God's Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace

Author:J. Warner Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Evidence for Creation, Evidence for The Bible, Intelligent Design
Publisher: David C Cook
Published: 2015-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: A fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. 9

Unless, as Lewis suggested, we are prepared to dismiss evil as nothing more than whatever fails to please our “private fancies,” we’re going to need a transcendent “straight line” by which to evaluate the “crookedness” of evil. Unless there is a transcendent, Divine standard of “straightness,” evil is simply a matter of opinion. If this is the case, we can eliminate evil tomorrow. All we have to do is change our opinion of it.

“Inside the Room” or “Outside the Room”?

CAN INTERNAL EVIL EXIST WITHOUT AN EXTERNAL SOURCE FOR GOOD?

As much as we might like this to be the case, we can’t eliminate evil “inside the room” of the universe by simply changing our minds. That’s because the very standard of goodness we contrast with evil doesn’t come from “inside the room” in the first place.

We’ve assessed exculpatory evidence, identified the connected complexity of cumulative cases, tested a known “suspect,” and learned the importance of accepting unanswerable questions. As a result, we’ve come to recognize a simple reality: True evil requires a source of transcendent righteousness, a source for goodness transcending the universe and everything in it. Evil “inside the room” can be reconciled with the existence of an external suspect and, in fact, requires an external standard of benevolence for its existence. The very existence of evil is evidence for God.

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