The Problem of Evil - Does God Exist? (God's Love and His Logic Part 2)

What is the problem of evil?  It may sound like a big, impossible-to-understand philosophical question, but it can be simply stated, and once understood, answered.

There are a number of ways the Problem of Evil can be employed.  Some use it as an argument to show no such God (as the one described in Christianity) can possibly exist.  In this post, we aim to show that the Problem of Evil does not show that God cannot exist, but, in fact, gives us good reason to believe He does.  We will (in a subsequent post) further explain that there is no inconsistency between the Benevolence and Justice of Jesus Christ. 

One of the "four horseman of New Atheism" Daniel Dennet once remarked that the best way to establish a point is state the opposition's case as effectively as possible, almost having them remark, "Wow!  I wish I said it that well!" and proceeding to tear it apart piece by piece.



In this spirit, let us recount the famed "Problem of Evil."

     "One may suppose that God exists, an attribute to him the qualities of Omnibenevelence (all-goodness, James 1:17) and Supreme Justice.  Subsequently observing the world as is, this seems incredibly unlikely.  Everyday people are killed for qualities they are neither responsible for nor endorsing.  Genocide, rape, deadly, painful disease, and more, unimaginable atrocities exist, all in the presence of this "loving god."  Consider evils completely unrelated to human will: natural disasters, disease, and, perhaps most impeccably, the judgement of peoples for not believing in Christ as their savior (for they often live in situations and places that never hear, nor could they possibly be expected to believe something as crazy as a man's resurrection).  Is it just OR loving to allow such evils to exist.  Imagine, if you will, a world, just slightly better.  A world with, say, a cure for cancer.  Or perhaps a world where cancer doesn't exist.  The ease at which these "better" world are conceptualized implies, at a minimum, that the world is anything but "the best possible world."  These ideas, and more, beg the conclusion that no such God is possible to exist."

NOW the tearing.  This is an excellent time to reiterate the importance of presuppositions.  Many great Christian thinkers have noted that criticisms such as the Problem of Evil and ones like it beg the question of morality's existence.  You see, if there is no "morality" without God, how can one criticize God for being "immoral" or "unjust" if those very terms are meaningless without His defining and causing them to be?

The question, it seems then, is can morality exist without the existence of a just God?
The answer is, unequivocally, "there cannot exist and objective moral system without the existence of a just God."  Objectivity is the principle that an idea is unchanging based on the subject's interpretation; i.e. there exists things that are right and wrong.  If morality is subjective, then no act can be considered "right" or "wrong."  There would be no truth value to these claims, for each "subject" would interpret what is "right" by what is best for them given their situation.  You may be thinking, "this seems plausible, a morally relative world... Think about it, why can I judge another culture's practice just because of my experience?"  Interestingly enough, that rhetorical question is self-defeating.  For if one supposes morality is relative, what reason is their to prefer the benefit-of-the-doubt type thinking this relativist exhibits, as opposed to, say, me, who thinks it is perfectly alright for me to judge Lord's Resistance Army (think: Joseph Kony) as performing moral atrocities.  In a relative world, neither view is better, for "better" and other qualitative terms are meaningless.  In fact, carrying a morally relative world to its logical conclusion forces one to concede that there exists any merit for stopping or desiring to stop the Holocaust, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Rwandan Genocide, rape, child molestation, punching you in the face, etc.  If one has more power than another, and wills something so, then they ought to do it, for it is only as wrong as (and if) they perceive it to be so.

Again, I can guess what you're thinking.  That's a terribly obtuse mode of thinking.  Not only are we judging those attempting to be sympathetic in their understanding of others' opinions, but we're further implying that those particular people are implicitly supporting the destruction of a people for no reason in particular.  We express, as sincerely as possible, that this is not the case.  We know that these conclusions are egregious.  It is obvious you do not support the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan, and yet both of these groups believed that what they were doing would make the world better and even save it from destruction.  In the world with no objective morality, there can be no judgement of these actions.  Consider with me for a moment the logical conclusions of such a world, a place where nothing is "right" or "wrong" but simply happens.  In such a world, the Nazis are no different from the Red Cross, and the KKK and AARP are equally moral.  In this world, there is no law, no morality, no hope of justice.  In short, it is an absurd world in which stable existence is impossible.

