I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (66 page)

Christian: Yes.

Atheist: Why do you insist on putting everything in light of eternity?

Christian: Because we’re all going to be dead a lot longer than we’re going to be alive! Furthermore, the Bible teaches us to look to the eternal, and life makes sense only in light of eternity. If there is no eternity, then there is no ultimate purpose for anything, pleasures or pains.

Atheist: Suppose there is no eternity. Suppose we live, we die, and that’s it.

Christian: It’s possible, but
I don’t have enough faith to believe it.

Atheist: Why not?

Christian: Haven’t you read this book?

Atheist: No, I jumped right to this appendix.

Christian: That’s just like you, isn’t it? You don’t want to play the game; you just want to see the final score.

Atheist: I suppose I suffer from the American disease of instant gratification.

Christian: That’s probably why you’re having trouble realizing the value of suffering and “no pain, no gain!”

Atheist: You’re right, reading this book is too painful. It’s too long.

Christian: It could be shorter if we didn’t have to address all those crazy arguments you atheists bring up. Besides, you’ve got time to read. Sunday mornings are free for you.

Atheist: There are a lot less painful things I could do on Sunday mornings.

Christian: Look, I know this book may be painful to read, but it’s more painful to reject its conclusion. You’ve got to read this book from beginning to end if you want to see the whole argument for Christianity. The case is laid out in logical order. Each chapter builds on the previous one.

Atheist: Alright, I’ll read the book. But in the meantime, let’s get back to the question of evil. If there is an eternity, then some evils in this world may have an eternal purpose. But there are certainly some evil acts in this world that have absolutely no purpose.

Christian: How do you know?

Atheist: It’s obvious! What good purpose could there be in, say, the terrorist attacks on 9/11?

Christian: While I wish it had never happened, there were some good things that we know about that came out of those terrible events. For example, we came together as a country; we helped those in need; and we resolved to fight the evil of terrorism. We also were shocked into pondering the ultimate questions about life, and some people came to Christ as result of it. As C. S. Lewis said, pain is God’s “megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
¹
9/11 certainly woke us up!

Atheist: Yes, you can find a silver lining in just about anything, but there’s no way your “silver lining” outweighs the pain and suffering.

Christian: How do you know? Unless you are all-knowing and have an eternal perspective, how do you know the events of 9/11 will not work together for good in the end? Perhaps there are many good things that will come out of that tragedy in the individual lives we will never hear about. In fact, good results may even come generations from now unbeknownst to those who will experience them.

Atheist: Come on! That’s a cop-out!

Christian: No, it’s simply recognizing our limits and acknowledging the limitless knowledge and unseen purposes of God (Rom. 11:33-36). We can’t see the future on earth, much less what eternity in heaven will be like. So how can we say that the ultimate eternal outcome of 9/11 won’t work out for good? We already know some good things that have resulted from it.

Just because we can’t think of an ultimate good reason or purpose for it, that doesn’t mean an infinite God doesn’t have one.

Atheist: If God would tell me his reasons, then maybe I could believe you.

Christian: Job already tried that tactic. After he questioned God about why he suffered, God baffled Job with questions about the wonders of creation (Job 38–41). It’s as if God were saying to him, “Job, you can’t even understand how I run the physical world that you
can
see, so how are you going to understand the vastly more complex moral world that you
cannot
see—a world where the results of billions of free choices made by human beings every day interact with one another?” Indeed, it would be impossible for us to comprehend such complexity. By the way, have you ever seen the movie
It’s a
Wonderful Life
?

Atheist: Do you mean the one with Jimmy Stewart that’s shown every Christm . . . I mean, winter solstice?

Christian: Yeah, that’s the one. Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, a character who is despondent because his business dealings have gone bad and his life seems to be falling apart. He is averted from suicide at the last minute by an angel who shows him what life would have been like for others if George had never been born. It turns out that life would have been terrible for many people throughout his hometown. But George never knew this. He never realized the amazing impact his life had on others. Hence the title,
It’s a Wonderful Life.

Atheist: Bah! Humbug!

Christian: Come on. You get the point, don’t you? Atheist: Yeah, I get the point: we don’t know what impact any person or event might have in the long run, especially since there are so many interacting choices being made.

Christian: Yes, and even choices meant for evil can turn out for good (Gen. 50:20). Perhaps many people now or generations from now will come to Christ because of the direct or indirect effects of evil events.

Atheist: But it seems like that’s an argument from ignorance.

Christian: No. It’s not like we have
no
information about why bad things happen. We know that we live in a fallen world, and we know that good things can come from bad. So we know it’s possible that God can have a good reason for bad things even if we don’t know what those reasons are. And we know that he can bring good from bad. So it’s not an argument from ignorance, but a reasonable conclusion from what we do know. And while we don’t know the reason for every
specific
bad thing that happens, we know why we don’t know: we don’t know because of our human limitations.

Atheist: What do you think of Rabbi Kushner’s answer to the question? You know, he wrote the book
When Bad Things
Happen to Good People.

Christian: I think his answer is wrong.

Atheist: Wrong? Why?

Christian: Because his answer is that God isn’t powerful enough to defeat evil on earth. So we need to forgive God for allowing evil.

Atheist: What’s wrong with that?

Christian: Because there’s strong evidence that God is infinitely powerful. Fifty-six times in the Bible God is referred to as “almighty,” and in several other ways he is described as all-powerful. We also know from scientific evidence that he created this universe out of nothing (take a look at chapter 3 of this book). So Rabbi Kushner’s finite god doesn’t square with the facts.

