Evil as Proof of God’s Existence
We have spent three posts (and ensuing discussion) showing that the problem of evil does not render the Christian God illogical. This know to apologists and philosophers as the deductive problem of evil.
Now it is time to turn the tables on our challenger. In order to pose the problem, he posed two potential realities that he believes cannot both exist—evil and the Christian God. The argument goes that evil does exist; therefore, God does not.
The challenger does not have to convince us that evil exists because we have immediate access to it. All it takes is simple observation of the world and the most basic functioning moral intuition. No amount of philosophical pretzel-twisting can convince a sane person that flying airplanes into building or torturing children for fun is not objectively evil.
This is where the problem comes in for the non-theist. How can he account for objective evil within a naturalistic world system? The problem is how he grounds good and evil if there is no transcendent moral lawgiver. In the naturalistic system all we have is survival of the fittest and social conventions. In survival of the fittest, might makes right. The fact that I can do something makes it right. If it helps me get my genes into the next generation, then it is right.
The only other form of morality in such a system is social convention. This is where a society makes arbitrary rules that they choose to enforce. The problem with this is that majority rules becomes the standard. This leads to the following counterintuitive conclusions.
First, a society can never be immoral. So if one society practices child sacrifice, or abortion, or genocide, then those practices must be moral, as long as the society accepts it.
Second, an social reformer is, by definition, immoral. For someone to stand up and say that slavery should be abolished would be evil, since the society has determined that slavery is good. If one needs to be shown that this is wrong, then he is probably in need of serious psychological help.
The bottom line is that objective morality requires grounding in a moral law-giver—God.
For much more on this topic I highly recommend Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid Air by Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith.
I was away for a weekend and it looks like I missed a lot of great discussion that I would like to have commented on. Oh well. Eric, there are some worldviews that believe that evil does not exist. Buddhism believes that evil is merely an illusion (I know, illusion or not it still exists on some level- not sure how they deal with that). Otherwise, I completely agree with this post and I believe that it is one of the best ways to deal with the unbeliever who uses the problem of evil as an argument. It exposes their ultimate authority- man.
Forgive me for backtracking; but I am interested in a few things concerning the libertarian view of man. How does the libertarian explain how God causes all things to work according to his plan if he is unable to affect the choices of man? Scripture speaks to the fact that God knows our free decisions before we are born, but if this is true then certainly we are not the source of them.
Take the prophet Jeremiah as one example. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” For this to be true God would have to have been in control of all the events of history to create the exact person he wanted to call as his prophet. If God had foreknowledge of Jeremiah, then he had to have complete control over Jeremiah’s entire family history. God controlled the fact that Jeremiah’s dad married Jeremiah’s mom in order to make the genes necessary to create Jeremiah the prophet. He also controlled the decisions of whatever parties were involved in the marriage of Jeremiah’s parents (arranged or not). Not only would this be true of Jeremiah’s parents, but their parents before them also, and their parents before them, all the way down to Adam and Eve.
This is one of many examples in scripture, Pharaoh being the most famous. The scriptures are clear that God played a primary causal role in hardening the heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 13; 9:12; 10:1; 20; 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8). Not only did Pharaoh harden his own heart (8:15), but God did as well- and it is easy to see which one receives the greater emphasis in the Exodus narrative. It is true that Pharaoh was wicked and that his attitudes were his own, but this only backs the question up one level. What about God’s role in Pharaoh’s heredity, environment, character, and his decisions?
So again I pose the question, “How does the libertarian explain how God causes all things to work according to his plan if he is unable to affect the choices of man?” Where in scripture can the libertarian prove his position from?
“The Lord works out everything for his own ends- even the wicked for a day of disaster.” (Prov. 16:4)
The Fallacy of Neutrality
In the background of all of our discussion is an issue that I would like to raise for discussion. It is the issue of the neutral reasoning of man. I do not believe that it is possible for man to reason from a neutral starting point; we are either for or against God. I believe that this view follows from a misunderstanding of Romans 1 and how this passage relates to natural revelation.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:18-23).
