Atheism: Bumping into Reality: Bump of Bad

When you have something that needs to be fixed, you say ‘it is broken’.

if there is no purpose for something/a tool, it doesn’t make any sense to say that it is broken.  Broken means that it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do.  If something has a purpose and it's not able to fulfill it, then it's broken.  Once fixed/worked on and it's back to the way it's supposed to be, then it won’t be broken it can the fulfill the purpose of its maker

 What is the most frequently raised objection to the existence of God?

 The Problem of Evil

 -The problem of evil is the part of reality that we bump into all the time.  This is when atheists bring up the objection ‘How can there be a good, powerful God if there is so much evil in the world?’

 -There is something that everyone knows about the world no matter where or when they lived. They know that something is wrong…the world is not the way it's supposed to be. This is the problem or evil or…the Bump of Bad.

 Bad is a feature of the objective universe. (The world out there) 

 How we can turn the problem of evil into an advantage:

 There is a sequence here in your convo with atheists.

First-Think of the morally most grotesque thing you can think of.

            (Holocaust, Concentration Camps, Sexual Slavery… find the thing

that hits their moral hot button…the thing they really care about

morally)

Second- Ask them ‘What do you make of this? What’s your assessment’

            (They might say ‘That ain’t right!’ or ‘These things are wrong or

they’re bad or they’re wicked or they’re evil!’ or more simply

‘They aren’t the way they are supposed to be’...)

 Once they weigh in with their assessment…

Third- Ask them ‘Are you describing those things themselves (the things out there)? or are you describing what you’re feeling/your emotional response/what you don’t like? or maybe what your culture has decided they don’t like?’

(You want to know if they think the badness of the actions you’re

discussing are in the actions themselves or is the

badness an assessment they make on the inside of ourselves and 

project out there.)

If the second-then nothing is bad in itself. (Relativism)

If the first-then those things are bad in themselves (Objectivism)

Objectivism vs. Relativism

 -The Problem of Evil (the Bump of Bad) REQUIRES things to actually be bad out there…..it Requires OBJECTIVE morality.

-The existence of evil then, needs to be a detail of the external world to be a problem….it can’t about our own personal opinions.  Some things have to be wicked or bad or evil in themselves, regardless of personal opinion.

in order for three to be a problem of evil the Theist has to answer.

 -Key point: If Moral Relativism is true (Matter of me deciding what I like and don’t like), then there’s no problem of evil.  Because if morality is just my personal preference or my culture's consensus, there is nothing outside of those consensus that is really bad.

Illustration 1:

-In Germany, there is a high-speed highway called the AUTOBAHN.

Can you break the speed limit on the Autobahn?

The answer is No you can’t.  Why? because there is no speed limit, and you can’t break a law that doesn’t exist.

 So in relativism, it's like the AUTOBAHN…there are no laws governing behavior.  You can go as fast as you want. Or you might have personal limits…but they are not laws of the land.

-If relativism is true, then you might create your own personal boundary, but if you go outside your boundary you won’t be breaking any external law….there can’t be any law broken if there is no law out there.

 There must be a universe set of rules for all humanity for there to be a problem of evil.

Illustration 2:

-Say you are in a perfectly flat expanse of land.

In this expanse, there is no country at all and you have a really fast car…

Same Question.  Can you break the speed limit there? 

The answer is no.  Why not?  Because there is no speed limit there.

Why is there no speed limit? Because there is no government.

-In order for there to be laws that are broken, there has to be laws.

In order for there to be laws, there has to be lawmakers.

There can’t be a way that the world is not supposed to be…(evil)…Unless there is a way that the world is supposed to be.  But there can’t be a way its supposed to be without a supposer.

Therefore, if there is a problem of evil (which we know there is…) God Must Exist.

 -An atheist will try to explain how you can get morality without God….They are going to reference Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Darwinian evolution can explain this..

 -They will say ‘Well my evolution has caused me to believe that I should go 75 mph on the AutoBahn’...Would you actually be breaking any laws if you went 100mph? 

-It's not what your evolution compels you to do but would in fact you be breaking a law if you went over 75mph?

Of course not.

-That is your belief on the inside, it cannot create a law on the outside.

Is it evil to disobey your evolution?

This makes no sense…This is why the Darwinian evolution answer never solved this problem. 

 -According to Darwinism (if it were true), the best it could do would be to give you a feeling on the inside about morality.  The problem of evil isn't about our feelings on the inside…it's about a failed obligation on the outside.  If somebody really breaks the real speed limit.

 -That’s the problem here.  The Evolutionary response puts all the morality on the inside (Relativism).  But the real problem is the morality that is being broken on the outside. And if the Evolutionary explanation explains our belief in morality then there's no evil on the outside, because there’s no laws actually being broken.  But there is a problem of evil on the outside (that’s the objection), that’s why this response is not going to work.

 -So here’s the final question you want to ask the atheist.

‘Since there is real, objective evil in the world (That’s their complaint) How do you (the atheist) account for that? How do you explain objective morality? Things that are actually good or bad in themselves? How do you explain objective moral obligations that have a moral duty to do certain things and not to do other things? How do you explain any of that in a world where all that exists is matter and motion?’

(The key here is they can’t do this…the Atheist worldview doesn’t

give them the resources to make sense of real features in the

world because you can’t sin against the particles.  Only one view

makes sense of the real evil in the world, and that’s theism.)

 Therefore, if there is real bad in the world/a real problem of evil (and there is), God Must Exist.

 Summary

1-There is real evil in the universe

2-There must be real laws.

3-There must be a real law maker.

The problem of evil is not a good argument against God…It's one of the best arguments for God. 

Back