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Ankerberg: Welcome. We’re talking about the problem of evil. I can remember sitting
at the bedside of my mother who was dying with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and I was thinking,
“If God is all loving and all powerful, why is it that He doesn’t help my mother?”
And maybe you’re gone through an experience like that. Maybe you’ve had a tragedy that
has taken place in your family, the death of a loved one. Maybe you, right now, are
suffering with cancer, or a heart attack or something that was a surprise to you. If God
is all loving, how do you continue to believe in Him if the problems of our world do not
straighten out? Why doesn’t God intervene and stop it all?
My guest that’s going to help us to discover and explain the biblical and philosophical
answers is philosopher and theologian, my good friend, Dr. Norman Geisler. He is president
of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Norman, I had you as guest
when we had a debate with Rabbi Harold Kushner, the man who wrote the best-selling book, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People. And at that time he was telling us about his 12-year-old
son that died of a terrible disease, and it caused him to re-think what he believed about
God. And he had to give up, he felt, one of the attributes of God. He kept, he held onto
“God is all loving,” but he gave up the fact that God is all powerful. God is so loving,
He’d like to get involved, but He just can’t help defeat evil in certain cases. So we’ve
got to help Him. So he’s taking that view and you were telling him why he didn’t have
to hold that view. But since that time, you have also experienced the death of one of
your children, one of your daughters. And when you go through a tragedy like that, you
really start to re-think all of your views. You test them.
And people that are listening right now, they probably want to ask you and say, “When
you went through that and you went back on the very things that you’re explaining to
us, did it work for you? Does it still make sense? Was it helpful for you? Is this something
that really is what people need to latch onto?”
Geisler: I remember that very well, John. I remember saying to Rabbi Kushner, “I empathize
with you. I sympathize with you. But you know, your God is not the kind of God that can give
you any ultimate comfort in this because you are not even sure you’ll see your son again
because you didn’t even believe that he would live on after death for sure.” And
I said, “Your God is not all powerful and He can’t bring good out of evil. So the
kind of God you need is the kind of God who is in the Bible, who is all powerful and all
good and all knowing and can do something for your situation.” Never knowing, at the
time, that I would go through things that probably are as equally difficult or worse
than Rabbi Kushner did. Since that time, in 18 months we lost a father, a mother, a sister,
a brother-in-law, and our two closest friends. And I had been a pastor for years and I had
comforted people in their sorrow and in their suffering, but I wasn’t ready for the biggest
evil that ever hit me–when our daughter died a tragic death just two years ago. And
it’s just something, John, that you have to experience to understand. It’s like a
hundred-foot tall tidal wave coming at you and you know you can’t swim. And I had to
cast myself on the grace of God and trust that what I believed was really true: “My
grace is sufficient for you,” the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12. And I would
wake up at night singing songs on the attributes of God–“God is light; God is good; God
is eternal; God is gracious. It is well with my soul. Peace like a river”–all these
great hymns of the faith that talk about the attributes of God–were the only comfort
I had, because everything human had evaporated. The best things around me–father, mother,
brother, sisters and now, daughter, that tragedy was so great in our lives that we tested the
grace of God. We tested the character of God. And we found Him to be faithful, absolutely
unimaginably faithful to us. And the grace of God brought us through that difficult circumstance,
only because I knew that God was all loving and He had a good purpose for it. He was all
powerful and He was going to bring something greater out of it. And I was going to see
my mother, my father, my sister, brother, daughter again someday in Heaven because He
could resurrect the dead and is going to resurrect them. And that was the strength that kept
us going and we made it through that very difficult circumstance.
Ankerberg: Yeah. I was so moved when I heard that and when I talked with you. One thing
among the many things that stood out in my mind is, you said, “You know, John, I kind
of re-thought, went over all the stuff that I’ve been teaching all of these years, and
I found out it’s true.” And boy, that really stuck in my mind.
But now, let me come back with that in mind, that on the table. Why did God allow it to
happen, and why doesn’t God stop that kind of stuff from happening because He is all
powerful and He does care? Let’s start with: Where did this evil originate? Why do we have
the kind of world that we have? What was in God’s mind?
Geisler: Before I answer that, I want to say one other thing, John. I had a friend who
lost her daughter. A farm machine sucked her into the instrument and she was killed and
left four children behind. And she sent us an encouraging card when we lost our daughter.
She said, “In the end, there are only three things that help: God, prayer and friends.”