Our claim is that there cannot exist objective morality without God.  You may ask why can't a natural explanation give rise to an objective moral system?  In this regard, we have many examples of ethos, but we'll go straight to the top.  Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world's most prominent atheistic writer, claims, "life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."  Dawkins has, God bless him (and have mercy on him), taken Naturalism (the worldview in which all that exists is the universe and nothing else) to its logical conclusion.  Apart from intelligent and seemingly rational people subscribing to this atheistic view, it is not that hard to show how morality cannot be objective without God.  Objective, by definition, means "relative to a standard."  Humans, although relatively consistent in their morals (see Romans 2:13-15 for the reason) are all different, and therefore cannot function as such a standard of ourselves.  The standard cannot be the "societal optimum" as many suppose.  In such a system, morals are formed from social systems in order to organize peoples and improve livelihood.  This still doesn't warrant morals as "objective."  First, certain acts would be moral in certain time periods and immoral in others (like, for example, rape in societies that struggle to procreate).  Moral theories like Kantism (Immanuel Kant), Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham), and Virtue Ehtics (Aristotle) are all either inconsistent for a number of different criticisms or, by definition, subjective. (we can explain why if there are questions)

Thus, we arrive at moral theories for God.  The best of these is Divine Command Theory.  Divine Command Theory, correctly formulated, consistently explains an objective morality in the world.  DCT explains God as "essentially good" meaning that in his perfection, it would be logically impossible to do something evil.  His nature subsequently becomes the standard by which we judge the moral goodness of actions.  In His creation of us, God made is such that "[we] show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while [our] conscience also bears witness, and [our] conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse [us]." (Romans 2). Thus we literally do make moral judgements based on innate principles, judging off the standard of God's goodness.  This explains why essentially no person thinks rape or child molestations is "right" or even acceptable behavior. 

For the sake of rigor, DCT's biggest criticism is the Euthyphro Dilemma.  Originally posited in Plato's Euthyphro, it questions the notion of God-defined principles.  Is an action "good" because it is moral by God's standard, or does the action align with God's standard because it is "good."  If the first is true, God could, hypothetically, ordain the slaughter of kittens as moral.  If the latter is true, God is unnecessary for moral action.  The flaw in this criticism is the first formulation.  The hypothetical is a ridiculous counterfactual, essentially formulated "if God is essentially good in all He does, could he ordain something as bad?"  Obviously, no.  Analyzing the axiom of DCT and saying it inconsistent by an illustration of Euthyphro's dilemma is purposefully contradicting the axiom, rather than actually realizing a contradiction. 

Conclusion: We have good reason to believe 
1. Morality is objective.  
2. Natural theories of morality do not give rise to objective moral systems.  
3. DCT is a consistent, theistic moral theory allowing for and implying an objective moral system.  By this conclusion, we substantiate the claim that you must first presuppose God's actual existence in reality to even consider the moral value of the attributes that follow in this world.

Hopefully, that makes sense to everyone.  If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for future posts; comment or email us at theology.guys@gmail.com!  Our next post will look at the problem from where we currently stand.  God and objective morality exist, but how can God and his objective morality be consistent with the world we inhabit?


God Bless!

Excelsior


Athanasius

God's Love and his Logic Part 1

In the church we often have a wrong mindset about how to deal with problems.

This comes many times from our inability to reconcile two seemingly impossible characteristics of God.  We believe that God is both the incredibly reasonable God of
Isaiah 1:18 who says "Come let us reason together," but also the God of 1 John 4:8 who tells us that "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

Over the next two weeks, we want to address the problems theological and apologetic related to this question.  Among the topics we'll be covering: The Problem of Evil, The Problem of Pain, Does God Love Everyone, and What was the point of Jesus death.  Today though, we will simply examine the incredible nature of God's love.

Because of the incredible magnitude of the Problem of Evil, etc, we aim to be rather rigorous in our explanation of both our understanding of God's love and the corresponding consistency with it and the presence of evil in the world.  This question of a loving and just God has plagued philosophers and thinkers for generations, so this is no small task.

We firmly believe that one cannot absolutely know the truth of God's existence, and can only be ultimately convinced through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  To many, the idea of God's existence, let alone a relationship with Him, may seem unprovable, untenable, or unimportant in conception at best.  With this in mind, we recognize each person has fundamental assumptions about the worldview to which they subscribe (i.e. Naturalism, Deism, Pantheism, Christianity, etc.).  Our contention is that the validity of a worldview is determinable by means of examining the consistency of the deductions that follow from a particular worldview's presuppositions.  Through this method we aim to show Christianity's superiority logically, so that each person can experience the love and confirmation of God's presence in their heart.  For Christians, our presupposition is the Word of God, or simply, the Bible.  Thus to address all problems evil, we must state the Bible's portrayal of God's Love and God's justice.  Because Scripture will function as our axioms, we will make continuous reference to this post in the following weeks.

