Moral Monster | Evil and the existence of God? | Episode 3

How can we understand evil in the backdrop of the existence of God?

Does evil disprove God? How should we understand evil? Where did it originate from?

All this and more in this video as we continue our series, Moral Monster.

0:00 - Intro
1:38 - Would this effect my salvation if these accusations were true?
3:43 - Supernaturalism shows the totality of reality
6:51 - Oblivious pressupositiontlism 
10:11 - Origination of evil
17:01 - Creation does not hold creator accountable 
17:24 The events don’t dictate God, God dictates the events
18:48 - God is good

Music by
Over the limits
Vernacolmusic

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:38 Would this effect my salvation if these accusations were true?
• 3:43 Supernaturalism shows the totality of reality
• 6:51 Oblivious pressupositiontlism
• 10:11 Origination of evil
• 17:01 Creation does not hold creator accountable
• 17:24 The events don’t dictate God, God dictates the events
• 18:48 God is good

Transcript

Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire, which has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling people with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads.

That God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

Hey everyone, welcome back to a video slash podcast.

We are continuing our series on the Moral Monster.

This is often an accusation that is thrown out in the apologetic realm or in our conversations that God is evil, God is immoral.

That the existence of evil disproves the existence of God.

So we've already looked at, can God command genocide?

Does God command slavery?

Specific examples that occur in the Bible where people associate that with evil and thus proving that God himself is evil, or that Christianity is evil, or that Christianity propagates evil.

And so we've addressed those specifics and we've extracted some tools that can be applied to other specific examples in the Bible that can refute the claims that Christianity somehow propagates evil, and that God somehow propagates evil when that is not true.

So in this video, we're gonna look at the existence of God and the existence of evil.

Can these things co-exist?

Can God exist when evil exists?

Or does evil disprove God?

I want you to ask yourself the question, first of all, if this were true, as it has been presented, what would that mean for you?

Think about it.

If you say that you're a Christian, that you profess to know God and are in a saving relationship with him, that then means that you're filled with the spirit of the living God.

You're filled with the very presence of God whom we are talking about.

So this is either true or it is not.

You either know if you're in the presence of God or you're not.

I myself am saved and born again.

So I knew that to be a present reality.

You don't know if you haven't been born or not, okay?

You know that you have been born and so it is spiritually.

I've been born again.

This is a reality that I will never leave.

I can't because I am saved.

I also know that the existence of God is true because God lives inside of me.

I know that these are experiential or existential, phenomenological forms of adestation, which do have their own merit.

But then we want to address those who may be skeptical and may look in on the Bible or look in at the world around them and perceive that there is evil and thus conclude there must not be a God.

But to the Christian, I ask you, whenever you hear said objections about evil, about God, about the things of the Bible that supposedly propagate an evil message, does that unstable you in any way?

And if it were true, would that detract away from the fact that you know that you are saved?

And if it does, then the question is, are you saved?

Are you filled with the presence of God?

Because someone who is filled with the presence of God can never say, oh, wait a second, God doesn't exist.

Because they know he exists because he lives inside of us.

I think it is important to understand supernaturalism and naturalism.

So naturalism is the belief that everything can be explained through naturalistic means.

Everything can be empirically verifiable.

It can be observed.

It can be felt.

It can be touched.

It can be smelt.

These are the things that make up and compose our knowledge.

It's how we ascertain truth.

Whereas supernaturalism believes in naturalism, of course, but they present a more total reality.

Say you have a shop, and in that shop you have a fish tank, and in the fish tank is, of course, a fish.

And the pet store owner leaves the shop, and an explosion happens while he is away on that street, causing the fish tank to shake, and then the fish to then fall out of the tank.

So, whenever the pet owner comes back into the shop, and he finds the fish on the floor, he then starts to observe, smell, check, begin to ascertain the truth as to how this has happened.

What is the cause for the said effect, which is the fish outside the tank?

And he looks around the pet store, and he looks at everything that he can see, but yet he cannot come up with a formative answer, an answer or an explanation that fits with the series of events that have taken place.

And that's because the pet store owner is limited in his ideological footing, in that he is simply looking around in the pet store, when he needs to take a step outside, and he needs to look at the explosion that happened down the street.

And so it is with naturalism.

Naturalism is very restricted.

It says that there can be no existence of the supernatural, and so they have to explain everything through a naturalistic lens.

Whereas the supernaturalist says, yes, it is true that we have the shop around us, but don't forget about the world outside.

And so they see the pet on the floor, that is the fish, and they say to the pet owner, yeah, there was an explosion down the street, which caused the sheik, which caused the fish to go outside the tank.

So the supernaturalist can bring illumination to the world around us.

