Elaborating on Evil: Play Calling

Prove It:

  When laying this series out I seem to have forgotten to begin with this section, but better late than never.  I should have started this post by making it clear that evil and suffering are not something we use to prove God's existence, but rather what the atheist will try to use to dismiss it.  Unlike proving the resurrection we don't have the burden of proof here.  It's up to the atheist to use evil and suffering to prove God doesn't exist, and believe me they will try.  Too often believers allow non-believers to pass that burden, but not this time.

  The conversation often unfolds in a statement like "tell me why your God permits suffering if he's loving."  Then they sit back and play the role of skeptic while you explain something they have no intention of trying to absorb.  While this is a great strategy on the part of the atheist, it's a philosophically illegitimate and intellectually dishonest way to debate.  Don't allow them to dodge their mental responsibility here.  They are saying that an omnipotent, loving God and the concept of suffering can't coexist so make them prove it.  Demand premises and support for their argument.  Then it's your turn to sit back and play the skeptic.  Chances are they don't have any support, just an emotionally driven "feeling" that God wouldn't allow suffering.  This is why the chart I've listed below (and in the previous post) doesn't go any further on the emotional problem of suffering.  If you're engaged in an argument based on emotions then asking someone to really prove their point doesn't proceed beyond their feelings.  Feelings won't have premises or support.

Play Calling:

  Before you get too deep into the argument you need to find out which version of it you're about to participate in so you're in the right formation.  I'd go with a question like "are you saying that it's impossible for God and the suffering in the world to coexist, or are you suggesting that it's merely improbable?"  For starters, most atheist aren't expecting you to be prepared for an actual debate.  This person has probably used their little attack several times in the past with no one around to properly call them out on it.  They're expecting to ruffle your feathers a bit, and at best, they expect you to give them a Bible verse.  If they're like most atheists then they've never really thought about what they blurted out.  Be gracious and help them clarify what they believe if necessary.  Their explanation of what they believe will determine which version of the argument you're about to be in.  While you want to show them the fallacy in their argument, you still want to do so with care.  There's a good chance they're using suffering and evil as an assault on God because they've suffered themselves.  Make sure you don't just see them as an opponent, but rather an opponent with a soul. 

Going Forward:

  

  Again, I'm sorry for the confusion.  This really should have been my first post in the series, but I needed to get it in so it's right in the middle instead.  I hope you can see how important it is to get this right.  There isn't a day that goes by where evil and suffering aren't on full display in a fallen world.  On a daily basis we see death, natural disasters and heinous evil everywhere.  It presents an unlimited number of opportunities for an atheist to evangelize.  For the rest of the series I will go deeper into the two different versions of the intellectual problem of suffering.  Once you make someone realize that an emotional argument won't hold water then they have to get off the field or call an audible and get into the intellectual argument.  From there your questions will help you determine if you need to go with the logical version or the evidential version.  

  The one thing that all of the topics I've covered to this point have in common is that none of them have the ability to save people.  God and God alone saves people, but that doesn't negate our responsibility as believers to defend our faith. If we're going to defend it, I see no problem in doing it well and having a game plan. Not only is evil and suffering a point of debate between atheists and believers, but if you're a parent then it's something you'll have to explain to your children.  While I wouldn't suggest that you demand a set of premises from your kids when the topic comes up, I still feel like this will help you explain why suffering happens so it doesn't become a stumbling block.

  

Elaborating on Evil: The Problem

Evil, Suffering and a Loving God:

  I've had a tough time studying this material and I probably won't spend too much time on it.  For starters it's not a tangible subject, like proving the resurrection historically. My biggest problem is trying to put all of it into words when it really soaked in more like a flow chart in my mind.  In addition to the difficulty of relaying the information, it's been challenging for me spiritually.  Evil is real.  People do suffer.  God is loving.  I separated those on purpose because that's what the atheist does.  They struggle to reconcile a loving God back to the evil they see when you turn on the TV and watch two men plant bombs at the feet of children during a marathon.  They want answers and believers often struggle to respond.  Most people think that science drives people away from God, but most of the atheists I've studied are unable to see evil and suffering compatible with a loving God and therefore see holes in theology.

