I figure it’s time to give other side a voice. So, here are five of the best reasons to reject Christianity and the existence of the God of the Bible…
1. If God is both loving and all powerful, then how can such evil exist in the world? If God has the power to change things and sits back and watches while children die of leukemia, he must be a monster. If God is truly loving then he must just not be able to change things. Hence, he is not all-powerful, and doesn’t fit the definition of God.
2. So many people disagree about the nature of god and the universe, that surely no one group can be right and all of the others wrong; so, it is hopeless to try to know anything about god.
3. The idea of Jesus being fully God and fully man at the same time is a logical contradiction. As a man, he must not be omnipotent. As God, he must be omnipotent. Anyone can see the contradiction.
4. Christianity is just an emotional crutch for those who need to believe in life after death to make their lives worthwhile. Besides, if you were born in Iraq, you would probably be a Muslim anyway. You are only a Christian because you where born here.
5. The Bible claims that the world was created in six days within the last 10,000 or so years. Modern science has proven that the universe is closer to 14 billion years old and that there is a natural explanation for everything in it.
Speaking with a loved one on Easter Sunday about point number one, I afterward realized my best answer would have been, “Yes, He is loving. And there is evil in the world. Yet He has done something about it.” That could have been way to introduce the Gospel, but I missed it.
Also, if you are working against a worldview that says life is not precious, then the gift of life from God, even if its marred by sin, is not a gift. It becomes the cry, “If you are God, why is my life…”
The unbeliever cannot account for the existence of evil in his worldview. It is only a “problem” for Christians. If you don’t believe in God, then you cannot believe in moral absolutes and therefore ultimately…evil does not exist. It is relative in an unbeliever’s worldview. Some unbelievers who are consistent with their own worldview would argue that the death of a child is not evil in certain circumstances. My response to the unbelievers’ objection would be, “How do you know what is evil and what is good?” His arguments will always reduce to subjectivism in his ethics. The best he can do is claim that the death of a child is generally not preferred. The only reason he even knows that death is ultimately evil is because the God of the Bible told him so.
That’s a great point. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post responses to each of the five challenges. The problem of evil is the most difficult and detailed, but one of the responses is that the existence of evil is proof that there must be a God. Evil is a moral absolute. If there are moral absolutes, there must be a moral law-giver.