Part Three

Relativism and the Atheist’s moral charge against God
The second objection that is usually hurled against God’s existence is the Atheists problem that evil exists and there is just too much suffering in the world for a loving God to be real. The question “why does a loving God stand back and let people suffering, let kids get raped and abused, and so forth” is a honest question. But it does not bring into question God’s existence but his character. But before we look at the reason’s why God could pass these things to happen, I want us to revisit the logic of the charge.

First problem; The atheist is being inconsistent with his own worldview. The atheist with his moral relativism steps out to charge God as doing something objectively wrong. The question must be asked “By what objective standard has God done something wrong”.

I mean in the atheistic worldview what is good is what each individual subjectively prefers. And as we have seen atheism has no answer how to even determine what is “good” as reason can not answer the question. Simple logic shows that the atheist can not make an intelligible judgement on what is objectively good and evil and loses the power to make a charge against God.

Second problem; The idea that there is just to much evil in the world fails as well to refute God’s existence, as how can a finite subjective being judge how much evil or suffering is to much? One can not make absolute statements based on ones personal feelings on a matter. Has the atheist measured the amount of goodness that has been done on earth as well? Also the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil are meaningless if God does not exist. Their existence implies there is a moral order to the world and that people are doing something wrong against this standard. This is why a moral lawgiver must exist (God). The atheist Sam Harris asks “Why is a moral law-giver necessary in order to recognize good and evil?” The reason is that a moral affirmation cannot remain an abstraction. The only ground the atheist can get is to say he believes in God, but his subjective feelings are different to God’s.

Yes the claim goes “God is evil because he stands by and watches young children getting raped, torture and murdered?” But haven’t atheist ever realized that they exist too and abuse their free will which includes disturbing the environment.

If one wishes to talk about suffering he must talk about autonomy versus God’s story of why we are the way we are. Though the sacred is offered to us, the will is arrogant and refuses to submit to God’s authority. No one of us is any different from or better than any other, some just mask his or her true nature better.

Are atheist’s demanding that God create in us the ability to love without giving us the option to reject that love, the desire to trust and to be trusted without the freedom to doubt, the privilege of making a choice without the responsibility of accepting the ramifications of that choice?

Ravi Zacharias quotes the atheist, Sam Harris as saying “God if he exists is the most prolific abortionist of all” saying that even one death at God’s hand is unacceptable, while he (Harris) himself looks the other way as millions of unborn children are aborted.

As Zacharias says, Can you explain something to me? When a plane crashes and some die while others live, a skeptic calls into question God’s moral character, saying that he has chosen some to live and others to die a whim, yet you say it is your moral right to chose whether the child within you should live or die. Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, its your moral right?”

There is one difference between God allowing a death to take place and me taking another life; God has to the power to restore life, I don’t. If God is the sovereign creator of all creation does he not have the right to deal with wickedness, or take some home to heaven to be with him, even if it messes our lives up. This world is our training ground to shape and fashion our hearts to be manifestations of pure goodness. The unborn are innocent, most of us are not in any way of fashion.

Because God is absolutely good his acts are always ended for good, ultimate Justice, not fleeting pleasures, not letting people like Hitler or Stalin or even us win the day. The atheist’s who try’s to condemn God are in fact implying that humans have intrinsic value and worth, which can only be justified if God exists and also the atheist uses a universal absolute moral law to judge God which is again God’s moral law. The fact is we cannot remove pain from the earth until evil is solved, as it is pain that gives the felt reality of evil in this world, which we course. That does not mean we are responsible for everything that happens to us in our lives


Zacharias says “Psychiatry in fact is wrestling with the ramifications of a drug that removes guilt and remorse. What kind of world will we have when a rapist can take a morning after pill” for his guilt?…”If it is possible in our finite world with our limited knowledge to be able to appreciate just one benefit of pain, is it not possible that God has designed this awareness within us to remind us of what is good for us and what is destructive? Can we not see the moral framework that detects atrocities and resists tragedies? Could there be a greater, deeper answer than saying there is no God?”

The Human Heart is bent towards Evil
Do you think there is not one empirical evidence that each us of us has clearly experienced in our lives that shows God (I would say there are many more). Have we never seen evil or experienced it and known that it lives just as much in your bent heart than in another. To deny this reality is to class your self as a Sociopath. If there is evil in this world then some actions have gone against a moral standard that the universe should be following. The problem with this sin nature is (and its effect will hit you now) that it will suppress any evidence that relates to God, as we prefer that our inner motives where kept hidden.
We say, no I’m not a sinner, I’m not that bad, I don’t have a nature that seems to go against what I know is right. I’m not having this condemnation thing, Who are you Judge? I just make random mistakes connected to know moral law, I live for my self.

