Human Depravity: A Lost Christian Doctrine

“If the case be such indeed, that all mankind are by nature in a state of total ruin,…then, doubtless, the great salvation by Christ stands in direct relation to this ruin, as the remedy to the disease.”

—Jonathan Edwards—

Introduction

Author and conservative talk show host Dennis Prager stated, “No issue has a greater influence on determining your social and political views than whether you view human nature as basically good or not.”[1]

I think Prager is correct. But even more important and foundational than your social and political views, your view of human nature has important ramifications with regard to your theology. Perhaps second only to what you believe about God, no issue has greater influence on determining your theological views than whether you view human nature as basically good or not. It is no coincidence that theological liberals who deny doctrines such as original sin and human depravity also, more often than not, end up rejecting other scriptural teachings such as justification by grace through faith, the necessity and exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation, penal substitutionary atonement, the biblical doctrine of hell, or just simply scratch their head and wonder inquisitively when reading scriptural passages concerning God’s judgment on sin (e.g., the flood, destruction of the Canaanites, etc.). They ask themselves, “Why is God mad all the time?? I don’t get it!!”

Much of modern secular sensibility seems attracted to the idea that human beings at their core are basically good. In his book What Americans Believe, George Barna of Barna Research Group found that 87% of non-Christians agreed with the statement “People are basically good.” But this belief in the inherent goodness of humankind isn’t peculiar to non-Christians. It has found its way into the Church as well. In that same study, Barna also found that 77% of self-described born-again Christians agreed with the statement. Perhaps most shocking, of those self-described born-again Christians who identify themselves as mainline Protestant, 90% agreed with the statement “People are basically good.”[2]

Jesus on the Problem of Evil

In Luke 13:1-5 we have Jesus’ clearest teaching on the problem of evil:[1]

"Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Not only is this Jesus’ clearest teaching on the problem of evil but we see Him addressing both moral and natural evil in His response. Notice that Jesus is first questioned regarding an example of what we would call moral evil: the murder of some Galileans by Pilate. In providing an answer, Jesus Himself introduces an example of natural evil: the falling of the tower of Siloam which killed eighteen.

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.

Why Christians Should Value Philosophy Part 3 of 3

(Reasons.org) Kenneth Samples

What is the number one reason that people give for not believing in God?

All of the sources that I have ever read over the last thirty years indicate that the answer is "the problem of evil, pain, and suffering."

In parts one and two of this series I presented two reasons why Christians should value philosophy. First, philosophy is the best discipline in terms of preparing a person to think critically. Second, many of Christianity's most important doctrines clearly have philosophical implications. In this final article, I offer one more reason.

The Importance of Philosophy for Christians

1. Philosophy Promotes Critical Thinking
2. Christian Doctrine Contains Philosophical Implications
3. People Reject Christianity on Philosophical Grounds

If Christians hope to engage in evangelism and apologetics, then they will inevitably encounter people's objections to the faith. Many, if not most, of those objections involve direct philosophical connotations.

When it comes to philosophy of religion, questions about God's existence, his attributes, and the relationship between faith and reason immediately come to the fore. This area of study also focuses upon the issue of theodicy (the justification of God's goodness in light of evil in the world). Some of the very best Christian responses to the challenge that evil poses to the truth of the faith have come from philosophers (see the writings of such contemporary Christian thinkers as Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga listed below).

The philosophy of science is another area where Christians can benefit from possessing an understanding of philosophy. When my scientific colleagues Hugh Ross and Fuz Rana present RTB's creation model to secular scientists on college campuses they often receive an interesting response. According to Hugh, most of the objections are not scientific–but philosophical! For example, skeptics assert that religion and science are two separate spheres of inquiry that cannot be integrated. Or they claim that science by definition can only entertain purely naturalistic causes and explanations. Both of these issues are discussed specifically through the philosophy of science.

As the great medieval Christian philosophers recognized, good philosophy seeks to critically analyze life's most important questions. It can also serve as a useful handmaid to the study of theology and in the apologetics enterprise as well.