God's love is the most incredible thing in and out of our Universe.  It is what gave birth to the Universe and knit us together as beings.  God's love is also seen as part of his Justice and vice versa. "Why boast of evil, mighty man?  The steadfast love of God endures all the day" (Psalm 52).  God's love does more than endure; it's of incredible power:
     So we come to know and believe the love God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement, because as he is so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:16-21)
This passage is rather self-explanatory about the purpose of and magnitude of God's love.  We love because He loves us, and by His love, we can abide in him.  There are great examples of His love as well.  The (in)famous John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that all who believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."  


Crash course in resurrection theology: we are all broken - separated from God in our original created nature - by our sin (Romans 5).  It is not necessarily a particular sin that separates us from God because all of sinned (Romans 5) and, more precisely, it is our very nature to sin (Romans 1).  We are unable to be reconciled by God by means of our works - that is, anything that we do - because of this separation ("but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear," Isaiah 59:2).  If we stopped here, life could not be a more depressing story.  There would be no hope.  How could a sinful creature look toward his creator?  However, this is not the end of the story.  His love for us is such that he refused to abandon us, and so by His grace we are saved ("For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them," Ephesians 2:8-10).  In order to punish sin, for God is Holy and Just, something needed done.  Our sin had to be paid for, but how?  In the Old Testament, God placed a symbol of this need.  Leviticus 16:6-10 details how a goat must be chosen, and that the High Priest will place upon it all the sins of the people for a year.  The goat will then be driven into the Wilderness and left to die.  This foreshadowing of our needed sacrifice is incredibly vivid.  (For more about Old Testament references, have patience.  We'll write on that later.)  Jesus is the scapegoat, the intercessor for our sin.  As He died on the cross, he carried upon himself all the sin for those would believe.  The holy son of God who never sinned was punished for our sin so we could be holy.  The theological term used for this is substitution atonement.  It is the idea that as Jesus died taking upon himself our sin, we receive his righteousness.  Because he was innocent, and died on our behalf, Christ rose again conquering where we never could have.  Thus, God's love and justice are both satisfied.  God has adopted all those who have faith in Christ's sacrifice as his sons and daughters. 


This is the story of his glory. We'll be make with more on it in a couple days



Soli Deo Gloria!

Excelsior

Athanasius

P.S. Sorry this post was late. Here are some sea turtles to make up for it.

What's a Cult Wednesday: Mormonism

Every Wednesday night, we hope to discuss some matter of uncertainty with respect to Christianity, to offer an apologetic.  This week: is Mormonism a cult?

 Cult, as defined by all-things truth, (aka) Wikipedia, is " in current popular usage, a pejorative term for a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre by the larger society."  In relation to orthodox Christianity (i.e. the basic fundamentals of Christianity agreed upon by the major Christian sects, including Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and various protestant denominations), we must question whether it agrees with the Apostle's and Nicene Creed (links to which are posted in our previous post ).  These historical creeds are considered the basis upon which Christian theology is built.  If a particular religious group's doctrine does not agree on basic tenets of the faith then one can know a movement is not orthodox.  Paul warns the Church at Phillipi that they should test every spirit which comes to them and if it preaches any other Gospel than that which he preached they should reject it.  We must then know when to reject false Gospels and how to perceive what is the truth.

In the mainstream, especially during the last presidential election, it became increasingly common to hear the media refer to Mormonism as Christianity.  It is not only our duty as Christians to reject false Gospels, but also particularly important as Christians in this media-driven world to ensure the real Gospel in communicated accurately.  In response to the recent rise of and attention give to Mormonism, we feel it necessary to emphasize the disparities between each fundamental doctrine.  For a different description of our criticisms, read this article.  We argue Mormonism is not orthodox for several reasons.