God, Love and Free Will
The charge has been made against God many times that “If God is all-powerful and all loving why is there evil. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is not all loving. Is he both able and willing? Then why is there evil?

Before I answer this question I want to deal with the problem of evil/suffering if there is no God. If there is no God the simple truth is there is no evil in this world and suffering is meaningless. If all that exists is nature then nature just “is” running by blind fate. No action or event is right or wrong, they just are. To say that an action or an event in this world is evil or wrong is to judge it against a moral standard the universe should be following. This implies a moral lawgiver behind the universe as moral standards are only held in minds. Atheist have always had trouble with the Naturalistic Fallacy of trying to get an “ought” from and “is’. The laws of nature (without God) produce what “is”, but morality is what we “ought” to do. But what every happens in nature is what it is and one cannot say this “ought” to have not happened and that it is wrong in a Godless universe. If all that exists is nature (the material world of matter) then we are a part of nature and follow its laws too. Without God suffering become meaningless and those who experience it have no hope for their pain or illusion. The Atheists problem is that he has a belief in evil, and objective right and wrong most of the time, but if there is no God this is just a belief that is an illusion trapped in ones mind that doesn’t correspond to reality.

C.S.Lewis once said,
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A Man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of straight line. What was I comparing the universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I , who was supposed to be part of the show find myself in such violent reaction against it?”

Pain and suffering is real, but atheism does not give any answer to the problem. It in fact turns us into being insane. The question must be asked, can God explain it? I think all of us can look out into the world and see something is wrong. This world is not perfect which implies some thing has gone wrong.

C.S.Lewis also said,
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

Just maybe this world of pain and suffering is a sign for us to look up to the standard we wish this universe were following. Maybe the sting of pain cracks our conscience to search for the good (God). I want to make it clear here, not everything thing that goes wrong in our lives is our fault.
As for the charge that an all-loving God must be evil if people suffer in this world is not a very strong case. I don’t have all the answers, but it is more than atheism can give.

One argument can be stated to answer this charge,

1. An all-good God will create the best world that is possible for perfection
2. An all-powerful God can create only what is logically possible
3. An all-knowing God knows what is all-good and creates humans with the gift of freewill.
4. The gift of freedom (which evolution denies) is a good power, but if abused by free creatures produces moral evil.
5. It was not within Gods logical power to create a world containing moral goodness, but no moral evil.
6. Therefore God is not evil and evil is not inconstant with the existence of God.

Now if true goodness or love has any value at all it must be done freely and humans have been given the gift of freedom. Forced love is rape! No one values love from a spouse or a lover, which is not from a pure motive.

One must also define and brake down evil and suffering, as it is not only felt from the abuse of free will.

Moral Evil

Moral evil looks at the relationship of free creatures with God. It covers the subject of moral responsibility as free agents, as the cause of evil. When we abuse our freewill and reject God’s moral standards, evil is produced. Even mental deficiencies can result from something one person does to another. God can heal people instantly, but most of these occurrences that I have seen have been when God saves some one radically.

Natural Evil

Because of the fall creation has also suffered and has been cursed. But natural evil looks at acts that are produced by physical pain or acts of nature. Some times fires or earthquakes can cause human suffering, misshapen limbs, blindness. Some times human actions again can cause genetic malfunctions which can result in birth defects resulting from evil done by the parents during pregnancy (Expectant mother using drugs or alcohol heavily can negatively affect the developing fetus). We must take responsibility for our actions. Some times we do everything right, but others inflict suffering on us!
Our freedom for greed and lust could also be the cause of the brake down of the environment, with our pollution and extreme life-style. Maybe God is not the one to blame for everything as all the good we experiences comes from him too.
Can anything come out of suffering?

The sting of suffering seems to bring out true love out of us. It draws love out of us which probable would never be manifested unless suffering was he. We can talk about love, kindness, but it’s only under suffering that we can really see how we act to others. It test’s our heart and motives to see if they are real.

1. obedience is learnt from suffering
2. suffering produces character
3. Suffering can bring us closer in love to a greater bond.
4. True love suffer long, thinks of others and is selfless
5. Biological pain warns us of danger
6. The virtue of compassion, patience and mercy can not be produced without tribulation, or mercy without tragedy.
7. God can bring good out of evil
8. Maybe the sting of pain leads us to the road of goodness and love for others.
9. The Nazi’s showed the world what happens when you de-value the dignity and value of human life created in the image of God. It has made a powerful stamp on the world that humans are worth more.
10 Temptation, through they make us do dumb things, show us what is really in us and who we really are inside. It’s almost like a gift if used right.
11. Even Jesus had do suffer for the whole world to demonstrate true love.