This passage is clear that God has shown himself to all men through natural revelation. It is this revelation that is sufficient enough to condemn each man who rejects it. This passage is also clear that men, after having received the knowledge of God through the natural world- even his invisible attributes– suppress that truth. It does not teach that men search for that truth. This passage also does not teach that man, given natural revelation and reason can find God. He needs special grace for that (regeneration). Man is incapable of reasoning correctly apart from the grace of God.re, when we approach an apologetic discussion with the non-believer by trying to prove the Christian worldview through arguments from a neutral perspective, we are modeling bad theology. Essentially, we are saying that a non-believer can reason correctly without God. Or in short, he is autonomous. This is unbiblical and rather than helping lead them to Christ, it actually models a way that they can reject him.
The irony of this method is that the Christian worldview must be presupposed in order to make it intelligible. The laws of logic are only intelligible in a Christian worldview. Therefore, these arguments are really not neutral at all; they are in favor of the Christian worldview and operate within it. I will say nothing in this post about the ethical concerns of using such an apologetic method, but it is worth considering….
Jason,
What did Paul mean when he preached in the Areopagus in Acts 17?
24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
I agree that Godly reasoning is incapable without regeneration (Turn the other cheek, etc.), but it seems that God has made man capable through a common grace of extrapolating God’s existence from man’s existence. How should I understand Romans 1 in light of Acts 17:27?
Rob,
Good question, how do I answer quickly? I do not deny that the unbeliever is very complex. He both has the knowledge of God and suppresses the truth at the same time. I completely agree that God has mad man capable through a common grace of extrapolating God’s existence from man’s existence (Calvin’s whole knowledge of self/knowledge of God speech). The difference is in the sense of the “knowing.” Men, by virtue of being created in the image of God, have knowledge of God- we are his offspring in this sense. The very idea of sin is sin against the revelation of God. That is one reason why we must reject the privation view of evil, because it misses the nuance of this personal connection to the God who is both the lawgiver and a person.
Due to the fall, man is a sinner without true knowledge of God. He is in spiritual darkness- blind. He will not see things as they are (suppresses the truth- for one to suppress truth, he must first know the truth in some way) because if he did so, then he would condemn himself as a lawbreaker. Therefore, he cannot see the truth until he repents. Therefore, true knowledge of God for mankind is that which accompanies repentance and acceptance of the truth in submissive obedience. It is this type of truth that fallen man will seek to escape and he will not willfully choose it. He will refuse it and thereby receive divine condemnation.
Unbelievers know God hatefully, in condemnation, and yet they do not “know” him lovingly and in blessedness. Special grace comes to sinners who know God but who have rebelled against God and therefore do not know God lovingly. It converts their hearts so that they might repent and love him. Therefore, truly knowing God is bound up in loving him. For example, Satan and his fallen angels know God, but their knowledge of him is not true knowledge (for if it were, Satan could not have thought he could rival God). This type of knowledge is not true knowledge, but rather it is more specifically something done to that knowledge. It is a suppression of truth.
Acts 17 speaks of God working throughout history to bring about the repentance of his elect. If one took the view that it speaks of a “blanket revelation that was sufficient for salvation” then how could he explain v. 28? He would need to take the view that in God we do not live and move and have our being, that God is far from each one of us, and that God is broadcasting revelation from a distance in hope that some will respond. Rather, the opposite is true and God is ordering the events of history for the salvation of his elect, those who will reach out and take it (through his special grace). Context is king- the whole of scripture must be used to interpret these verses in Acts.
Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
Thanks. I think you are quite right, and I’ll keep your response in my hip pocket.
Jason, it sounds to me like if we are to take your advice, then we sure wouldn’t preach the gospel to unbelievers because they won’t understand it–it will be mere foolishness anyway. If the unbeliever cannot reason, then talking to him at all about his condition before God would be pointless (or unbiblical in your words). It sounds like we need to wait for God to regenerate a person before we can talk sensibly to him.