And that’s so important in these times of suffering. And I had friends like you and
Josh McDowell and Hank Hanegraff and some of the top Christian leaders in the world
who had left little phone messages because I wasn’t home–I was out doing funeral
arrangement. And the most encouraging things that I heard can be summed up in these four
words: “I love you.” “I’m praying for you.” “I’m grieving with you.”
And “it’s not your fault.” And I want to thank you because you’re the only one,
out of all the people, who said all four of those things to me on that phone message and
that’s really encouraging.
Ankerberg: I appreciate your saying that. But let’s go back because I’m thinking
of all the people that are listening to us that are now empathizing. They’ve got the
same kind of problem, but they don’t have the knowledge that you have about our wonderful
God. And for people that are just joining us this week and they missed last week, where
did this problem originate? Why do we have evil in the world?
Geisler: Well, God created good creatures. He gave them a good thing called free will,
and free will brought bad things into this world, namely, rebellion against God. Freedom
is good in itself, but it has the possibility of evil. God created us with the possibility
for evil, which is called free will; we made the actuality of evil. God is responsible
for the fact of freedom; we’re responsible for the acts of freedom–and we blew it.
Lucifer blew it; Adam blew it, and we’ve blown it ever since then. That’s how it
got here.
Ankerberg: When people get mad at God, should they be?
Geisler: No. They should be mad at themselves. They should be mad at themselves because they
made the choice. They made their bed and they’re going to have to lie in it. They chose, and
they’re living with the consequences of their freedom. If somebody jumps off a cliff
to commit suicide, he shouldn’t be mad at God when he hits the bottom. He made the choice.
Ankerberg: Okay. But God was the One with all power and He’s the Creator, and He made
it, plus He had the knowledge that this thing was going to get screwed up in the end. Okay?
Now, the fact is, knowing the sin and the problems, knowing the death of your daughter,
9/11, all kinds of events like that–there was something in God’s thinking that said,
“I will allow that to happen.” What was the purpose in His mind at that point?
Geisler: I can be summarized in three verses from the Bible:
In Genesis 26, He said, “Do not go down into Egypt.” Egypt was the place of unbelief
and sin. In Genesis 46, He said, “Go now down to
Egypt.” In Hosea 11, He said, “Out of Egypt I have
brought my son.” God’s perfect will is “Don’t sin.”
His permissive will is, “Okay. I’ll let you sin.” His providential will is, “Out
of sin I’m going to bring a greater good.” “You meant it for evil, God meant it for
good,” Joseph said. So, God allowed evil because He knew He could bring a greater good.
“No pain, no gain.” No tribulation, no patience. Don’t allow sin, can’t achieve
forgiveness.
Ankerberg: Yeah. People have taken different options when they’ve faced evil. Okay? Let
me give you a couple of syllogisms and you explain what’s behind these things.
Some critics will say, you know, either God is not all loving, God is not powerful enough
to defeat evil, or evil shows that God doesn’t exist at all. It’s not a syllogism–those
are just statements that people make and there’s something behind each one of those.
The first one–God is not all loving.
Geisler: Yeah, the syllogism is just a little logical way to put together the dilemma. The
dilemma is this: If God is all powerful, He could destroy evil. If He’s all good, He
would destroy. But evil hasn’t been destroyed. It’s still here. Look in the newspaper.
Look at the TV. Look in the mirror. Then, how can we have an all-powerful and all-good
God? And the problem with that way of putting it is that they forget that the middle, the
second premise as it’s called in the syllogism, is that evil is still here, but what they
should say is: “Evil has not yet been destroyed or defeated.”
Now, once you say that, because God may yet defeat it tomorrow, so they have to re-phrase
it and say, “If He’s all powerful, He could; if He is all good, He would; evil has
not yet been defeated, therefore, it will never be.” But, how do you know that? Unless
you’re God, you can’t know everything. So, they have to pretend they’re God, know
everything, in order to know it won’t work. And if they back off and say, “Well, evil
is not yet defeated and I can’t tell you whether it ever will be,” then we say to
them, “Hang on. It’s coming. If He’s all knowing, He knows the end from the beginning.
If He’s all powerful, He can bring a greater good. If He’s all good, He wants to do it.
So, if He wants to do it, and He can do it, and He knows the end and He knows it’s going
to be done, then just hang on. It’s coming.”
Ankerberg: All right, we’re going to take a break and when we come back, I want to push
you further on that because there might be a guy that’s laying in a bed right now saying,
“You know, you’re talking about the fact this is going to come–but I’m suffering,
big-time, right now! I’d like to believe in a God that can stop it now!” Why doesn’t
He stop it now? What’s going on? And oh, by the way, what’s the hook that I should
base all of my hope that He’s going to do something in the future like you’re saying?”
