If Atheism Is True...: The Futile Faith and Hopeless Hypotheses of Dawkins and Co. by Brian Johnston

Author:Brian Johnston [Johnston, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: the god delusion, why does god allow suffering, defending Christianity, apologetics gospel, new atheism, richard dawkins
Publisher: Hayes Press
Published: 2016-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN: “A REAL GOD WOULDN’T LET THE INNOCENT SUFFER”

I’m reminded of a time when Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist and author, had been speaking at All Soul’s Church in London, UK. There followed a question and answer time in which the speaker was often called upon to defend his conversion to Christianity. After what had been described as the last question was dealt with, Muggeridge noticed a young boy in a wheelchair trying to say something. He said he would wait and take his question. The boy struggled but no words came out. ‘Take your time,’ Muggeridge said reassuringly. ‘I want to hear what you have to ask ... I’ll not leave until I hear it.’

Finally, after a real struggle, one often punctuated with agonizing contortions, the boy blurted out, ‘You say there’s a God who loves us.’ Muggeridge agreed. ‘Then - why me?’ Silence filled the room. The boy was silent. The audience was silent. Muggeridge was silent. Then he asked, ‘If you were able-bodied (fit), would you have come to hear me tonight?’ The boy shook his head. Again, Muggeridge was silent. Then he added: ‘God has asked a hard thing of you, but remember he asked something even harder of Jesus Christ. He died for you. Maybe this was His way of making sure you’d hear of His love and come to put your faith in Him.’ In the answer that Muggeridge gave with empathy on that occasion, there are hints of an overall biblical framework which is available for us to use as we communicate the Christian Gospel to hurting people. If shared sensitively, it can help people to at least begin to put suffering in the broader context of God’s dealings with a broken world. And what then is that Bible framework? It’s one which would see suffering as a consequence of the separation that exists between God and man. And that this separation has been caused by sin. So, we can’t blame God for human suffering.

The Bible tells us that God created the world in love and that he loves us individually. But if God is good, and on the side of good, why do terrible things happen – like in the mass shootings in Aurora and Connecticut back in 2012, to quote two of many possible examples? What’s gone wrong? Well, the Bible’s answer is that we did. The London Times leader column said the day after a massacre at an Infant school in Dunblane, Scotland (13 March 1996): ‘Christ was born among innocent slaughter and died on the Cross to pay the cost of our terrible freedom - a freedom by which we can do the greatest good or the greatest evil’.

The Bible makes it clear that God created us with free will ... but then we chose to disobey God and do our own thing. That broke our relationship with our loving Creator. It’s this separation between God and ourselves that’s the cause of all the suffering that’s in the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.