Atheist: If God is infinitely powerful as you say, then why does he allow bad things to happen to good people?

Christian: We’ve already pointed out that there are good outcomes for pain and suffering. But we also need to point out that the question makes an assumption that isn’t true.

Atheist: What’s that?

Christian: There are no
good
people!

Atheist: Oh, come on!

Christian: No, really. Some people are better than others, but no one is really good. We all have a natural bent toward selfishness.

And we all commit sins routinely.

Atheist: I do more good things than bad.

Christian: By whose standard?

Atheist: By society’s standard. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I’m not a murderer or a thief.

Christian: That’s the problem. We consider ourselves good people only by the standards of bad people. We judge ourselves against others rather than against an absolute standard of good. By the way, have you ever stolen anything?

Atheist: Well, yes.

Christian: Have you ever lied about anything?

Atheist: No.

Christian: You’re lying.

Atheist: I can’t fool you.

Christian: So you’re a lying thief, then!

Atheist: That doesn’t mean I’m all bad.

Christian: No, but it means you’re not all good either. Think about it: it’s much easier to be bad than good; it’s much more natural to you to be selfish rather than generous. We all have that depraved human nature. As Augustine said, “We’re all born with a propensity to sin and a necessity to die.”
²
That propensity is inborn. That’s why young children naturally grab things and yell, “Mine!” It’s also why James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
³

Atheist: So Kushner makes incorrect assumptions about the nature of man and the nature of God.

Christian: Exactly. The question is not “Why do bad things happen to good people?” but “Why do good things happen to bad people?”

Atheist: If God really is all-powerful as you say, I still don’t understand why he didn’t stop 9/11. If you knew it was going to happen and had the power to stop it, wouldn’t you have stopped it?

Christian: Yes.

Atheist: So you are better than God!

Christian: No, by stopping 9/11, I would be preventing evil. But God, who has an unlimited, eternal perspective, allows evil choices knowing that he can redeem them in the end. We can’t redeem such choices, so we try to stop every one.

Atheist: Yes, but by your own Christian doctrine, God doesn’t redeem all evil choices in the end. After all, some people go to hell!

Christian: Yes, but that’s because God can bring eternal good only to those who will accept it. Some people ignore the facts or simply choose to play the game in a way that brings them defeat.

Since God cannot force them to
freely choose
to play the game the right way, ultimate good only comes to those who choose it. That’s why Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

Notice he doesn’t say, “all things are good.” He says all things work together
for
the good
of those who love him.

Atheist: So how did “all things work together for good” for those who died in 9/11?

Christian: Those who loved God and accepted the free gift of salvation are with God in eternity. Those who did not, are having their free choice of eternal separation respected as well.

Atheist: And the rest of us?

Christian: Those of us who remain here still have time to make our decision. And those who already were Christians at the time may have had their character strengthened through 9/11.

Atheist: But if God is all-good and all-knowing, why would he create creatures who he knew would go to hell?

Christian: Good question. There are only five options God had. He could have: 1) not created at all; 2) created a non-free world of robots; 3) created a free world where we would not sin; 4) created a free world where we would sin, but everyone would accept God’s salvation; or 5) created the world we Christian: have now—a world where we would sin, and some would be saved but the rest would be lost.

Atheist: Yes, and it seems like God picked the worst of those five options! So God is not all-good!

Christian: Not so fast. The first option can’t even be compared to the other four because something and nothing have nothing in common. Comparing a real world and a non-world is not even like comparing apples and oranges, since they both are fruit. It is like comparing apples and non-apples, insisting that non-apples taste better. In logic, this is called a category mistake. It’s like asking, “What color is math?” Math is not a color, so the question is meaningless.

Atheist: If comparing existence to nonexistence is a category mistake, then Jesus made a category mistake when he said it would have been better if Judas had never been born (Matt. 26:24).

Christian: No, Jesus was not talking about the supremacy of non-being over being. He was simply making a forceful point about the severity of Judas’s sin.

Atheist: Okay, so why didn’t God make his second option—a robot world?

Christian: He could have, but that wouldn’t have been a moral world.

It would have been a world with no evil, but with no moral good either.

Atheist: So why didn’t he make worlds three or four? Those worlds would allow love, and they certainly would be better worlds than this one.

Christian: Yes, but not everything
conceivable
is actually
achievable
with free creatures. For example, it is conceivable that I could have been robbing a bank instead of talking to you. But that is not achievable because I freely chose to talk to you. Likewise, God can’t force free creatures
not
to sin. Forced freedom is a contradiction.

Atheist: But this world could be better if there were one less murder or one less rape. So God failed because he didn’t create the best possible world.

Christian: Hold on. While I will admit that this world is not the best possible world, it may
be the best way to get to
the best possible world.

Atheist: What kind of theistic psychobabble is that?

Christian: God may have permitted evil in order to defeat it. As I’ve already said, if evil is not allowed, then the higher virtues cannot be attained. People who are redeemed have stronger character than people who have not been tested. Soul-building requires some pain. The Job of chapter 42 is a deeper and more joyful man than the Job of chapter 1. So evil in this world actually serves a good purpose in the end. It creates an eternal world that’s the best possible world.

Atheist: But why would God create people knowing that they would choose hell?

Christian: Do you have children?

Atheist: Yes. In fact I’m a former child myself!

Christian: Why did you have them, knowing that someday they would disobey you?

Atheist: My wife asks me that question a lot!

Christian: I know why I did. Because love takes risks. I was willing to take the risk of loss in order to experience the joy of love. The same is true of every Super Bowl. Both teams know that one will lose, yet both are willing to play the game despite that risk.