So, both sides of that coin–we’re talk about it when we come right back. Stick with
us.
***
Ankerberg: All right, we’re back, and we’re talking with philosopher and theologian Dr.
Norman Geisler about the problem of evil. All of us who believe in God have to come
to grips with, “Why is there so much evil, suffering and pain in the world?” I was
telling Norman during the break here that when my mom was dying of Lou Gehrig’s, one
Christmas she gave all the kids, and to me, as her son, she gave us a diary of what was
going on in her mind, and what she was thinking, and how God was helping her. It wiped us out!
But boy, to see her suffer during that year and a half, just really cruel. Really cruel.
Dehumanizing. All right? And it centers right on where we’re at–if God is all loving,
He loves us. He doesn’t want that kind of thing for us. But He has permitted it. Okay?
But He also has the power to stop it anytime He wants to. People want to know, “Why is
it that He hasn’t stopped it? Why doesn’t He stop it right now if He’s got the power
to do so?”
Geisler: Well, we could stop an operation right in the middle, too, and say, “This
is too painful,” but it would be the wrong time to stop it, wouldn’t it? We could stop
the dentist right in the middle of the dentist’s chair but it would be the wrong time. He’s
got to get the abscessed tooth out. And God knows the right time, and He knows how much
tribulation is going to work patience and how much pain is necessary to produce the
greater good in our life. If He is all knowing, He knows the right amount and the right time.
If He’s all good, He’ll give His goodness in producing that greater good in our life.
So, while we think that it’s too long, and we cry out, “How long, how long, O Lord?,”
as Isaiah said, He knows exactly how much is needed in our life to achieve what He is
trying to get.
Ankerberg: Atheists hook on to your syllogism and they use it this way. Okay? “If God
is all good”–and we say that He is–“He would defeat evil.” “If God is all powerful,
He could defeat evil.” But then they say, “But evil never will be defeated.” In
other words, it’s going to go on just the way it is here, “therefore, no such God
exists.” You’re all pipe-dreaming here.
Geisler: Yeah, well, that’s exactly what they’re doing because they don’t know
the end from the beginning as the God of Isaiah does. They don’t know how things are going
to turn out, and God does. So God, who knows everything, and God, who is all good, permits
this, knowing exactly how much it will take to achieve His greater good in the end. And
He knows the end from the beginning, and He knows it’s going to turn out well because
He has planned it that way. That He would permit evil to achieve the greater good. He
would permit pain to produce the ultimate pleasure. He would let us go through the wilderness
in order that we can get to the Promised Land. And, of course, when we get to the Promised
Land and we look back on it, we’re going to say what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 4:17:
“This light affliction which is but for a moment worked for us a far more exceedingly
greater weight of glory.”
Ankerberg: Yeah. I think that for the atheist who says that, you have a great note in your
book: “There’s no way for the atheist to know evil never will be defeated unless
he is God Himself.”
Geisler: Yeah. He’d have to be omniscient. He’d have to know everything in order to
know that it’s never going to turn out well.
Ankerberg: But let’s come back to the guy who is in his bed and he’s sick, and he
is suffering, like my mom. Okay? He’s in it right now. Okay? What is the basis, what
are the hooks that he can grab onto that say, “I can hope that it will be defeated someday
up ahead”?
Geisler: I think it was about 1958. I was listening to Paul Harvey one day. He said
he went into a hospital to visit a young man dying of cancer. He went in to comfort him
and he came out comforted because the young man looked at him and said, “Paul, I don’t
believe that the Divine Architect of the universe ever builds a staircase that leads to nowhere.”
If you know you have a Divine Architect, and He knows everything and He’s all good, you
can be absolutely sure that it’s leading somewhere.
I’ve been in that kind of bed. I’ve been there, lying on my back, dying of hepatitis–couldn’t
raise my hand. My wife and church were praying for me. Somebody gave me a poem I’ll never
forget. It was called Overheard in an Orchard. It said, “Said the robin to the sparrow,
‘I should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry
so.’ Said the sparrow to the robin, ‘I think that it must be that they have no Heavenly
Father such as cares for you and me.’” That’s the answer.
Ankerberg: That’s powerful. There’s an important definition, couple of definitions
that you give in your books. It has to do with the words destroying evil and defeating
evil. What’s the difference? What’s the importance here?
Geisler: Well, let’s take the little logical statement: If God is all powerful, He can
destroy evil. If He is all good, He would destroy evil. Evil is not destroyed, therefore
there is no such God. But the truth of the matter is, God cannot destroy evil without
destroying the greater good, because freedom is what makes the good possible and the only
way He can totally destroy evil is to destroy freedom.