Pardon me for putting words in Jason’s mouth, but I don’t think this is what Jason is saying at all.
First, faith comes from God (Eph. 2):
Faith is not an intellectual by-product of fallen, depraved minds. Both faith and grace are gifts of God. But Faith does influece the way we think, and the faith of the saved is reinforced by their renewed minds (Rom 12:2).
Paul addresses this issue in Romans 10 where he argues that the Israelites are without excuse for rejecting the Messiah:
The message of the Gospel carries the power of the Word of Christ, the effective power of Holy Spirit to change the minds of the lost to accept the message of the Gospel.
You are correct in asserting that we could just sit back and let God take care of it all IF God had not called us to be involved in the process. God has called us to be co-redeemers with Him, not that we add value to anything that He accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that he pre-ordained that the elect would be instrumental in calling the elect: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) These good works include co-operating with God to deliver the Good News.
I completely agree. This is why do not get the argument against evidential apologetics. It appears to me that the argument against reasoning with an unbeliever over the existence of God (or anything else) would work equally against preaching the gospel at all.
Rob and Eric,
Sorry it took me so long, I had to meet with an ordination committee today and I wasn’t home all day due to that fact. This is another long one so bear with me- I’ll blame it on the subject matter being complex and not me being longwinded. But seriously, I’ll try to shorten it from now on.
Rob, you are right, that is not what I said at all. Your response is well stated, and I agree. The short answer would definetly be that we preach because God called us to and decided to use us in the process.
Eric,
My intent was not to argue against evidential apologetics (as I have told you, I consider myself both an evidentialist and a presuppostionalist) – my argument was that there is no such thing as neutrality. If you believe that neutrality is possible as a part of your evidentialist approach, then I challenge you to consider this point. I am arguing that evidences should be put in the proper biblical framework. The bible is clear that there is no such thing as neutrality. The belief that there is comes largely from the Enlightenment that presupposed a denial of God. I would seek to establish a connection between faith and reason rather than abolish reason all together in our apologetics.
One’s beliefs, or “worldview” as many in the Reformed camp call it, determine how one interprets evidence. For example, let’s say that there is a man walking down the street in Washington, D. C. He sees God just before God vanishes. The man’s assessment will probably be that he has imagined it. It does not fit into his worldview. Now let’s say the same man sees George Bush. He will not immediately consider this a hallucination because seeing the president in Washington D. C. fits into his worldview. A person’s worldview determines how he gathers and interprets evidence. Therefore, there is no such thing as a “brute” fact. John Frame says it this way, “There is no ‘purely empirical’ inquiry. We never encounter ‘brute,’ that is uninterpreted facts. We only encounter facts that have been interpreted within our existing commitments.” This is biblical.
In Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”oesn’t leave room for neutrality. Or the classic verse that Reformed theologians often appeal to, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-11). are three components of depravity. There is the moral fall—no one is righteous. Sometimes we stop here, but this is not all! There is also a mental fall-no one who understands. Finally, our will is fallen (volitional)—no one who seeks. Therefore, when man reasons, he reasons according to God or not.
I think that understanding this clarifies our apologetical methodology and how we converse with the unbeliever. Now we understand that apologist is not just arguing over the evidence for the resurrection, but rather we disagree over the nature of knowledge itself, history, epistemology, and ultimately- worldviews. This also means that we cannot just deal with facts alone. This is where evidences alone can fail, because all the unbeliever need do is reinterpret facts, but he cannot escape his worldview.
Let’s take the example of the resurrection again, imagine that we finally persuaded the unbeliever that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Have we accomplished our goal? The unbeliever could reinterpret those facts into his worldview without accepting that Jesus was God.
