For Those Who Question the Existence of God

From Ravi Zacharias’ Cries of the Heart

Some years ago I was speaking at the University of Nottingham, England, when a rather exasperated person in the audience made his attack upon God with this very question.  C.S. Lewis reminds us that there is nothing so self-defeating as a question that is not fully understood when it is posed.  This questioner was felled by his own question.

“There cannot possibly be a God,” he said, “with all the evil and suffering that exists in the world!”  I asked him if we could interact on this issue for a few moments.  He agreed.

“When you say there is such thing as evil, are you not assuming that there is such a thing as good?” I asked.

“Of course,” he retorted.

“But when you assume there is such a thing as good, are you not also assuming that there is such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to distinguish between good and evil?”

“I suppose so,” came the hesitant and much softer reply.

This was an extremely important point to note as I made the argument.  Most skeptics have never given this point a thought.  I therefore reminded this questioner, in his initial hesitancy, of the debate between the agnostic Bertrand Russell and the Christian philosopher Frederick Copleston.  During the debate, Copleston asked Russell if he believed in good and bad.  Russell admitted that he did, and Copleston responded by asking him how he differentiated between the two.  Russell said that he differentiated between good and bad in the same way that he distinguished colors.

“But you distinguish colors by seeing, don’t you?”  Copleston reminded Russell.  “How then, do you judge between good and bad?”

“On the basis of feeling, what else?” came Russell’s sharp reply.

Somebody should have interrupted and told Russell that in some cultures they love their neighbors while in other cultures they ate them – both on the basis of feeling.  Did Mr. Russell have a personal preference?

How in the name of reason can we possibly justify differentiating between good and bad on the basis of feeling?  Whose feeling?  Hitler’s or Mother Teresa’s?  In other words, there must be a moral law, a standard by which to determine good and bad.  How else can one make the determination?  My questioner finally granted that assumption without hesitation.

So let me retrace for a moment how far he had come.  I had asked him if he believed in good; he answered yes.  But if he believed in good, he had to grant a moral law by which to distinguish between the two.   He agreed.

“If, then, there is a moral law,” I said, “you must posit a moral lawgiver.  But that is who you are trying to disprove and not prove.  If there is no moral lawgiver, there is no moral law.  If there is no moral law, there is no good.  If there is no good, there is no evil.  I am not sure what your question is!”

There was silence, and then he said, “What, then, am I asking you?”

The momentary humor was inescapable.  He was visibly shaken that at the heart of his question lay an assumption that contradicted his conclusion.