The Atheist's Dodge
Aethism employs the existence of evil as one of its main challenges to Christianity. Try hard to track this argument, because you are bound to hear it as you hike through school. And you are bound to find people at various spots on this trail of illogic.
Atheists argue that because evil exists, God does not. Atheists say that the reality of evil proves that God isn't real. If real, God, after all, would solve all the world's problems.
Christianity immediately confronts that idea. The argument goes like this:
-If evil exists, then we have to assume that good exists--or we would not know the difference.
-If good exists, we have to assume that a moral law exists--or we would have no way to measure good and evil.
-If a moral law exists, we have to say that there is a moral law giver--or we would have no basis for an objective moral law.
By an "objective moral law," I mean a definition of good and evil that is absolutely true--at all times and all places for all people--whether we believe it or not.
Christians have long argued that the design we see all around us shows that the world was fashioned by a Designer. The belief that someone made what we see is like a reasonable explanation of reality based on a clear case of cause and effect.
We live in a world, after all, where any effect can be traced back to a cause. An example: If you pull the family car into your driveway and your parents see a broken taillight and crumpled rear fender, you would be foolish to tell your parents, "It just happened." Maybe you backed into something. Maybe someone ran into you. But something made the dent. Something caused the effect.
Over the years, naturalists--people who believe nothing exists in the universe besides matter--including God--have tried to do away with this highly reasonable reasoning.
-First they denied cause and effect as a proof of God's existence. Why do we have to have a cause? Why can't the universe just be?
-Then they denied design as an argument for God's existence. Why do we need a Designed? Why couldn't the world all have just tumnled together with the appearance of design?
-Now they deny morality as an argument for God's existence. Why do we need a God to explain our perception of right and wrong? Why can't the moral sense of humans just be a pragmatic reality?
Arguing that evil is real actually creates two huge problems for atheists: (1) it implies the existence of a moral lawgiver, and (2) it mean there are moral absolutes they are obligated to follow.
And something has to have caused humanity to know right from wrong, since we would have to discard our whole human experience to do away with cause and effect. We would be accepting the moral equivalent of the belief that car fenders dent themselves. Since something has to explain our moral sense, atheists come up with another explanation . . .
Which I will do for my next post. I'm keeping this all short, so everyone will read it. :0)
The excerpt above was taken from Ravi Zacharias' book Jesus Among Other Gods, (p.89-91)
More to come everyone! Have a nice day!
Cheers!
Atheists argue that because evil exists, God does not. Atheists say that the reality of evil proves that God isn't real. If real, God, after all, would solve all the world's problems.
Christianity immediately confronts that idea. The argument goes like this:
-If evil exists, then we have to assume that good exists--or we would not know the difference.
-If good exists, we have to assume that a moral law exists--or we would have no way to measure good and evil.
-If a moral law exists, we have to say that there is a moral law giver--or we would have no basis for an objective moral law.
By an "objective moral law," I mean a definition of good and evil that is absolutely true--at all times and all places for all people--whether we believe it or not.
Christians have long argued that the design we see all around us shows that the world was fashioned by a Designer. The belief that someone made what we see is like a reasonable explanation of reality based on a clear case of cause and effect.
We live in a world, after all, where any effect can be traced back to a cause. An example: If you pull the family car into your driveway and your parents see a broken taillight and crumpled rear fender, you would be foolish to tell your parents, "It just happened." Maybe you backed into something. Maybe someone ran into you. But something made the dent. Something caused the effect.
Over the years, naturalists--people who believe nothing exists in the universe besides matter--including God--have tried to do away with this highly reasonable reasoning.
-First they denied cause and effect as a proof of God's existence. Why do we have to have a cause? Why can't the universe just be?
-Then they denied design as an argument for God's existence. Why do we need a Designed? Why couldn't the world all have just tumnled together with the appearance of design?
-Now they deny morality as an argument for God's existence. Why do we need a God to explain our perception of right and wrong? Why can't the moral sense of humans just be a pragmatic reality?
Arguing that evil is real actually creates two huge problems for atheists: (1) it implies the existence of a moral lawgiver, and (2) it mean there are moral absolutes they are obligated to follow.
And something has to have caused humanity to know right from wrong, since we would have to discard our whole human experience to do away with cause and effect. We would be accepting the moral equivalent of the belief that car fenders dent themselves. Since something has to explain our moral sense, atheists come up with another explanation . . .
Which I will do for my next post. I'm keeping this all short, so everyone will read it. :0)
The excerpt above was taken from Ravi Zacharias' book Jesus Among Other Gods, (p.89-91)
More to come everyone! Have a nice day!
Cheers!
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