For example, God could every time somebody picked up a gun to shoot someone else, He
could destroy the gun right in his hand. Every time somebody took a knife to stab someone
else, He could turn the knife into butter. You know? Or every time somebody put a noose
around somebody’s neck, He could turn it into a noodle. But, if He did that, He would
also be destroying their freedom. Remember Madeline Murray O’Hair? I know
we don’t have anyone like her anymore but, anyway, God could have stopped a lot of evil
when she was running around the country mouthing off about God. All He had to do was stuff
her mouth full of cotton. But if He had done that, then she wouldn’t be free, would she?
Or every time she lifted her fountain pen to write an atheist book, He could have exploded
the fountain pen in her hand. Then she wouldn’t be free to express. Or God could have given
her an “Excedrin Headache #2” every time she thought an atheistic thought. Then she
wouldn’t have been free to think. God made us free to think, free to choose, free to
express ourselves, and the only way to destroy all evil is to destroy all freedom. But then
you’ve destroyed the possibility of the greater good.
So, destroy is not the word. Defeat is the right word. Can God defeat evil without destroying
freedom? The answer is, “Yes.” And here’s how He does it:
He gives everybody their free choice. “Do you want to follow Me forever, or do you want
to go your own way forever?” As C. S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce, there are only
two kinds of people in the end. One says, “Thy will be done, Oh God.” The other
one, [God] says to them, “Thy will be done.” That’s an awesome choice, right? He gives
everybody their choice and then, He allows everyone to have their choice forever. Jean-Paul
Sartre wrote a play called No Exit, and the irony of the twentieth century, the last century,
is that the greatest insights into hell came from atheists. Nietzsche said that “I would
rather will nothingness than not to will at all” in On the Genealogy of Morals.
Jean-Paul Sartre said in his play No Exit, “The door of hell opened and they were all
given a chance to leave, and nobody left.” Why? They’re all condemned to their own
freedom. They chose to be there. The door of hell is locked on the inside.
So, the way God defeats evil without destroying freedom is He allows everybody to make their
choice and then He says to them, “You’ve got it!”
Do you remember Milton’s Paradise Lost? Satan said, “I would rather reign in hell
than serve in heaven!” to which I respond, “God says ‘You’ve got it! You’ve got
it!’”
Ankerberg: Yeah. I think that separating good from evil forever, according to what man chooses,
of not bullying men and saying, “Because I’m God, I’m going to force you to think
my way,” but of actually going way beyond that and saying, “I’m going to give you
dignity and a real choice.” And also, He has made it possible for us to be forgiven.
It’s already been done and it’s sitting there waiting for us, that we can have this
relationship with God forever, but He won’t force us into it–I think it’s absolutely
astonishing when you realize that’s the case!
Geisler: It is. And Jesus is the perfect example. Matthew 23. He’s weeping, “O Jerusalem,
O Jerusalem! How oft I would have gathered you together, as a mother hen gathers her
chicks, but you were not willing.” God will not force us into the fold. There’s no Divine
arm-twisting. God is a loving Father. He works persuasively but not coercively. The young
man said to a young lady, “I love you. I want you to marry me.” And she said, “No.”
And he said, “I love you so much, I’m going to force you to love me.” You say,
“Wait a minute. Forced love is not love. Forced love is ***.” And God is not a divine
***. He will not force anyone to love Him. That’s why there has to be a hell. Not just
because He is just and must punish sin, but because He is loving and can’t force free
creatures against their freedom because forced freedom is a contradiction in terms.
Ankerberg: Give a word of encouragement to the person that is without hope right now.
Maybe because of circumstances, maybe just because they’ve never thought about God
this way. Talk about the loving God and the possibility of knowing Him in a personal relationship
and what they have to do to have it right now.
Geisler: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” He just doesn’t
love some people, He loves all people. God loves you. He sent His Son to die for you.
He has paid the penalty for your sin. He doesn’t want you to suffer, and He’s got a place
where there will be no suffering, no sin, no death, no sorrow–forever. If that’s
not hope, what is hope!
Ankerberg: So much more, and I’m sure there are so many more questions that are coming
up in your mind. Join us next week. We’re just getting started, again, in a series of
programs that are dealing with the topics surrounding the problem of evil. And next
week, a humdinger: Why Does God Allow Suffering? And how come physical evils, such as earthquakes
and tornadoes and cancer, how can they be explained in the scenario that we’re talking
about? Okay? So important. I hope that you’ll join us.