He wants to know about the problem of evil. My answer to the problem of evil is this: There is no problem of evil in an atheist’s universe because there is no evil in an atheist’s universe. Since there is no God, there is no absolute moral standard, and nothing is wrong. The torture of little children is not wrong in an atheist’s universe. It may be painful, but it is not wrong. It is morally wrong in a theistic universe, and therefore, there is a problem of evil of perhaps the psychological or emotional sort, but philosophically the answer to the problem of evil is you don’t have an absolute standard of good by which to measure evil in an atheist’s universe. You can only have that in a theistic universe, and therefore, the very posing of the problem presupposes my world view, rather than his own. God has a good reason for the evil that He plans or allows.

Greg Bahnsen (1948–1995), Apologet

Topics: Doubt & Hard Questions, Suffering & the Question of God, Ethical Questions

Occasions: For Reflection

All quotes by Greg Bahnsen (1)

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The grip of our faith by which we hold on to the Lord may loosen. But the One in whom we believe holds us with his grip.

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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

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Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.

C.S. Lewis

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Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

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