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.

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