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Nov 24, 2006

6 days ago

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United States

GORDON ROBERTSON: Let's deal with the Western world view for a minute. You grew up in sort of a multifaceted religious society with Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims all living together. I think that's unique in the world. But from a Western point of view, I think one of the reasons many Americans, for example, have--have rejected the claims of Christ or even the existence of God, is they say, `Well, how do you now explain evil? Why do bad things happen to good people?' RAVI ZACHARIAS: I think that is the most daunting question. It is sort of a hatpin in the heart of many a world view. But when a person asks that question, Gordon, they have to remember two things. The first thing is that it is a question everybody needs to answer, not just the Christian. The Hindu needs to answer it, the Buddhist needs to answer it, the atheist needs to answer it, and the skeptic needs to answer it. One of my chapters is given over to that question when Jesus was asked, `Why was this man born blind. Did he sin, or his parents?' And Jesus' answer is fascinating. So let me try and put the hatpin into the heart of the question first, because that's where you begin the answer. When a person says there's too much of evil in this world, they're assuming there's such a thing as good. When they say they assume there's such a thing as good, they must assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the base of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when they posit such a thing as a moral law, they must posit the moral lawgiver, but that's whom the skeptic is often trying to disprove and not prove, because if there's no moral lawgiver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there is no good. If there is no good, there is no evil. What becomes of the question? To raise the question actually posits or assumes the existence of God. So the questioner must ever remember that raising the question does not disprove the existence of God, it only necessitates the existence of God, because without God, good and evil do not actually exist. And therefore, the answer of God in the Christian faith is very unique. In the Hindu world view, it is sort of karma, inherited, every birth is a rebirth, you pay, you pay, and you pay through millions of incarnations. In the Muslim world view, it's fatalistic -- it's the will of Allah. You go on. There's no real down-to-earth explanation. It's just there. Within the Christian world view, there is a plethora of evidence as to how Jesus defends for us the reality of evil and the reality of good. When you go to the cross, you see the two converge -- evil in the heart of man, goodness in the heart of God. That convergence in the cross of Jesus Christ is so unique that it even prompted Mahatma Gandhi to say outside of the cross, he did not know where else something so unique could be given as an answer. Now you lead philosophically to these issues and then you see how the Bible does deal with it. So to raise the question demonstrates the existence of God. I've taken you through the six steps of God's answer that shows us how you deal with the problem of evil, Gordon, ultimately moving to this question: If the evil around me bothers me that much, I must ask the question: Does the evil within me bother me, then? And it must, and for that evil within, only Christ has the answer.