Recommended resources:

Philosophy and its benefits to the Christian: A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test.

God and the problem of evil: God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga and Is There A God? by Richard Swinburne.

Philosophy of religion: God and Reason by Ed L. Miller.

Philosophy of science: Science & Its Limits by Del Ratzsch.

Moral Grounding

(Stand to Reason) Greg Koukl

A common objection to God’s existence is the existence of evil. How could there be a God if there is so much evil in the world? My observation is that in order for that objection to gain any traction, there has got to be real evil or a violation of a real good. You can’t be a relativist and ask this question without being disingenuous. It’s intellectually dishonest if you don’t believe in objective morality to ask about the objective evil in the world. So if there’s a real problem of evil, there has to be real evil. In order for evil to be real, there’s got to be real good. That is foundational.

The objection makes use of a moral standard. If evil is real, then there’s a standard that allows us to identify what is good and what is evil. I think we have the standard built into us and that is why we can look at acts of injustice and immediately know that they are wrong. Our conscience has this ability. I refer to it in the Relativism book as “moral intuitions.” Moral intuition is a way of knowing that’s built into us that we can grasp something that’s true. The thing we grasp is not physical. We’re not looking at it with our eyes. We’re looking at it with a different faculty, but it’s still just as real. This is why people spontaneously react when they see examples of injustice and react, “That’s wrong.”

What makes it so? How is it that things like injustice or cruelty to people or animals are wrong?

We see an act of goodness and it moves us deeply. I think goodness is one of the things that touches us deeply when we watch films that are effective. There is something deep and morally good about an event, a look on the face, a gesture, something noble that happens and it moves us. Consequently, we are deeply touched and maybe even tempted to weep at that moment in the film because something real and truthful that is morally good has been awakened in our heart. So our awareness of objective morality expresses itself both in our awareness of evil and of good.

The grounding question is: Given that there is real evil and good, as well, why is the world the way it is? What properly accounts for this moral feature of the world?

If you are a materialist you cannot answer that question, you cannot explain how morality emerges from material things. There’s no adequate explanation for morality in a purely physical world.

When you reflect on the nature of morality, it has a certain incumbency to it, an oughtness to it. There is an obligation. It isn’t just descriptive, what people did do. It’s what we ought to do. So what best explains this? And obligations seem to be the kinds of things that are held between persons. Therefore, if we have moral laws it seems to suggest there must be a moral law maker, who is the adequate sovereign to make that kind of law obligatory on us.

The existence of objective morality that entails obligation on human beings seems to be best grounded, or accounted for, by the existence of another personal being who himself is the moral law maker and the appropriate sovereign to make such laws that make such demands upon us. That sounds to me a lot like what Christians mean when they say God.

I got some push-back on this particular point from a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy from Purdue when I spoke there recently. He said that just because you have standards it doesn’t mean you have a standard-maker. I said that that wasn’t my argument, that all standards require standard-makers. My argument is more precise than that. My argument is that moral standards, which are a peculiar kind of standard, require a moral maker or one that stands behind it and grounds it in some sense.

Let me give you an illustration that I think makes sense of how this grounding problem works. You can read a newspaper because the skills needed to read newspapers are things that we are capable of developing. So we have the ability to read the information. But what if you said that there are no authors to newspaper articles; there are no delivery boys; there are no editors; there are no headline writers. Those don’t exist. You acknowledge there are newspaper articles, but you deny that there needs to be an explanation for them.

Now that sounds very odd because when you consider the kinds of things that newspaper articles are. They seem to be the kinds of things that require authors. There are thoughts communicated, there are propositional statements that are functions of minds, not matter. No propositions are made of matter. They can be tokened with matter, like ink on a page, but the propositions themselves are not material. Newspaper articles represent the information and propositions, but you say that there is no mind needed for this. That strikes me as really odd.

Newspaper articles, if there are such things, require an explanation. They need grounding, a source. They suggest the existence of authors because that is an adequate explanation for newspapers. I think it’s a perfect parallel with morality. Morality is the kind of thing we also have discovered exists, and it seems to be the kind of thing that requires an author adequate to explain its existence.

