The problem of evil

A friend writes:

Other than Ron Nash do you know of any other good resources on the problem of evil?

In reply:

Yes, there are lots of them. Greg Koukl at www.str.org is excellent on this; Ravi Zacharias (www.rzim.org) also has a nice piece from a Q & A session (quoted below).

The key point is learning to think about it presuppositionally. Most people struggle with this, at least initially, because they naturally think that objective morality just is. But this is 180 degrees wrong. If there is no God, there is no objective morality. Yet most people appeal to objective morality every day, which is really an acknowledgement that God exists

Following is Ravi’s piece: you should read it over and over until the force of the argument hits you like a tonne of bricks! It is a pretty simple argument, but devastatingly powerful.

Comments always welcome.

Cheers.

Some time ago I was speaking at a university in England, when a rather exasperated person in the audience made his attack upon God.

“There cannot possibly be a God,” he said, “with all the evil and suffering that exists in the world!”

I asked, “When you say there is such a thing as evil, are you not assuming that there is such a thing as good?”

“Of course,” he retorted.

“But when you assume there is such a thing as good, are you not also assuming that there is such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to distinguish between good and evil?”
“I suppose so,” came the hesitant and much softer reply.

“If, then, there is a moral law,” I said, “you must also posit a moral law giver. But that is who you are trying to disprove and not prove. If there is no transcendent moral law giver, there is no absolute moral law. If there is no moral law, there really is no good. If there is no good there is no evil. I am not sure what your question is!”

There was silence and then he said, “What, then, am I asking you?”

He was visibly jolted that at the heart of his question lay an assumption that contradicted his own conclusion.

You see friends, the skeptic not only has to give an answer to his or her own question, but also has to justify the question itself. And even as the laughter subsided I reminded him that his question was indeed reasonable, but that his question justified my assumption that this was a moral universe. For if God is not the author of life, neither good nor bad are meaningful terms.

This seems to constantly elude the critic who thinks that by raising the question of evil, a trap has been sprung to destroy theism. When in fact, the very raising of the question ensnares the skeptic who raised the question. A hidden assumption comes into the open. Moreover, as C. S. Lewis reminds us, the moment we acknowledge something as being “better”, we are committing ourselves to an objective point of reference.

The disorienting reality to those who raise the problem of evil is that the Christian can be consistent when he or she talks about the problem of evil, while the skeptic is hard-pressed to respond to the question of good in an amoral universe. In short, the problem of evil is not solved by doing away with the existence of God; the problem of evil and suffering must be resolved while keeping God in the picture.

© 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.rzim.org/slice/slicetran.php?sliceid=29

Evolutionary Logic

Argument by assertion is unanswerable. If, for instance, some vague waffle about an evolutionary transition does not satisfy a recalcitrant student, the instructor simply says, “This point should be intuitively obvious. I’ve explained it as clearly as I can. If you still cannot see it, you will just have to think very carefully about it yourself, and then you will see how trivial and obvious it is.” The instructor at this point might also want to add, “What are you, a creationist?” or “Are you one of those Christian fundamentalists?” or “Where have you been brainwashed?” Arguments by demonization like this are particularly effective when one or a few students get unruly, but the majority sides with the instructor.

Source: here.

What’s wrong with Bishop Spong?

“…Spong does not believe in a God who intervenes in history; rather he believes that we become “[Gods] … by having the courage to be the self God created each of us to be. (RBF p. 206-7)” Jesus wasn’t virgin-born; he was the product of rape. He was not divine, but a fallible human, a good social teacher, was married, suffered the criminal’s death of crucifixion. His body was not buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, but thrown in a common criminal’s grave. He was not resurrected bodily, but his body rotted along with the other corpses.”

“…Spong portrays “fundamentalists” as bigoted ignoramuses, whereas those who agree with him are highly learned and intellectual. However, how solid and credible are Spong’s arguments? Is the Bible really littered with the problems and contradictions that Spong claims it is? How reliable are the arguments Spong draws from history or science?”

“…Spong prides himself on being scholarly and on spending hours studying the Bible. Yet, as we have seen in his study of Gal. 1:15f., he makes basic mistakes about the content and meaning of the Greek text. Also, he erroneously asserts that “render undo Caesar” is found only in the Gospel according to Luke; whereas it is also found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Such basic mistakes do not enhance the credibility of a professed scholar.”

Source: http://www.christian-apologetics.org/html/Whats_wrong_Spong.htm

Evolutionary Logic

Argument by assertion is unanswerable. If, for instance,
some vague waffle about an evolutionary transition does not satisfy
a recalcitrant student, the instructor simply says, “This point
should be intuitively obvious. I’ve explained it as clearly as I
can. If you still cannot see it, you will just have to think very
carefully about it yourself, and then you will see how trivial and
obvious it is.” The instructor at this point might also want to
add, “What are you, a creationist?” or “Are you one of those
Christian fundamentalists?” or “Where have you been brainwashed?”
Arguments by demonization like this are particularly
effective when one or a few students get unruly, but the majority
sides with the instructor.

Source: http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.09.evologic.htm

Logic — needed for right thinking

Logic is the science of the relations between propositions. Logic can tell us what can be inferred from a given proposition, but it cannot tell us whether the given proposition is true in the first place. All philosophical systems rely on logical deductions from starting assumptions—axioms—which, by definition, cannot be proven from prior assumption. For our axioms, it is rational to accept the propositions revealed by the infallible God in the 66 books of the Bible.

Source: here.

Arguments that Commit Suicide

By Greg Koukl

While in the process of cultivating sensible faith, we sometimes realize
that defending against an opponent takes no work on our part at all.
Sometimes the easiest way to deal with an opposing view is not to feed
him more information, but to use a tactic that reveals a flaw in his
thinking. One of the most effective approaches is what I call the
“suicide” tactic.

Someone once said that if you give a
man enough rope, he’ll hang himself. The suicide tactic makes capital of
the tendency of many arguments to self-destruct when given the
opportunity. Such ideas get caught in the noose of their own cleverness
and quickly expire.

More here.