, “But if God exists, why do some babies die such horrible deaths?”
Well, if the atheist is granting that God exists, then he has a valid question. While he can’t explain evil and suffering from his atheistic worldview, I need to explain it from mine.
My explanation went this way. Although I know why evil in general occurs (see the video), I don’t know why every specific evil occurs. But I know why I don’t know why—because I’m finite and can’t see into the future. Since God is infinite and can see all the way into eternity, he may allow evil events that ultimately work together for good. In other words, he can still bring good from evil even if we can’t see how.
To illustrate, I referred back to the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” That’s where George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, falls on hard times, becomes despondent and tries to commit suicide. He’s saved by an angel and is permitted to see how life in his town would have turned out if he had never existed. George sees that everything would have turned out far worse without him, and thus realizes that even though evil infects life, good can prevail in the end. George could only see this with God’s timeless perspective. Only God can see how trillions of free choices and events can interact ultimately for good even if some of them seem hopelessly negative at the time. (In fact, that’s one reason why God told Job to trust him.)
At that point, a man sitting ten feet from the atheist raised his hand.
“Go ahead, sir.”
He first looked over at the atheist, then back at me and said, “I know of a young woman who was raped and became pregnant. The rape nearly destroyed her.” His voice began to crack . . . “But she decided that she would not punish the baby for the sin of the father. She later gave birth to a baby boy.” (By this point he was weeping openly.) “And that boy grew up to be a pastor whom God has used to help bring many people to Christ. He ministers to people to this day. That boy grew up to be me.”
He then looked back at the atheist and said, “My mother turned evil into good, and God can too.”
The atheist left immediately after the event ended, but I did get to meet that brave pastor who spoke up. His name is Gary Bingham, and he’s the pastor of Hillside Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana. Gary told me that his mom had self-confidence issues for many years but is doing much better since becoming a Christian a few years ago. I thanked him and asked him to let his mom know that she touched many for good that night. I hope through this column she has touched many more today.
Well from what we can see he sent his people Moses.
Q: How many Christians would be willing to be personally damned to hell forever if by so doing all other people in the world would get to go to heaven?
I can name one – Jesus! Jesus was the person who was willing to be damned to hell. It was an awesome work, one that I unashamedly say I could not do. We don’t do good works to get into heaven or to avoid hell; this would be futile. Jesus did for us what we could not do.
It also had to do with willingly being eternally damned for the sake of others (which also isn't the case with Christ, as the Bible teaches that he was resurrected and will return as King of Kings.)
Doesn't the Bible teach that some people will be better off in heaven than others? And don't you think that this influences the behavior of Christians?
People are influenced by their believed self-interest. This includes Christians. That's not shocking. It's human.
You’re right on the mark. Even without an afterlife, though, a person may do good deeds via the self-interested motivation of feeling good about helping others.
That's what is being claimed earlier in the thread, for those who are in heaven.
Heh...I know that all too well (not from my grandfather, but does a great-uncle count? ;-).
You can’t bang on the doors of the casino and demand your grandfathers money back because it should have come to you.
So when Jesus helped a crippled beggar, He could have said, "nope--your ancestor could have saved money for your care, but he didn't, so don't look at me!"?
I thought it was Godly to be charitable, yet here you're implying that God--who has unlimited resources and ability to give--is right to allow descendants of Adam to wallow wounded in the dirt?
Same thing with forgiveness. We are to give others many, many chances for redemption. I note there is no chance to redeem our Eden on earth.
The downtrodden have no right to your money, nor can they demand you give to them, yet Jesus taught it was right to give to them nonetheless. Why would we--made in the image of Him, told to emulate Him--expect less of Him?
Everybody wants to feel important, to be important. Why is this? It's part of our human nature. Was it put there by God or by evolution? Some people believe the first, others believe the latter.
Whichever it was, when we make a positive difference in the world, we are important. Our contribution matters.
“I note there is no chance to redeem our Eden on earth. “
Again, I totally disagree.
Jesus is our chance to redeem our Eden on earth. If anyone (poor or rich, great or insignificant, any race, any intelligence) put their trust in Him - they will be saved, and go to heaven; and at the end of the world God is making a new heaves and a new earth; Eden restored.
The gospel is offered to all.
Those who are in heaven already proved to God they love Him and want to be with Him. Kind of why they are there. The test is over. They will never leave God’s presence again. You can take that to the bank because God tells us so in the bible, multiple places.
Are you really honestly asking this or are you just asking to be argumentative?
Let me rephrase. I believe that Christ descended into Hades (Acts 2:31.) I do believe Hades/Hell are one in the same, though I’m not willing to die on that hill.
I don’t think I misunderstood you. I think you’re saying people, including Christians, can mostly act in their own self-interest. I am saying that Christ is the one who broke that mold. He didn’t endure His suffering to gain entrance into Heaven, to stay out of Hell, or to get a better place in Heaven.
I did not, and won’t, argue that Christians aren’t ever motivated by their own interests – of course we are! I am contrasting Christ with the rest of humanity.
In response to “Doesn’t the Bible teach that some people will be better off in heaven than others? And don’t you think that this influences the behavior of Christians?” The funny thing here is I never said anything to the contrary. I said we don’t do good works to get into heaven or to get out of hell.
I’ll pray for your woundedness.
You work way to hard at misunderstanding.
So the omnipotent father rescues his child, or the gives to the beggar, only after a test is passed?
Are you really honestly asking this or are you just asking to be argumentative?
I'm not just being argumentative. Do you not see the problem with the claims being made in the story? Do you not see that the idea of "testing" someone in need before helping him contradicts other teachings?
God is not going to force anyone to be around Him for eternity if they spend their entire life on this earth deliberately rejecting Him.
Now that would be torture to these people, to be stuck around the people that love God and want to be around Him and enjoy being with Him, when that’s never been what these people wanted in the first place.
I meant “the test is over” not in the sense that it saves them, it is merely a recognition of the life they lived that showed they loved God, knew they needed Him and His gift of salvation, and that they trusted God and knew that He was working things for their good, whether personally their situation was good or bad at the moment.
If you’re just here playing devils advocate, I have no desire to debate this with you. If you’ve already made up your mind that God isn’t for you, you’re not interested in hearing anything but are just picking apart people’s answers to you. Either way I’m done with you. Take care.
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