First, the method by which supposed divine revelation was given to Joseph Smith.  Smith claimed that God the Father, Jesus, John the Baptist, and the angel Moroni appeared to him in a series of visions and gave him golden tablets inscribed in  an ancient language, "Reformed Egyptian," from which he translated the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Books of Esther and Moroni.  However, he claimed that these tablets were taken back into heaven so we cannot examine them or see how well they were translated.  With Biblical texts, scholars routinely perform diagnostics and tests on the manuscripts of Scripture.  Not only does the 1800 years separating the texts of the book of Mormon and the books comprising the New Testament account for a lot of the stylistic differences in the texts, but they also contradict the basic theological principles.  Depending upon the teachings of Joseph Smith as opposed to the teachings of Christ is, by definition, not Christian.

Second, the interpretation of divinity is contradictory to Christianity.  A major tenant of orthodoxy, the Trinity is an undeniable aspect of the Gospel, describing God's nature as the perfect triune being, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Thus embodying each aspect of love (one who loves, is loved, and the spirit of love), for "God is love (1 John 4:8).  Joseph Smith's vision of God is very different.  Indeed, Christ was "a god," but no more of "a god" than Joseph Smith was.  This contradicts the very Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:3,5; Deut. 6:4)  Mormons believe that when one dies, their belief and praise of God exalts him to a higher level of exaltation, leaving His current level empty, and thus taken place by that particular believer.  Very literally, each Mormon believes that they become a God at death.  This could not be a more different conception of God, and believers, in Christianity.





Third, Joseph Smith could not be considered a prophet by any New Testament standards.  In fact, it would be hard to conclude that he was moral, even using lenient standards.  In his lifetime, Joseph Smith had 33 (documented) wives.  This includes four pairs of sisters, and one mother-daughter combination.  It is indisputable that he also coerced teenagers into marrying him through promising their families salvation.  In one case, he threatened eternal damnation to a woman if she would not leave her current husband and marry him.  Besides the clear teaching of Christ of monogamy (in order to more perfectly represent the union between Christ and the church), any claim of power of justice or power over the damnation or salvation of souls apart from Christ is completely heretical, and inexplicably offensive to Christianity.  Paul is very clear in his description of marriage.  The purpose of marriage is to consecrate relations between a male and a female, making them one-flesh: a holy way to succumb to our natural sexual inclinations in a Godly manner.  The notion that marrying a particular man is the requisite to salvation is a contradiction to Christianity's conception of marriage, John 14:6 ("I am the way, the truth, and the life.  Nobody gets to the Father EXCEPT THROUGH ME" - JESUS), and our fundamental understanding of morality as human beings.

Although there are more reasons to think that Mormonism is completely contradictory to Christian doctrine, these reasons are necessary and sufficient in showing it is thus.  Although this post is not meant to address the validity of the claims made by Mormons, we strongly recommend the link posted at the top of this post for a succinct and candid introduction to the problems of Mormonism.



Semper Reformanda (Always Reforming),

Athanasius

Excelsior

What is the Gospel Anyway?

We believe that in order to defend an idea, it must first be worth defending.  (aside from Athanasius: Please excuse me if this bit waxes a bit poetic.  The Gospel is the most beautiful thing in the world.)  The Greek word from which we get the term gospel is εὐαγγέλιον, which literally translates as "good news."  Eventually, I want to do a post on Old Testament prophecies of Jesus, but for now this must suffice.  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, upon them has marvelous light shone.  No more must life be lived apart from hope and full of fear.  For all those who know Christ, the end is clear and the way is open to eternal life.  (got that out of the way onto a more logical description)

An infinite eternal God stepped into time and space taking upon himself the form of a servant and his creation.  He came into his world to redeem those whom he called from every nation, tribe, and tongue.  Jesus Christ was born into the world to live a life which his people could never live so that they might enter Heaven, which they could never do without the perfect life.  He died the most gruesome death we can imagine and was raised again so that we have the sure hope of a glorious life eternally spent with him.  To this life, he invites freely anyone who will come and give up his life to attain it.  It is the life lived in pursuit of  holiness which is Jesus' nature.  We live our entire life in response to this beautiful free grace following our Lord to whatever place and through whatever times he would lead us.  This short clip by John Piper is a fantastic explanation as is this spoken word poem from Matt Papa.  

There are three aspects to the gospel. 
1) Justification- This is a one time act in which all of our sins are washed away and Christ's righteousness is given to us.  He died in our place so we receive the reward of his life.  

2) Sanctification- Our entire life is spent pursuing what God has laid out for us to accomplish, growing more holy and closer to him by his Grace.

3) Glorification- That we will be made like Christ.  As we suffer with him in this life we shall be made glorious with him in the next.