So I’m within my epistemic rights to say someone like God is the grounding for morality.

By the way, a common response from atheists to the grounding question is to object that he could be just as moral without God as the theist. Atheists say this all the time. That’s like saying there doesn’t need to be any authors. How do you know? Because I can read really well. Well, the ability to read really well doesn’t have anything to do with the question of whether what you’re reading needs an author. And the ability to behave really well, be moral, and be aware of what moral guidelines doesn’t obviate the need for a moral lawmaker. Those are two separate issues.

An Atheist Explains Suffering

A challenge to explain suffering is often a question asked to Christians. Some will wonder if a loving God exists, then how could there be suffering. This is a fair question and worthy of a reasonable response. However, this question is not exclusively for a believer in God, the atheist must explain suffering or the problem of evil as well.

Below is a video of one atheist’s explanation of suffering in the world. If you were an atheist, how would you explain why suffering exists in a world that you believe has no God? To paraphrase this young atheist’s answer “crap happens” would be the best answer I could give as well.

Watch this video to see what insight to the question you can gain.

How Can a Loving God allow Evil?

(Awakengenereation.com) Sean McDowell

The Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, will never forget the tragedy of October 2nd, 2006. Charles Roberts, a non-Amish local father of three, entered the single-room Amish schoolhouse, ordered the boys to leave, and opened fire on the girls. He shot ten girls and killed five before taking his own life. The question lingering on many people’s minds was, “Why did something like this have to happen?” What does it say about God that such evil acts occur in His world? If God could prevent such a tragedy, why didn’t He? This same question lingered after 9/11 and the massacre at Virginia Tech.

In the aftermath of the Katrina floods, Dr. Billy Graham was interviewed by Newsweek. He was asked how a loving God could allow such suffering and evil. Dr. Graham’s response was simple, “I don’t know. But God has allowed it, and there is a purpose that we won’t know maybe for years to come.”¹

He’s right, of course. None of us can completely know why God allows tragedies. God does not answer the “why” question in the Bible. This side of Heaven we cannot fully understand the origin of evil and the reasons God has for allowing it to continue in the present. But this does not mean, as some have surmised, that evil counts against God’s existence or that God does not have a sufficient reason for allowing it. In fact, the reality of evil may be one of the best reasons to believe that God exists.

What Is Evil?

Before attempting a Christian defense for the existence of evil, it is first important to understand the nature of evil. Evil is not something that has an independent existence of its own. Rather, evil is a perversion of good—a corruption of something that already exists. Tooth decay, for example, can only exist if the tooth first exists. Rot can exist only if the tree first exists. Simply put, evil is when things are not the way they are supposed to be.

Ironically, then, to complain about the problem of evil is to argue that there is a way the world is supposed to be (which only makes sense if God exists). You see, if evolution is true, then the world as we know it is the result of the blind forces of chance, random mutation, and time. The world just happens to be the way it is, but it was not designed to be this way. Therefore, if the world just happens to be this way, then how can someone complain that it should be another way?

Moral judgments (such as claiming that a particular act is evil) can only be made if there is an independent reference standard of good. Otherwise one is like a hiker stranded in a cloudy forest at night without a compass. There would be no way to distinguish north from south without the reference point of the compass. Similarly, there must be an independent reference point distinguishing between good and evil. If God does not exist, then there is no ultimate basis to make moral judgments. Seen in this light, the reality of evil actually requires the existence of God rather than disproves it.

Where Did Evil Come From?

The Bible makes it clear that God’s original creation “was very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no evil, sin, death, or pain. Yet the reality of evil today is unmistakable. So, where did it come from? Scripture teaches that evil began with the God-given free choice to disobey (Genesis 3). God gave people free will and they abused it. God is not the cause evil, but He does allow it.