  To be clear, I'm not going to attempt to explain away evil or try to tell you why God allows people to suffer.  This is really more focused on how we as believers respond when challenged with the problem of evil by a non-believer.  I hope it can be of some use because this really might be one of the most challenging areas of apologetics.  I've heard non-believers say things like "either your God is too weak to stop suffering or he lets bad things happen to good people."  It's this line of thinking that I hope to address.  I also want to say that I'm sure there are people reading this that have experienced evil and suffering on a very deep level. So I want to be clear that I'm not trying to marginalize your life experiences into something that can make them sound pretty.  Suffering isn't pretty, it hurts, but rest in the knowledge that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character, and character hope. (Romans 5:3-5) When thinking about evil and God you must do so from a philosophical standpoint.  Philosophers don't feel a certain way on a topic, philosophers are called to think a certain way.  Let's proceed as philosophers.

Versions of the Problem of Suffering:

  We need to start by separating the problem so that we can think clearly.  Suffering produces two different problems, the intellectual problem and the emotional problem.  To briefly summarize, the intellectual problem concerns whether it's logical to think that God and suffering can coexist.  The emotional problem deals with a person's dislike of a God who would permit suffering to happen.  This is where the chart above can help you keep the two problems separate.  The importance of separating these is vital.  The answer to the intellectual problem will come off as cold and uncaring if you're talking to someone that's struggling with the emotional problem.  The answer to the emotional problem will seem weak and a bit fake if you're engaged in an intellectual discussion with someone that's using suffering and evil as an abstract issue.  I think if you're having this discussion on the ground level then you're likely dealing with someone that's struggling emotionally with suffering.  It's these people that want nothing to do with a God that would allow people to suffer.  However, if you're going to address the emotional aspect then you have to go in depth with the intellectual problem to prove that evil and suffering fail as proof of atheism.

Going Forward:

    My next post will dive deeper into the logical and evidential versions of the intellectual problem of suffering.  I hope I don't lose you here because evil and suffering are so common in our society that this conversation can literally come up on any day.  You need to be prepared to defend your worldview in the face of this monumental problem.  I also want to apologize for the terrible flow chart.  I claim to be an apologist, not an artist.  It was the best I could do with Microsoft Paint and three minutes.

Faith in Facts: The Mathematical Messiah

Secondary Apologetics:

  I'll start by saying that I made up the phrase "secondary apologetics."  I'm not aware of anyone that uses that term on an academic level.  When I decided I wanted to pursue a degree in apologetics I saw two different applications of the subject.  The primary goal of apologetics is to defend your faith with reason, facts and logic.  If you're going to play defense, you need an opposing offense.  That offense represents the skeptics, atheists, agnostics and the lost world in general.  However I saw a secondary purpose for apologetics, and that purpose is to build up or encourage the rest of your defensive teammates.  To this point most of my posts have been written like a good blitz package on 3rd and long.  They were written so that you can actively engage non-believers with facts about our faith.  I'm well aware that facts don't draw people to Christ.  The Holy Spirit draws people to Christ.  So with my disclaimer firmly in place I will proceed by trying to help you fortify your walls a bit. In every area of life, the more convinced you are that you have the truth, the more prone you are to be bold in it's proclamation. Throwing out prophecy to the non-believer will seldom yield results, but I hope it's helpful to you personally. This is written by a defender, to the defenders.

Improbable Prophesy:

  There are hundreds of Old Testament prophesies about the coming Messiah and I'm simply not educated enough to list them all (nor am I arrogant enough to think you'd read my blog for that long).  Most of them are fairly vague if I'm forced to be honest here.  You can see Christ in them, but it's a stretch for most people.  Old Testament prophecy simply isn't my strong suit, but I'm working on it.  Part of me wanted to leave this out due to my own ignorance, but I've quickly learned that any apologist worthy of the title has to grow in this area. I'm also not educated enough to give you all of the date ranges of the predictions, but I know that some of the most accurate date back as far as 800 years before the birth of Christ. I will list a hand full of the most compelling predictions.

