There Can’t be a God, because He Violates My own Objective Standards
According a one Columbia Christian student, “People’s anger…arises from an inability to believe that God could be good when the world is so clearly broken.” (Quoted from the Magazine of the Columbia Spectator, 23 April 2009.)
Usually, for the Christian, the “broken” world doesn’t constitute so grave a theological problem until it messes with our own lives in significant ways. We understand that God has let the world break so that He can even improve upon it, like a mended bone, and even for all eternity
However, the unbeliever lacks this faith. But why “anger?” What is the basis of their moral indignation? When I ask students at the NYU campus if they believe in moral absolutes, like “genocide is wrong,” they struggle to find an answer. While their heart tells them that genocide is wrong, their relativistic university indoctrination puts their mind in a muddle. Some answer, “Every culture differs.” Others answer, “Well, I know what’s right for me,” as if to say, “I can’t decide what should be right or wrong for other people.”
However, when it comes to God, they have no problem in saying what’s wrong with His world. Suddenly, all traces of their moral relativism disappear and they become demanding moral objectivists. They show up at the OK Coral with both guns loaded.
How do we explain this? Isn’t it easier to bring a charge against someone we can see and understand and against evidence we can objectively evaluate? Why the readiness to dismiss a transcendent God based upon a non-existent moral standard—an absolute standard which they admit not having? Are we really in a position where we can honestly charge that there can be no redeeming purpose for a God to have allowed this world to become so broken?
The Bible gives the perfect explanation for this double-standard. We believe the things that we want to believe and encounter little problem in dismissing contrary evidence. Here’s how the Apostle Paul put it:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
Unbelief is made culpable by the abundance of evidence. This is so clearly illustrated throughout the life of Jesus. The religious leadership saw His many miracles. Rather than believing, they purposely misconstrued the evidence and ascribed the miracles to Satan—the last person in the world who would want to cast out his demons! Jesus, however, exposed their dishonesty with a simple question:
If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? (Matthew 12:26)
I ask the same students what type of evidence it would take for them to believe in Christ. Many respond, “If I could see the same miracles, I’d believe.” However, the Gospel accounts amply demonstrate that when miracles are presented to a hardened heart, they merely produce an angry ejaculation, “Crucify Him” (Matthew 27:23)! Why are the students angry? Perhaps it’s because of what Jesus said: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7:7). Nobody likes being judged, especially when the judgment is on target.
If you think I’m lacking in compassion, you are mistaken. I can’t afford to be uncompassionate. I too was like everyone else—a hater of the light (John 3:19) and an accuser of God, even while I was searching for truth, so I thought. I’m in no position to throw around charges.
According a one Columbia Christian student, “People’s anger…arises from an inability to believe that God could be good when the world is so clearly broken.” (Quoted from the Magazine of the Columbia Spectator, 23 April 2009.)
Usually, for the Christian, the “broken” world doesn’t constitute so grave a theological problem until it messes with our own lives in significant ways. We understand that God has let the world break so that He can even improve upon it, like a mended bone, and even for all eternity
However, the unbeliever lacks this faith. But why “anger?” What is the basis of their moral indignation? When I ask students at the NYU campus if they believe in moral absolutes, like “genocide is wrong,” they struggle to find an answer. While their heart tells them that genocide is wrong, their relativistic university indoctrination puts their mind in a muddle. Some answer, “Every culture differs.” Others answer, “Well, I know what’s right for me,” as if to say, “I can’t decide what should be right or wrong for other people.”
However, when it comes to God, they have no problem in saying what’s wrong with His world. Suddenly, all traces of their moral relativism disappear and they become demanding moral objectivists. They show up at the OK Coral with both guns loaded.
How do we explain this? Isn’t it easier to bring a charge against someone we can see and understand and against evidence we can objectively evaluate? Why the readiness to dismiss a transcendent God based upon a non-existent moral standard—an absolute standard which they admit not having? Are we really in a position where we can honestly charge that there can be no redeeming purpose for a God to have allowed this world to become so broken?
The Bible gives the perfect explanation for this double-standard. We believe the things that we want to believe and encounter little problem in dismissing contrary evidence. Here’s how the Apostle Paul put it:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
Unbelief is made culpable by the abundance of evidence. This is so clearly illustrated throughout the life of Jesus. The religious leadership saw His many miracles. Rather than believing, they purposely misconstrued the evidence and ascribed the miracles to Satan—the last person in the world who would want to cast out his demons! Jesus, however, exposed their dishonesty with a simple question:
If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? (Matthew 12:26)
I ask the same students what type of evidence it would take for them to believe in Christ. Many respond, “If I could see the same miracles, I’d believe.” However, the Gospel accounts amply demonstrate that when miracles are presented to a hardened heart, they merely produce an angry ejaculation, “Crucify Him” (Matthew 27:23)! Why are the students angry? Perhaps it’s because of what Jesus said: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7:7). Nobody likes being judged, especially when the judgment is on target.
If you think I’m lacking in compassion, you are mistaken. I can’t afford to be uncompassionate. I too was like everyone else—a hater of the light (John 3:19) and an accuser of God, even while I was searching for truth, so I thought. I’m in no position to throw around charges.
Daniel Mann
challengingthedarkness@yahoo.com