Some people wonder why God couldn’t create the world in such a way that we would never sin, thus avoiding evil altogether. If God is all-powerful, couldn’t he create such a world? If God is all-good, wouldn’t he want to create such a world? Thus, the problem of evil is often stated this way:

1. If God is all-good, he would want to defeat evil.
2. If God is all-powerful, he could create a world without evil.
3. Evil is not yet defeated.
4. Therefore, an all-good and all-powerful God must not exist.

Let’s consider each of these points in turn and see if this argument is valid, or if there are in fact reasons why God might allow evil in this world.

STATEMENT 1 says that God would want to defeat the present evil and suffering. Since God is good, must He eliminate all present pain? As a parent, I realize the value in allowing some suffering. I don’t put a bubble around my son protecting him from all harm. Sometimes pain can be a means of personal growth and ultimate good. James recognized that suffering produces perseverance (James 1:2-4). Dentists, coaches, and teachers all know that sometimes being good is not to be kind.

Sometimes suffering is a means through which God draws people to Himself. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”²

Dr. Francis Collins is one of the leading geneticists in the world. As a non-believer, he was intrigued by the peace and faith of Christians who went through seemingly unbearable suffering. With his interest peaked in spiritual things, Dr. Collins decided to investigate the evidence for the existence of God. After a thorough consideration of the evidence, he became a believer. While the evidence convinced his mind, the hope of the suffering believers attracted his heart. God used the suffering of Christians to draw this brilliant scientist to Himself.³ A good person can be good and still allow evil if he has good reason to do so.

STATEMENT 2 says that God could create a world without evil, but since evil exists God must not be all-powerful. The answer to this criticism lies in properly understanding what it means that God is all-powerful. Can God do anything imaginable?

One student asked me, “Can God make a rock so big he can’t move it?” (Bart Simpson would say, “Can God make a burrito so big he can’t eat it?) Although this seems like a tricky argument, the answer is very simple. No, he cannot! You might be thinking that this is a limitation of God, but it is not. A physical object that is so big that an all-powerful God cannot move it is a contradiction—a meaningless idea. There simply cannot be such a thing. It is like a square-circle. Philosopher Gregory Ganssle explains, “To say that God is all-powerful does not mean that God can do any task I can name in words. It means that he can do anything that is not a logical contradiction.”⁴ The Bible also makes it clear that God, because he is perfectly good in His character, cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2).

Just because God is all-powerful does not mean he can do impossibilities. Even God cannot make truly free beings and ensure that they always do right (if he wants them to remain free). All God can do is create the circumstances in which a person is able to make free choices and then, so to speak, stand back and let the person choose. Although we may not completely understand why, God has determined that free will is worth it. One reason often cited is the possibility of love, which cannot be programmed; it must be freely chosen. Yet in giving us the freedom to love, God also gave us the freedom not to love.

What Is God Doing About Evil?

Ultimately, the Bible records the story of God’s personal plan for the world. On one hand, God is confronting, judging, and restraining evil. And for the evil that is unaccounted for in this lifetime, God will bring final justice to the wicked and vindicate the righteous in the life to come. What promise do we have that God is working to bring justice to the world? The answer is the death and resurrection of Jesus. God inaugurated a process in the resurrection of Jesus that will one day be brought to fruition for the entire creation. God will do for the entire creation what he first did for His Son, Jesus. N.T. Wright explains:

According to early Christians, what was accomplished in Jesus’ death and resurrection is the foundation, the model and guarantee for God’s ultimate purpose, which is to rid the world of evil altogether and to establish his new creation of justice, beauty, and peace…God’s future had already broken into the present in Jesus.⁵

We are not called merely to understand what God is doing about evil and then to continue our lives as normal. Rather, we have been called by God to be a part of the solution. God calls us to be His agents of healing and transformation in anticipation of the final resurrection.

¹ Jon Meacham, “God, Satan, and Katrina” Newsweek (March 20, 2006), p. 53.
² C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 93.
³ Francis S. Collins, The Language of God (New York: Free Press, 2006).
⁴ Gregory Ganssle, Thinking about God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 117.
⁵ N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: 2006), 102.