Religion is the cause of all wars!
A third objection that is raised again God and Christianity is that the belief in God has caused more suffering and wars on earth then non-belief. This is a favorite argument from some of the popular atheist spokesmen. You may want to look at Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod in their massive 1502 page 3-volume encyclopedia of war. It is compiled by nine reputable professors of history, including the director of the Centre of Military history and the former head of the Centre for Defence studies. They conclude that from what we know from history there have been about 1763 wars and only 123 have been over religion. This makes religion 6.98 percent accountable. If you take away the wars from ‘Muslim’s it drops down to 3.23 percent.
I dont think the evidence proves that religion is the cause of war or mass murdering.

Here is another source from “Stand to Reason”

A blight on Christianity? Certainty, Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religion criminals have committed.
My point is not that Christians or religious people aren’t vulnerable to committing terrible crimes. Certainly they are. But it is not religion that produces these things; it is the denial of Biblical religion that generally leads to these kinds of things. The statistics that are the result of irreligious genocide stagger the imagination.
My source is The Guinness Book of World Records . Look up the category “Judicial” and under the subject of “Crimes: Mass Killings,” the greatest massacre ever imputed by the government of one sovereign against the government of another is 26.3 million Chinese during the regime of Mao Tse Tung between the years of 1949 and May 1965. The Walker Report published by the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary in July 1971 placed the parameters of the total death toll in China since 1949 between 32 and 61.7 million people. An estimate of 63.7 million was published by Figaro magazine on November 5, 1978.
In the U.S.S.R. the Nobel Prize winner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn estimates the loss of life from state repression and terrorism from October 1917 to December 1959 under Lenin and Stalin and Khrushchev at 66.7 million.
Finally, in Cambodia (and this was close to me because I lived in Thailand in 1982 working with the broken pieces of the Cambodian holocaust from 1975 to 1979) “as a percentage of a nation’s total population, the worst genocide appears to be that in Cambodia, formerly Kampuchea. According to the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, more than one third of the eight million Khmer were killed between April 17, 1975 and January 1979. One third of the entire country was put to death under the rule of Pol Pot, the founder of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. During that time, towns, money and property were abolished. Economic execution by bayonet and club was introduced for such offenses as falling asleep during the day, asking too many questions, playing non-communist music, being old and feeble, being the offspring of an undesirable, or being too well educated. In fact, deaths in the Tuol Sleng interrogation center in Phnom Penh, which is the capitol of Kampuchea, reached 582 in a day.”
Then in Chinese history of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries there were three periods of wholesale massacre. The numbers of victims attributed to these events are assertions rather than reliable estimates. The figures put on the Mongolian invasion of northern China form 1210 to 1219 and from 1311 to 1340 are both on the order of 35 million people. While the number of victims of bandit leader Chang Hsien-Chung, known as the Yellow Tiger, from 1643 to 1647 in the Szechwan province has been put at 40 million people.
China under Mao Tse Tung, 26.3 million Chinese. According the Walker Report, 63.7 million over the whole period of time of the Communist revolution in China. Solzhenitsyn says the Soviet Union put to death 66.7 million people. Kampuchea destroyed one third of their entire population of eight million Cambodians. The Chinese at two different times in medieval history, somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million and 40 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, make note that these deaths were the result of organizations or points of view or ideologies that had left God out of the equation. None of these involve religion. And all but the very last actually assert atheism.

Hitler
Then we have the millions killed by Hitler and his men. Many people try and make the claim that Hitler was a Christian but this is not true. As I have said before its one thing to call yourself a Christian and another thing to be a Christian.
Atheists charge that Christianity was the course of anti-Semitism, which led to the Holocaust. But this is clearly false. Has no one read that Hitler dabbled in the occult, that he presented the writings of Nietzsche (The most atheistic philosophy ever written) to Stalin and Mussolini. That Hitler also slaughtered many other races apart from Jews. Many Russian atheists were killed too and Hitler’s words written on one of the gas ovens in Auschwitz states “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious relentless and cruel.” Hitler believed in evolution that the strong must wipe out the inferior races. This is very different from Jesus who spent all his time with the poor and broken. He even said “ I have not come for the righteous, but for the unrighteous.”