It may seem incredibly contradictory to suppose a loving God, and at the same time claim that God makes it incredibly difficult to achieve such a glorious salvation.  "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  Nobody comes to the Father except through me." ~ John 14:6-7.   These are unimaginably bold words.  Most usually the criticism is a general "how could authority be given to an individual, or just one individual path?  That seems incredibly cruel.  A loving God wouldn't do that."  So quickly, though, an inconsistency arises in this view.  What gives this particular skeptic the authority to say it is not restricted to an individual path?  Thus we start to understand why presuppositions are so important.  

The Christian claim is that the only way to Salvation (as described above) is by means of Jesus Christ.  The Bible teaches that we are a broken people, unimaginably outclassed by a Sovereign, Omnipotent, Uncaused Creator.  It can be described as nothing other than complete, absolute Love and Grace that this Being would even allow a means by which we could be reconciled so that we may know Him.  In this way, there must be a means to Salvation that in some way specifically resolves this dilemma.  This infinitely spanned gap between the perfect, and the ultimately undeserving.
By his love, Jesus came to Earth, as human, certifying his Holiness by way of miracles and teaching the message His Father recognized as necessary.  In a not so spectacular betrayal of the Sovereign, Jesus humbly atoned for each and every sin and transgression ever committed by living a perfect life, submitting himself besides His ability to bypass such a gruesome event, and consequently descending into hell to defeat evil, and rid humanity of our impossible struggle of self-accomplished perfection.  Through Jesus alone has any justification of such a transformation been proven and logically sufficient.  Jesus' death and resurrection are necessary and sufficient for the affirmation of the divine and the transformation of the fallen.  Praise God for a sufficient path.  

What should we write on next?  We have a couple of controversies in mind if no one suggests anything, but we welcome your ideas.  Email us: theology.guys@gmail.com

In Christ Alone,

Athanasius

 Excelsior

Introductions

Hello!


We are students at one of America's top academic institutions with a passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Apologetics and Theology.  After a long discussion, we decided to write this blog anonymously.  While we agree on the core of the gospel, the Nicene and Apostles creeds, we have disagreements on other issues such as the age of the earth, freedom of the will, and other common matters of dispute.  In this post, we are just going to introduce ourselves and give a little bit of background on our beliefs and positions.  After that, we'll begin posting on issues we believe are important and worth discussing.  If readers have questions they want our take on or want us to discuss, we'd love to do that too!

Guy 1 aka Athanasius: Is originally from the south, and grew up going to Southern Baptist and PCA churches.  I would now consider myself reformed baptist in the tradition of Spurgeon.  God has blessed with a gift for understanding others and how they reach their conclusions.  I would like to think I am the human element to Excelsior's logic and precision.  I am a young earth creationist, reformed, and not really sure what I believe about eschatology.  Besides theology/apologetics, I am a history buff, economic theoretician, literary aficionado with newly discovered interests in psychology, anthropology, and business.  I have a great interest in politics and Christianity in the public arena.  I would consider myself a southern gentleman and a scholar of God and humanity.  My life and growth have been heavily influenced by: C.H. Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, Blaise Pascal, William Wilberforce, Fyodor Dostoevesky, Joseph Conrad, John Calvin, Augustine, Athanasius, Cormac McCarthy, John Piper, John Owen, John Bunyan, and a few others. P.S. Excelsior was predestined to think he's funnier than me...for now

Guy 2 aka Excelsior: Is originally from the north (we won), and grew up going to Baptist and Presbyterian Churches.  I would now consider myself seeking in my Theological positions.  Unlike Athanasius, I am not as well-read as this journey is one I've not been seriously pursuing for long.  At the moment, I believe in traditional Big Bang Cosmology and am a strong proponent of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  Further, I identify most with Molinism, although I am enjoying the literature on all sides of this debate as I proceed further on my spiritual walk.  At our "elite institution" I am studying Systems Engineering and Mathematics and would like to think God has blessed me with a strong inclination for logic.  Rigor is my specialty, consistency my niche.  Ever since Christ came into my heart I have felt drawn to apologetics and continue to be influenced by apologists and believers.  My background is very strong in metaphysics, with great understanding of theoretical physics and most recent cosmological models with a close second in philosophical areas of interest being morality.  Lastly, I'm terrible with word economy, way funnier than guy 1, and much better looking.

We'll post again this weekend.  Hope to see y'all around!



Love in Christ,

Athanasius and Excelsior