The Need for Justice and the Problem of Evil

The search for justice runs through all of storytelling. We watch some nefarious villain executing his evil ploy and we hang on the edge of our seats hoping our hero will be victorious. There's something fundamental in the human spirit that wants to see good triumph.

This desire for justice is what attracts us to the adventure quest, like Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. There, Frodo Baggins is given a ring that holds the power of the evil Sauron, who seeks to wield it and rule Middle Earth. Because he bears this ring, Frodo assumes the dangerous responsibility of finding the path to destroy it. Frodo never asked for this assignment; circumstances thrust it upon him. Yet, he knows the quest is vital even if he may lose his life in the process.

In one poignant scene, Frodo is feeling the weight of his choice and laments to Gandalf about the evil Gollum, who is threatening their quest:

Frodo:	It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance!
Gandalf:	Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.
Frodo:	I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf:	So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

In Frodo's complaint, we see a particular instance of the problem of evil. You may have heard someone complain about how a loving God could allow so much evil in the world. Frodo believes the world would be better if Gollum had been killed. It's easy to make the charge that there's too much evil in the world, but we don't know how the story of this world plays out. However, fans know that Gandalf is right; Gollum's existence does figure into the ultimate salvation of the Middle Earth.

Evil Gollum must exist in order for Frodo's quest to succeed and a greater evil vanquished. The Roman executioner's cruelty must also exist for the sacrifice of Jesus to succeed. It isn't a contradiction to say God exists and is in control even if evil hasn't been eliminated. We just haven't gotten to the end of the story.

*This article comes from my chapter entitled "Using Hollywood Blockbusters to Share Your Faith" in Sean McDowell's A New Kind of Apologist. You may purchase a copy here.

Image courtesy bandita and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license

The silliness of claiming we were all atheists at birth

There has been a lot of talk in the past few months about "fake news." Fake news stories are those purported by some web site as real and shared by people who want them to be true, but have no basis in fact. They simply help confirm the bias of some group. Usually, the story gets repeated and simply because it appeared "in print" or from a semi-authoritative site it is accepted without question.

But, the phenomenon of believing outlandish claims because they conform to what we want to be true is not new. The Internet just helps to spread them more quickly. For example, take the idea that all people are born atheist. I saw a meme recently picturing a group of babies and a caption that reads "Atheists. Can't you just feel the evil of their ways?" Several show a baby being baptized while exclaiming, "Stop, I'm an atheist!" EvolveFish offers a bumper sticker for sale reading, "You don't become an atheist. You go back to being one." The most popular version takes a more negative tone in claiming "We are all born atheist until someone starts telling us lies."

With all their talk of being rational and "brights," I wonder how anyone in the atheist movement could buy into such a silly charge. No, we are not all atheists at birth. Newborns haven't yet developed the rational capacity for abstract belief. They are only concerned with their immediate needs: eating, discomfort, feeling safe, and the like. To claim that because they lack the capacity to understand the idea of God somehow makes them an atheist is akin to saying because they cannot yet understand the concept of round they must be considered flat-earthers. After all, flat earth believers only reject what they cannot see.

Desperately trying to bear no burden

Of course, one reason for the recent popularity of the claim that babies are born atheist is the desire by a lot of atheists to redefine the term atheism as something that is neutral; a term that makes no claims. But atheism does make claims, just as one who holds to a flat earth is making a claim. The earth must have some shape to it and as a person becomes aware of shapes he or she will no longer be neutral as to what they believe the shape of the earth is. They hold a position.

Similarly, as one becomes aware of the concepts like other minds exist, effects have causes, things that show evidence of design will have a designer, we must be able to explain our own origin, etc., then one will no longer be neutral as to the question of God. The person may not be "all in," that is 100% certain either for or against God's existence, but that doesn't mean he or she isn't making a judgment.

That's why it's impossible to take a position that says "We aren't going to teach our kids about any religion, but we'll let them make up their own minds." By modeling a life where God is meaningless, they are taking a position and they're teaching it to their kids. By claiming all children are atheists "until someone starts telling us lies," one is making a truth claim about God. It isn't neutral!

Atheism makes a knowledge claim about God's existence; therefore, one must teach his or her children there is no God. If atheism were the default position, then history would be littered with civilizations and cultures that were atheistic. But those don't exist. The entire record of human existence clearly shows that human beings have held to the belief there is some kind of divine power to which we owe our ultimate origin. Certainly, many have gotten things wrong—that's another argument. But to claim that all babies are atheists is silly and actually embarrassing for the movement.

Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived (podcast)

If you were asked to choose the most intelligent person in history, who would it be? Einstein? Newton? Socrates? What about Jesus? We often think of Jesus as many things, but rarely do we think of him as an intellectual, using reason and logic skillfully. Yet, he did so frequently. In this four-part podcast, you'll hear Lenny explain just how Jesus out-thought his detractors and you'll learn about a underappreciated aspect of his ministry: how he wants us to engage our minds as much as much as our hearts.

• Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived (Part 1)
• Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived (Part 2)
• Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived (Part 3)
• Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived (Part 4)

Subscribe to Come Reason's Podcast via iTunes or RSS feed.

2016 Top Apologetics Podcast Topics

In 2016, the Come Reason podcast site saw over 725,000 hits which is the largest year to date. iTunes listeners and RSS feed subscribers who get the podcast automatically accounted for over 42,000 downloads this year alone.  People are listening to the back-catalog, as we hit an average of 600 downloads per episode!

Some of the more attractive topics this year were a mix of social issues/current events as well as foundational arguments for the Christian faith.  Click on each title below to access all of the episodes in each series for these, the top five apologetics podcasts of 2016.

5. Identifying Imposter Christianity
4. Answering Atheist Arguments
3. Are Christians Too Judgmental?
2. Arguments against Same-Sex Marriage
1. Dealing with Bible Contradictions

Top Ten Apologetics Articles of 2016

2016 continued to be a key news period, especially for matters of faith. While the culture wars provided a couple of entries, the most popular articles proved to be those that offered strong answers to basic objections to the faith, atheist claims, and ways of communicating with non-believers. Without further adieu, here are the top ten apologetics articles from 2016:

10. Taking the Bible Literally is One Way of Abusing the Bible — 9/16/2016
9. Another Sign It's the End of the World as We Know It, Christian — 5/4/2016
8. Has Archaeology Proven the Gospel of John? — 2/8/2016
7. Five Reasons Why God's Hiddenness is a Good Thing — 7/20/2016
6. Jesus Ate with Criminals; Why Wouldn't He Bake a Cake for a Gay Person? — 4/18/2016
7. When Does Cultural Insanity Hit the Breaking Point? — 5/31/2016
4. What's the One Question No Christian Can Answer? — 5/23/2016
3. Atheists Admit Their Disbelief Linked to Emotional Discomfort — 3/21/2016
2. History is a Problem for Those Who Doubt Jesus Was Real — 2/9/2016
1. Why Doesn't God Prove He Exists? Because It Wouldn't Help Disbelief — 2/29/2016