Finally, I will say that there are serious ethical consequences if we allow the unbeliever to think that he is neutral. We teach him that he can reason apart from God, thereby encouraging his rejection. Essentially, we are saying that “you don’t need God or dependence on him to think rightly.” If the unbeliever’s standard for truth remains unchallenged, then he will decide against the Bible.
“you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:17-18).
OK, I’d agree about the lack of neutrality and the dramatic effect of the fall on mankind. But when you say that the unbeliever “cannot reason apart from God” and that even attempting so further strengthens his position, it sounds to me like any attempt to convert him to Christ (be it evidence, reason, appeal to conscience, or whatever) would rely on his faulty reason and be pointless (or even harmful).
Maybe I’m missing something, but it sounds like the case is overstated. No, the unbeliever is not neutral—he is an enemy of God. But to say that therefore we should not attempt to reason with him seems to go too far. How do you preach the gospel at all without appealing to reason at some level?
To your question about proving the resurrection… no that doesn’t make a person a follower of Christ, but it certainly moves him in the right direction. Does having someone recognize that he is a sinner regenerate him, of course not, but it is a step toward the cross.
So, I agree that we must challenge the unbeliever’s entire worldview—especially the foundations. I think it is legitimate to chip away at it where we find vulnerability. I’m having trouble reconciling any form of apologetics (which you say you are in favor of) with the view that any form of reasoning with the unbeliever is conceding his worldview.
Thanks for the clarification. I guess I somehow missed the point of your last post- which was that you disagree with “any form of reasoning with the unbeliever is conceding his worldview.” I still know that this is not what I am saying. I’ll explain.
I think that it is our limitation and obligation to use arguments and reasoning that begin from a christian theistic presupposition. So my concern is more with the type of argument being used. I am not a fideist (the view that says we should rely on faith alone rather than scientific reasoning or philosophy in questions of religion) and neither was Van Til. This is a common misconception of presuppositionalists- and it is often leved upon them by the classical writers like Sproul.
For good, brief reading on this…check out http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/th/TH.h.Pratt.VanTil.1.html
I think that it has a refute of the claim that Van Til believed in fideism.
OK, I guess I’m finally going to have to read up on your man Van Til. I’ll get back to you after I’ve had a chance to read it.
As to this… “I think that it is our limitation and obligation to use arguments and reasoning that begin from a Christian theistic presupposition.” I still have a couple of concerns.
First, you wouldn’t preclude an argument where we accept the other side’s premise and then show that it leads to absurd conclusions, right? For example, assuming a naturalistic world and showing that morality is then impossible.
Second, that approach seems to preclude any argument for the existence of God (since we must start with the God of the Bible as a presupposition). It even sounds really like the unbeliever needs to start from the very position that he rejects. We don’t accept the Mormon’s starting point when we argue with him. It doesn’t seem any more valid for us to say “Because everything in the Bible is true…” It begs the very question (why believe the Bible to be true).If they reject the Bible as authoritative, it seems like we would be left with simply “It’s a God thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
I realize that you are saying that is not your position, but it seems to follow. I suppose I’m still misunderstanding the point at some level. I’ll read the article on Van Til and maybe it’ll clear up for me.
Good questions and excellent observations. I would say that on your first point, that is exactly what we should do and I think it is a biblical approach. We should answer a fool according to his folly. Taking someone’s worldview and pressing it to a logical conclusion to show that it is absurd is an excellent tactic in apologetics.
Secondly, our apologetic approach should ask the unbeliever to assume the existence of God- what is wrong with that? That is one goal of apologetics. The critic of circular reasoning doesn’t carry any validity when we are dealing with ultimate issues. At some point, the ultimate authority that we hold to must be self-attesting.
I would say that reading Van Til is not the clearest place to begin, but Richard Pratt’s “Every Thought Captive” is a good introduction.
I understand what you are saying, but my point is that you cannot “make sense” of reason without presupposing the Bible. This stuff is not easy to grasp at first, or easy to articulate.