The Best Argument That God Doesn't Exist?

It’s May 1945, and the Nazi's have just surrendered. Seventy-eight million men, women, and children are dead, with six million from concentration camps alone. On a beautiful Tuesday morning, four thousand were murdered by terrorists on American soil. The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami killed an estimated 231,000, with another 46,000 still missing. In the United States alone, cancer and heart disease will take the lives of over 1.2 million men and women each year. Every single day we all are faced with personal tragedies, cities flood, neighborhoods are decimated, and homes burn to the ground. Babies suddenly die, children are sold into sex slavery, families starve, and the elderly are treated terribly. Among all of these atrocities and countless others, where's this so-called all-powerful and "loving" God the Bible speaks about? If He holds those characteristics, then how could He ever allow such acts to happen to His creation? As author and now atheist, Elie Wiesel once said, “My faith in God went up in smoke with my little sister in the furnaces of Auschwitz."

This is what philosophers term "the problem of evil," and is an issue that both believers and nonbelievers struggle with due to the fact that the existence of evil sure seems to be incompatible with God's existence. As atheist John Stuart Mill puts it: “If God were all powerful, He could destroy evil. If God were all good, He would want to destroy evil. But Evil is not destroyed. Therefore, an all-powerful and all-good God does not exist.” The obvious question to investigate first is whether the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. Secondly, we'll investigate why God, if there's reason to believe evil doesn't disprove His existence, of course, why He doesn't stop evil.

Now, in order to tackle the first question of whether or not evil disproves the existence of God, we need to put the question into context. So, what exactly is evil?

Overall, evil can be defined as, “the perversion of good; when things aren't the way they are supposed to be.” Evil falls into two categories: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil refers to that which only involves victims, the result of natural processes having no human perpetrator to blame. This "evil" is evil only from the perspective of those affected, who perceive it as an affliction with no accompanying mitigating good. Examples include cancer, birth defects, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. Moral evil, on the other hand, is the result of any negative event caused by the intentional action or inaction of a perpetrator. Examples include murder, rape, and slavery.

Starting with this first question, is the fact that evil exists a good argument that God doesn't? No. One can't reasonably state that argument. There must be a standard outside of ourselves that establishes what “good” is so that we could even know what “evil” is. With an analogy, you could put it this way: "Shadows prove sunshine. In order to have shadows (evil), you must have sunshine (good). You can have good (sunshine) without evil (shadows), but you can't have evil (shadows) without good (sunshine)." Similarly, rust on a car can't exist without a car, and tree rot can't exist without a tree. In fact, this truth is what brought the great thinker C.S. Lewis from atheism to faith in Christianity. While still an atheist, Lewis believed there simply was too much evil in the world for there to be a God. Lewis later wrote in his book Mere Christianity, "As an atheist, my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing with when I called it unjust?" If there is injustice there must be justice; a straight line must exist as the standard by which we can even call a line crooked.

Let's remember that every worldview must give an explanation for evil and isn't distinctive just to Christianity. This problem, then, is one to which we all -- believers and nonbelievers -- must offer an answer regardless of the worldviews to which we subscribe. So, before we get to the belief that God and evil can coexist, let's take a look at both atheism and pantheism.

First, there's atheism. Many within this worldview believe that evil exists and that God doesn’t exist. But, if one is to truly live out the worldview of atheism, one must hold to the belief that mankind and everything is merely a product of random, mindless, impersonal, and valueless processes over time. Thus, there's no objective standard by which we can even judge something as being either good or evil. Richard Dawkins sums up this view well: "There is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. We are machines for propagating DNA." Within this worldview, experiences such as pleasure, beauty, sense of self, and evil don't actually exist and are merely physiological reactions. In other words, anything goes: murder, rape, and every other abomination can't be labeled as evil, because atheism doesn’t have the categories of good and evil in the first place and states that we can just go along with the opinions of each society (of course, you can see where societal opinion causes shaky ground, as one or many could have a majority-ruled decision that, say, murder is “good” and, because there’s no objective standard outside of opinion, no other society would have the right to judge that decision). This standard can't ever be simply man-made or it would vary from society to society, person to person, and would, therefore, be subjective. Atheism can theorize about how murder is wrong, but provides no objective moral standard that establishes why murder is wrong. Thus, without an objective standard, every action done would simply be morally neutral without a basis for measuring good or bad.

Second, there’s pantheism. The worldview of pantheism believes that everything is one and all is good, therefore there's no distinction between good and evil. Thus, while the pantheist believes God exists, they don't believe evil exists. This leads us to the final belief that both God and evil can coexist.

There can only be one objective standard by which every act is established as either being good or evil, and that has to be God (a topic that we'll dive into with much greater detail on a later date). Whether or not you like that fact, there can never, ever be another alternative; since objective moral values can't exist without God, then it follows inescapably that God must exist. Ironically, then, the “problem of evil” argument, which is supposed to be the most influential argument against God, is actually an argument for God.

This leads us to our second question: why doesn't God stop evil? To answer this question, it's crucial to understand that God didn't create evil. In fact, at the moment of creation, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). At creation, there was no pain, no death, and not even weeds! But He did want mankind to be free. This video does a great job in succinctly describing what came next:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfd_1UAjeIA&feature=player_embedded

So, evil isn't a created entity. Instead, evil, as the ancient philosopher, Plotinus wrote, “is a corruption that exists in something that was originally good and perfect” -- such as rot in a tree and rust on a car. Mankind brought evil into God’s perfect world. So, if God were to destroy evil right now, He would need to not only need to destroy our freedom to make our own choices but would have to go as far as destroying all of humanity to do so; and He might even start with you or me! We all do evil every single day, while maybe never stopping to think of what we do while pointing fingers at others. We look at things such as murder and rape as being evil -- and they are evil -- but what about hatred (which Jesus views as murder), looking with lust (He views as adultery), and so on? All sin, no matter how big or small we may think they are, is abundantly evil in the eyes of God. Thus, the heart of the problem of evil is the problem of the human heart. Adding to the end of that video, the “problem of evil” argument ignores the fundamental message of the Bible; that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God exists and has put in place a plan to put an end to evil.

The entire message of the Bible can be summed up in one word; Reconciliation. We have paradise lost in Genesis, paradise regained in Revelation, and everything in between is the story of reconciliation between us and God. Christ came to save [insert name], and His first coming to Earth and defeating the grave (a discussion for another day) has provided the only way for rebellious mankind to have a personal relationship with Him (i.e., salvation through trusting in Him as your one and only Savior). God has not yet cleansed the world of evil, simply because He's giving us all a chance to be saved (2 Peter 3:9). And so, the way to fix having so much pain in this present life is like holding a contact lens up to a light, revealing what needs added to remove the problems . . . the solution (might we even call it a "soul"ution)! While the origin of evil rests with us, the solution is found through trust in Jesus Christ.

The Bible clearly tells us that God is not going to leave things as they stand. At His second coming, He will do away with evil forever. “He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4-5). Christianity is not a religion, but is a relationship; a personal, reconciled relationship that's made possible if only we put our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Philosopher Edmund Burke penned, and Ronald Regan made famous: “The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Are you concerned about the problem of evil? What about the evil in your own heart? Life is brief. Take action. Rather than blaming and questioning God for how the world is, we should be proclaiming to everyone the solution to evil

Evil is brought about, and is practiced by mankind, but will forever be crushed underneath the foot of Christ (Romans 16:20).