A Good Reason to Rally?

by Ronald Scott Smith. Posted with permission.

At the “Reason Rally” in Washington, secular, atheistic people gathered in support of “reason” over [mere] “faith” of religious people. Not so hidden in the background was the widely-held cultural mindset that science uses reason and uniquely gives us knowledge of truth (the facts). But religion gives us just personal opinions and preferences, not knowledge. This bifurcation often is called the “fact-value split.”

This science is naturalistic; only what is scientifically knowable (i.e., by the five senses) is real. In principle, such things as God, souls, and mental states (i.e., non-physical things like thoughts, beliefs, and experiences) cannot be known to be real. Or, simplifying, they don’t exist. Yet, we can test natural, physical stuff scientifically, so that is what is believed to be real. That view of reality is the philosophy undergirding atheistic evolution by natural selection (NS) – naturalism. There’s only the physical universe, without anything non-physical.

PleaseConvinceMe Blog

Dan and I (Aaron) are honored to have been invited to blog at PleaseConvinceMe.com. You can visit the About Us page to find out a little more about the PleaseConvinceMe team.

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Why the Problem of Evil is a Problem

The so-called problem of evil is one of the most common objections raised against the Christian faith. Perhaps no one has more succinctly stated the apparent contradiction between an all-loving, all-powerful God and the existence of evil as the eighteenth-century Scottish skeptic David Hume:

"Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"[1]

More modern skeptics have sometimes posed the logical problem this way:

1.      If God is all-good (omnibenevolent), He would prevent evil.

2.      If God is all-powerful (omnipotent), He could prevent evil.

3.      If God is all-knowing (omniscient), He knows how to prevent evil.

4.      But evil exists.

5.      Therefore, either God is not all-good, all-powerful, or all-knowing (or maybe He doesn’t exist!)

But why is the problem of evil a problem? In answering this question it is important to earnestly think through the following points, points which often are not reflected upon or not contemplated deeply enough. These considerations must be taken into account when addressing the problem of evil, especially from within the Christian worldview. When they are, I believe the problem of evil (POE) largely resolves itself.