If you could ask God only one question and you
knew
He would give you an answer…
…what would you ask?
“A loving God could not
possibly be the author of the
horrors we have been
describing—horrors that
continue every day, have
continued since time began,
and will continue as long as
life exists.
It is an inconceivable tale of
suffering and death, and
because the tale is fact—is,
in truth, the history of the
world—it is obvious that
there cannot be a loving
God.”
-Charles Templeton
EXPLANATION
FREE
-WILL DEFENSE
#1
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and
stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather
your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under
her wings, but you were not willing.
Matt. 23:37 NIV
“To create creatures capable
of moral good, therefore, He
must create creatures
capable of moral evil; and
He can’t give these
creatures the freedom to
perform evil and at the same
time prevent them from
doing so…
…The fact that free
creatures sometimes go
wrong, however, counts
neither against God’s
omnipotence nor against His
goodness…”
-Alvin C. Plantinga,
God, Freedom, and Evil
“God created things which
had free will. That means
creatures which can go
wrong or right. Some
people think they can
imagine a creature which
was free but had no
possibility of going wrong,
but I can't. If a thing is free
to be good it's also free to
And free will is what has
made evil possible. Why,
then, did God give them
free will? Because free will,
though it makes evil
possible, is also the only
thing that makes possible
any love or goodness or joy
worth having.
A world of automata -of
creatures that worked like
machines- would hardly be
worth creating.
-C.S. Lewis
The Case for Christianity
S
OUL-MAKING
EXPLANATION
DEFENSE
#2
28 And
we know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to his
purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to
be conformed to the likeness of his Son
Romans 8:28,29 NIV
“Do you not see how necessary a world
of pains and troubles is to school an
intelligence and make it a soul?”
-John Keats
WHY COULDN’T
GOD CREATE A
WORLD WITHOUT
EVIL?
…HE
CAN’T MAKE ROUND SQUARE
…HE
CAN’T MAKE A ROCK SO BIG THAT HE CAN’T MOVE IT
…HE
CAN’T PREVENT SOMEONE WHO HAS THE POWER OF
FREE CHOICE TO ALWAYS DO WHAT HE WANTS THEM TO
DO….
UNLESS
YOU WISH TO DESTROY THE VERY
ESSENCE OF
“FREE
WILL”!
“If you choose to say ‘God can
give a creature free-will and at
the same time withhold freewill from it,’ you have not
succeeded in saying anything
about God:
…meaningless combinations
of words do not suddenly
acquire a meaning because
we prefix to them the two other
words: ‘God can’…
...It is no more possible for
God than for the weakest of
his creatures to carry out both
of two mutually exclusive
alternatives, not because his
power meets an obstacle,
…but because nonsense
remains nonsense, even when
we talk it about God.
-C.S. Lewis
"....it may not be possible
without tampering with
human freedom, to
produce a free world
where men never choose
to sin. If a man decides
to sit on the back porch
but is chased by hornets
to the front porch, did he
freely choose to go?
Not really. He was coerced
by physical threat against
his real choice. And in this
sense, it would be less than
perfectly loving for God to
coerce someone against his
real choice. Love is
persuasive but not
coercive."
-Dr. Norman Geisler
WHY DOESN’T GOD
STOP EVIL?
Why doesn’t God stop the terrorist before he blows up
something?
Why doesn’t God stop the murderer before callously takes
the innocent life of someone?
Why doesn’t God stop the drunk driver before his car
takes the life of another motorist?
IF HE DID, LIFE WOULD BE
If God was toCRAZY
stop !evil—would He
SCENARIO #1
prevent the thought or simply freeze
a person before they act?
If God had to freeze someone
evil…how long? When would they snap
out of it? Would they remember?
Would He freeze all those people who
IF HE DID, LIFE WOULD BE
CRAZY
Imagine how crazy this
would!
make our world…mad
SCENARIO #1
men would try to do things knowing or thinking that God
might intervene—people jumping off buildings to kill
themselves or trying to get their name in the paper by
trying something horrific!
IF HE DID, LIFE WOULD BE
SCARY
! where
way to create
a world
No
people are free to love God but are
also not free to reject His love
No way to create a world where
people have the freedom to do good
and not have the freedom to do evil
SCENARIO #2
People want God to
IF HE DID, LIFE WOULD BE
SCARY
Imagine how crazy this
would!
make our world…mad
SCENARIO #2
men would try to do things knowing or thinking that God
might intervene—people jumping off buildings to kill
themselves or trying to get their name in the paper by
trying something horrific!
"If God were to stamp
out evil today, he would
do a complete job. His
action would have to
include our lies and
personal impurities, our
lack of love, and our
failure to do good.
Suppose God were to
decree that at midnight
tonight all evil would be
removed from the
universe -- who of us
would still be here after
midnight?"
Paul Little
WHY CAN’T GOD IMMEDIATELY
PLACE PEOPLE IN HEAVEN?
Freedom
Present Evil of
Best Possible
World
World
Choice
“There are only two kinds of people in the end:
those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and
those to whom God says, in the end, ’Thy will be
done.’.”
-C.S. Lewis
WHAT ABOUT NATURAL
DISASTERS & OTHER
TRAGEDIES?
“because of the fall there
are negative
consequences for the
natural order…in a fallen
world people die as God
said they would, and if
they are going to die, they
must die of something.
One of the causes of
death is disease. Some
of these diseases may be
contracted early in life
and others may arise
only later. Some
diseases may kill slowly
while others kill quickly.
Some diseases are
genetically based, while
other result from germs
in our world.
-John Feinberg
The Many Faces of Evil,
SUFFERING IS NOT
A JUDGMENT ON
THE GUILTY
INSIGHT #1
4
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? 5I tell you, no! But unless you
repent, you too will all perish.”
Luke 13:4,5 NIV
INSIGHT #2
DON’T LECTURE; DIALOGUE
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said
to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ….The Samaritan woman
said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.
How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not
associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you
knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink,
you would have asked him and he would have given you
living water.”
John 4:7-10 NIV
DON’T IGNORE THE
EMOTIONAL PROBLEM
OF EVIL
INSIGHT #3
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him,
she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and
the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was
deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
John 11:32-33 NIV