We can bring a total truth, and so it is when it comes to the existence of God and evil.

The naturalists can look at evil and the world around us, and they can have a very restrictive view, a very ambiguous view, a confused view as to why evil exists.

Why does evil exist?

Where as the Christian with a supernaturalistic view has a more total view of reality, and can provide explanation in the most difficult of circumstances.

In fact, we're the only ones who, if you believe in objective standard, can provide a substantive view.

You see, whenever people start to talk about the existence of evil, and how that disproves God, they're pre-supposing various different things.

You have to ask them, what is the basis for such a claim?

What is your objective standard?

Because if there is no objective standard, then everything is merely subjective.

They're also pre-supposing that there exists a purpose, that there is a purpose to the world, and that evil thwarts that purpose, and good helps advance that purpose.

But if there is no God, then just as there can be no objectivity, and there can be no true morality, so is it that there can be no purpose.

There can only be personal purpose, but no objective purpose.

And so if there is no objective purpose, then how can we talk about whether there is good and whether there is evil?

As the famous atheist Richard Dawkins said, we simply dance to our DNA.

There is neither good nor evil, simply dancing to the beat of our DNA.

That merely everything is subjective, everything is purposeless, without having the ideological fitting that there exists a God, a God who created everything, a God who has given us an objective morality through the existence of His objective self.

So the Christian can be assured that whenever you got someone who does not profess that there is an objective standard, then the Christian can ask that person, what is the basis for your accusations here?

You are presupposing that there is purpose when your view is purposeless.

You are presupposing that there is an objective standard when your view holds everything to be subjective.

What is the basis to which you stand upon?

And so, evil acts as a parasite of good.

Evil proves to us that there is a God.

Why?

Because we are able to distinguish and discern evil and good, which shows that there is an objective standard, and there is a morality which the Bible teaches comes from God, which he has instilled within us.

We also see that there is purpose in the world, and that evil thwarts that purpose.

Sickness, trials, suffering thwart the existence of humanity.

And that's because we have been instilled that this world is created with purpose.

Your life has purpose, it has meaning.

It is not, as Richard Dawkins said, simply us dancing to the beat of our DNA, whereby everything is by random chance.

You have heard it said that for every opposite reaction, there is an equal re-action.

So if evil exists, then there must be a standard for us to then know that evil exists, and that is good.

But how can good and evil exist without an objective base for those things to sit upon?

Evil points towards good, and good points towards God.

Evil and good reminds us that this world has been created with a purpose, created with objectivity, and created in such a way that we can then know that which is good and that which is evil, and that we can give an account.

And the reason for all of that is because of the existence of God.

So what then is the origination of evil?

Well, the Bible tells us in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve, the first humans, were told not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

But then, they went and they did so.

And thus, sin entered the world.

And if you read that passage, prior to that, it was a perfect utopian world to which God has created, as that was the ideal that God wanted.

But with Adam and Eve and their sin, then entered consequence, consequence for their sin.

The Bible tells us that for the wages of sin is death.

That because of sin, there is death.

Because of our sin, there is evil.

And evil is sin.

That as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, there was dire consequences.

Spiritual death, physical death, sickness and pain.

All of this came as a result of the fall.

As a result of humanity sinning and opposing God.

So philosophically then, how do we answer questions such as why would God create the world around us, knowing that we would sin, knowing that we would as a result enact evil in the world around us?

Why would God do it?

And it is important to then differentiate between what is made possible and what is then made actual.

Differentiating between possibility and actuality.

God in the Garden of Eden, when he created humanity, created it perfectly.

And in the Garden of Eden, there was all of these trees that they could have had out of, but there was one that typified choice, just one.

And this was an expression of God's love, that for tree love to exist, there had to be autonomy.

There had to be prerogative.

And that prerogative was represented in that one tree.

So out of all of the trees that they could have had out of, there was one that they could not.

God made it possible for humanity to sin by instilling within them the good gift of prerogative, of choice.

But then humanity then took that blessing and that goodness and that expression of love that was choice, and then chose to rebel against God, making sin actual, and with it, evil, suffering, pain, and sickness.

God made it possible, but humanity made it actual.

God made it possible for the likes of Judas to betray Jesus, simply by creating Judas, and instilling within him prerogative, and allowing the series of events that happened in Judas' life to unfold.

But it was Judas who then took the action.

He himself decided that he would sin and he would rebel.

He took the possibility and made it actual.

So it is us as humans who have taken the possibility through the gift of choice and created an actuality in evil.

And so God is all good, God is all powerful, and like the story of Joseph, God made it possible for Joseph brothers to sin, rebel, and to cause evil by selling Joseph.

But it was the brothers of Joseph who made it an actuality.