   Micah 5:2 says that Christ will be born in Bethlehem.  Isaiah 53:3 says He will be despised and rejected. Isaiah 53:5 says He will be beaten and we will be healed.  Isaiah 53:6 says that His punishment is for the iniquity of us all.  In Psalm 22:16 it is written that they will pierce His hands and His feet, which is astounding when you consider how long it would be before crucifixion would be invented. Jesus fulfilled at least 50 more that are equally as strong as the list I assembled. These are just a few, but I strongly encourage you to grow in you understanding of prophesy.

  I studied the testimony of a man named Louis Lapides, a little known Jewish scholar.  He was presented the prophecy contained in Isaiah 53 by a Christian friend.  Naturally Lapides assumed that the Christian Bible contained a forged account of the Old Testament, so he quickly turned to his Jewish version only to discover that it was exactly the same.  By this Lapides was convinced that Isaiah was writing about Jesus.  Through this application of apologetics he became a Christian and went on to become the president of a network of 15 different Messianic congregations.  Information is not salvation, but facts can produce conviction. So don't stop defending what you believe.  Facts are the advantage in Christianity, especially when it comes to debating other world religions.

Let's Do Some Math:

   While pursuing my Bachelor's degree I spent 5 years majoring in everything from Mid-Evil Literature to Textiles.  I finally sat down with my guidance counselor and said "What can I major in that requires little to no math?  I have to get out of this place eventually."  His response, "Marketing."  Needless to say, after nearly 7 years of undergraduate study, I left The University of Montevallo with a marketing degree that I now display on my wall as if I were born to develop product placement plans and advertising campaigns.  The reality is that I just earned it by being a poor mathematician.  So in order for us to grasp the mathematical impossibility of anyone but Jesus fulfilling the prophecy provided in the Old Testament, I pulled the research of a man that was gifted in an area where I was born deficient.

  Peter Stoner was the chairman of the mathematics department at Westmont College from 1953-1957.  He was gifted with a brilliant mathematical mind and a heart for Christian apologetics. He produced some fantastic work in combining both fields.  Stoner once had 600 math students come up with the odds that one person could even fulfill 8 of the Old Testament prophesies.  The result was a number that I can only express alphanumerically.  The students came back with the odds set at 1 in a hundred million billion.  He went on to express this in a more visual sense by using tiles.  If you were to take this number in one inch square tiles you could cover the entire Earth, both water and land.  Now imagine you placed a gold star on the bottom of one tile.  Your next assignment is simple, you are to walk the Earth and you are only given the opportunity to pick up one tile to see if it has the star on the bottom.  The chances of you picking the correct tile with only one shot are the same as Jesus fulfilling only 8 of the Old Testament predictions.

  Why stop at 8?  Now what are the chances that one man fulfilled 48 Old Testament prophesies?  I'll skip the number and go straight for the visual here.  It would be like taking one atom (keep in mind that one hair is the width of 1 million atoms) and spray painting it red.  Then you can release the atom into one of one trillion trillion trillion billion completely different universes.  Now you have to get in a spaceship and fly through all of these different universes stopping only once to collect a sample so that you can then examine the atoms it contains.  The chances of you finding the red one are the same as the chances that any human could meet those odds.  I could go on, but needless to say were going to have to start to exceed the limits of the human mind to conceptualize odds that great.

  I hope that somewhere in this series you've seen that the resurrection of Jesus is not only historical fact, but it's mathematically sound as well.  Having history and math on your side is a pretty powerful combination.

Going Forward:

  This completes the series on the historical resurrection of Jesus.  I pray that you found some of it useful.  It looks like my coursework will take me into explaining the problem of evil in the world.  I expect it to be challenging for me personally and I hope I can relay it properly.  When I studied atheism I found that a lot of atheists encountered events in their lives that could only be explained by evil. In turn they couldn't reconcile this back to the loving God described in the Bible and therefore shut Him out as an option.  Evil is a difficult subject and we are surrounded by it every day.  My only comfort is knowing that evil itself is still bound by God's sovereignty, but is an inevitable byproduct of living in a fallen world.  I also take comfort in knowing that one day I will walk in a place were all the devastation of sin is absent.  Until that day we will live in a world where evil and sin exist and we need to prepare to explain it.