They could have said no, they could have done what God wanted them to, and that is to live in harmony, and as brothers, and as families.

But they forfeited that with their choice and said no, and sold their brother into slavery.

And so amidst all of this, it is important to remember that just as it was in that story, so it is for all of us, that God works everything together for his good.

So even with the existence of evil, which proves the existence of God, God is sovereign amidst it all, working together all things for our good, that is his people.

He works everything together for the good of those who love the Lord, and are called according to his purpose.

A truth that we can hold on to so tightly, in a world where evil is constant, perpetual, and seems never ceasing.

We have the hope, the hope that is Jesus.

Another point to remember with the existence of evil and the existence of God, is that we don't take our pre-supposed notions of what evil is and say, oh, well, this is what I think evil is, and God is then doing this thing, and so God is evil.

Because that does not work.

God is the ground of our being, and his word is the ground of our knowing.

And so God is where we need to start.

God himself tells us who he is through his word and the way he has created the world around us.

And so we need to make sure that everything we say about God and his character and what is good coincides with what he says is good.

That we are not guilty of what Judges talks about, that we did right in our own eyes.

As the Bible teaches, we will call what is good evil and what is evil good.

We have a very thwarted view of morality, and God is the law giver, the morality giver.

God is where we start, and everything else must coincide with what he has said is good.

I cannot merely go up to someone and punch them and say, no, I think that's good.

No, you have to start with what does God say, and God says, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

God is the ground of our being, the ground of our knowing, and he is the one who sets the laws and sets that which is good and that which is evil.

And everything must coincide with what he has said.

It must start with our theology of God.

So we cannot go to God's word, and we cannot pick a command that he has instituted and say, no, I don't like that.

I think that is evil.

And so God is evil.

No, it doesn't matter what you think is evil.

It matters what God says is evil, and what God says is good.

And God himself is good.

He can never be evil.

And so don't listen to any human who says that God is evil.

Why would you listen to the creation rather than the creator?

The creator is all good and all powerful, and he himself has decided that which is good.

And so we need to make sure that everything we believe coincides with God's view of morality, of what God says is good and what God says is evil.

We need to remember that the events don't dictate God.

God dictates the events.

So whenever you read anything in scripture that people may use to showcase the supposed evilness of God, those events don't dictate God.

God dictates the event.

God, when he destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, is holy and righteous in doing so because he is God.

It is not rather we begin Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, God destroyed that, so we must be evil.

We don't begin with the event and allow that to dictate who God is.

We allow God to dictate the events.

And so that then creates an holistic view of who God is.

And in that story, we know that God is merciful, that God is loving, and that God is just and that God is holy.

Not rather taking the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and then trying to extract and use that to then discern, oh, God must be this, this, and this because of my morality and my view of things.

No, God says what he did and why he did it to Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so then the conclusion is that God is just, holy, and righteous.

God is the one who dictates, not us dictating him and not our view of the events dictating him.

It is important to understand that God is good and that God is love.

God demonstrated his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Yes, you can try and waste your time stuck in the existence of evil that came as a result of us, me and you, and our actions.

And then you can try and blame God somehow in a very weird, pernicious and devastating paradox.

Or you can say to yourself, God made it possible, but it was me, man, in my prerogative, that God gave me to sin and rebel against him.

And so it is that it is because of my sinful actions that evil and suffering exists in the world today.

It is humanity's fault that evil has came in to the world, not God's.

But yet amidst this, God, even when we're blaming him for the evil that we have caused, he sent Jesus, the perfect son, who was completely blameless, completely good, and he took me and your arse sin with him on the cross so that we might have a saving relationship with him, and that his kingdom, he established on earth, might be advanced by us, God's people, his elect, a chosen nation, and a royal priesthood, so that we can then take the good that God has given us, and that we may advance this forward, not evil, through our sinful actions, but because of God, we can be holy, and we can advance his holiness in the world around us.

That his kingdom come and his will be done on earth now, as it is in heaven, and that we may advance the kingdom of God through our actions, which is made possible by the gospel.

So yes, evil exists, and yes, God exists, and these are not opposed to one another.

That is because evil exists, God cannot exist.

Rather, God gives us ground for knowing why evil can exist, why good can exist, that evil is a parasite of good, that we have to ask, what are our presuppositions when we come to talking about evil and talking about the existence of God?

What is it that you can grind your claims on?

The very fact that we can know evil, the very fact that we can have morality, the very fact that we can have a purpose, which allows us to then discern that which is good and that which is evil, and that which is compatible with that purpose, is all as a result of God.

He is the one who gives us a total understanding of why everything exists.

God is the ground of our knowing, and God is the ground of our being.