A Serial Killer's Conscience: Evidence for God

SPEAKER A 00:00:01 - 00:00:30 Jeffrey Dahmer. Serial killer. Cannibal. The last person you'd expect to lead anyone to God. But what he said before he died shocked people, and it raises a question most of us have never thought about: does the fact that we know right from wrong actually point to God's existence? Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again to the program, Dr. John. SPEAKER B 00:00:30 - 00:00:31 Hello, Casey. SPEAKER A 00:00:31 - 00:00:57 Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we'll be drawing on some insights from chapter 11, which is by Dr. Stephen Cowan, who got his PhD from the University of Arkansas. And on our topic, I want to ask you, Dr. John, how can one of history's worst criminals end up being used as evidence for God? SPEAKER B 00:00:57 - 00:01:28 Yeah, so that's a great question. And it's actually really part of evidence for the existence of God, right? So a lot of people make claims, well, how can, you know, what's the evidence for God exists? You know, this sort of thing. And that Jesus, for example, was God. So what happened was, of course, that Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer, actually became a Christian after he committed these heinous crimes. SPEAKER A 00:01:28 - 00:01:28 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:01:28 - 00:02:32 And it's quite interesting because he committed these crimes because essentially, although he grew up in a Christian home, went to school, learned about evolution, believed in evolution, believed in a sense, yep, we are just here, we are here, random processes, survival of the fittest. at the end, there's nothing. We're just gonna die. And so he committed these horrendous murders, which are really horrific in detail. And of course, later on, he was caught. And when he was being tried, he actually came to realize that he actually felt sorry for what he did. He genuinely felt sorry. He felt, as he thought about it, as he was confronted, particularly in the court, with what he had done, he was overwhelmed with this sense that he'd done something really, really bad. SPEAKER A 00:02:32 - 00:02:32 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:02:32 - 00:02:58 And I think later on, the challenge came from, you know, why does he feel this way? And it led him to the conclusion that one day, He will be accountable. And so, this is one of the interesting things that comes out of the creation model, that we were created by God for a purpose. SPEAKER A 00:02:58 - 00:02:58 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:02:58 - 00:03:31 We were created for fellowship, for a relationship with Him. We've essentially rebelled against God, like rebellious children that, you know, turn against their parents and disobey their parents. We've done that. But essentially what he realized too is that one day there will be a judgment. One day there will be accountability. Because he had this tremendous sense that I must be accountable for my actions. And this is something that a lot of people don't really wanna face. SPEAKER A 00:03:31 - 00:03:32 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:03:32 - 00:04:04 They don't really wanna face. They just wanna forget it. No, don't go there. Don't go there. Forget about that. Yeah, let's forget about that. But this is one of the consequences of the fact that there are, people have this innate sense that there is some things that are good and that there are some things that are evil and that there's going to be a consequence. The other interesting thing that comes out of this is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which is outside this sort of chapter, right? SPEAKER A 00:04:04 - 00:04:05 Okay. SPEAKER B 00:04:05 - 00:04:29 But there's a lot of historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. And the fact then that if Jesus is alive now, the consequence of this and the logic that follows is that one day there will be a judgment. That's another consequence because it talks about, yes, there is eternal life. There will be another resurrection. SPEAKER A 00:04:29 - 00:04:30 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:04:30 - 00:05:28 And this is another thing that a lot of people don't come to think about. And perhaps one of the reasons they don't wanna go near God, but they forget, of course, that the Bible account is that Jesus did come as a Savior. So there will be a judgment, but Jesus is going to stand in our place if we accept Him as our Savior. And that's why it's so important that first of all, people recognize the overwhelming evidence that we have for creation. This leads to overwhelming evidence we have for God. that one day there will be a judgment, hence our need for a Savior. And people, again, most people, a lot of people don't wanna go there. But the moral argument that follows from this is very important. And I think this is essentially what Dahmer realized. And that led to his conversion, that he needed a Savior, and he became a very strong Christian. SPEAKER A 00:05:28 - 00:05:56 Yeah, fascinating how that background and his experience in changing worldviews helped to shape Dahmer's, you know, ultimate conclusions about his life. Now, there was an interview with Jeffrey Dahmer on Dateline NBC before he passed away in 1994. And he said some very interesting things about his experience there. Do you want to share some of that? SPEAKER B 00:05:58 - 00:06:11 Yeah, sure. So one of the things was he thought if God doesn't exist, right? If there is no God, and this is the claim of naturalism. SPEAKER A 00:06:11 - 00:06:12 Right. SPEAKER B 00:06:12 - 00:06:33 Right? That there is no God or materialism, there's no God. And this is what is essentially pushed in science classes, in terms of our origins. Yeah, if you wanna believe in God, that's fine, but don't bring it into the science classroom. All the evidence points we just arose naturally. SPEAKER A 00:06:33 - 00:06:34 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:06:34 - 00:06:43 And of course that claim is false because naturalism has actually no explanation for how life began. The chemical reactions just don't work. SPEAKER A 00:06:43 - 00:06:44 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:06:44 - 00:07:15 They're not viable. Scientists, when we look at the laws of physics, we have no explanation for the Big Bang or how we can be here. You know, people like Stephen Hawking say, oh, we exist because gravity Well, you know, who made gravity? You know, so, and we've talked about these issues before. And so essentially, if God doesn't exist, then moral values can't exist. But what Dahmer came to realize was that moral values do exist. SPEAKER A 00:07:15 - 00:07:16 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:07:16 - 00:07:24 He realized that what he'd done was wrong. Killing is wrong. Hurting little children for, torturing little children for fun is wrong. SPEAKER A 00:07:24 - 00:07:24 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:07:24 - 00:07:51 There are moral values. And he recognized this. He saw this. He saw it in his own actions because he had personally been involved in this. He'd personally been involved in killing people and doing other horrendous acts. And he realized this. And therefore, the converse of that argument applied. Therefore, because there must be objective moral values, God must exist. SPEAKER A 00:07:51 - 00:07:51 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:07:51 - 00:08:23 Now, I think there's, we need to, I guess, understand what objective moral values are really. And so objective moral values are moral values that are there because they are actually true. They exist, they're independent, they're independent of God or anything. They're just a truth, thing. Sort of like if you hold a rock up above the surface of the earth and let it go, it will fall. The law of gravity, right? SPEAKER A 00:08:23 - 00:08:23 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:08:23 - 00:08:49 It's something that is true and real. And so these moral values, what it's saying is if they're with these moral values, absolute moral values, these are things that are actually true. Now, What a lot of people actually espouse is moral relativism. SPEAKER A 00:08:49 - 00:08:49 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:08:49 - 00:09:25 And that is that it's moral values are subjective, right? So, and an example of this that Cohen talks about, for example, is that, okay, well, what's the best ice cream? And somebody might say, oh, chocolate ice cream. And someone else might say mango ice cream. So, okay, for that person, chocolate ice cream is their favorite. For the other one, it's mango. Neither is right or wrong. It's just purely subjective. SPEAKER A 00:09:25 - 00:09:26 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:09:26 - 00:10:02 And what people try to do is they try to apply this same principle to moral values. And they'll say, well, you might think it's wrong to have multiple sexual partners, but that's just your view, sort of thing. To me, it's not an issue, sort of thing. People might say that. And so they think it's, oh, it's just subjective, and this sort of thing. And this is a very interesting aspect of things. So there are areas where, obviously people disagree on, right? SPEAKER A 00:10:02 - 00:10:03 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:10:03 - 00:10:43 And they say, well, that's just, you know, subjective, moral, and that's moral relativism. And a lot of issues get drawn into this area of moral relativism. But it's interesting that we know, for example, and most people would agree that there are things that are like torturing children that are really wrong. So what evolution teaches is that there are, The moral relativism, that there are relative values, it's subjective, it's just what you wanna believe, as opposed to absolute moral values. SPEAKER A 00:10:43 - 00:11:25 Yeah. And this is really what Dharma came to realize, isn't it? 'Cause in that interview he said, and this is quoting, if you don't think that there is a God to be accountable to, which you mentioned before, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution is truth, that we all just came from slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing. And so the idea of a moral compass didn't even matter in this kind of worldview. And I guess his life reflected that belief, um, until he realized there's something else to it, which is what you mentioned, how he was confronted with— SPEAKER B 00:11:25 - 00:11:25 Yeah. SPEAKER A 00:11:26 - 00:11:41 the fact there is a reality, how we are accountable for our actions morally to God. So interesting, isn't it, to see the play out of these different worldviews and how they affect us? SPEAKER B 00:11:41 - 00:12:42 Yes. And they certainly have affected morality today as a consequence of particularly the teaching of evolution. And we can see in actual fact, a lot of things have been traced to this. There's quite a brilliant mathematician, I think his name's David Belinsky. And he points out that if there's no ultimate judgment, no ultimate accountability, then people will do just whatever they want. Yeah, of course. And this leads to a whole lot of the issues actually that we have in the world today. And I think one of the things that we forget is too, we try to justify, we can, you know, try to justify moral relativism on the base of cultural things and this sort of thing. SPEAKER A 00:12:42 - 00:12:42 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:12:42 - 00:13:04 But that's another, you know, great big area to explore. But I think one of the consequences is that if objective moral values do exist, then Jeffrey Dahmer, what he came to realize, his argument for accepting God is a very valid one. SPEAKER A 00:13:04 - 00:13:05 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:13:05 - 00:13:28 Because if God must be the— there must be a judgment, we must be accountable And it's the best explanation because logically the reverse, if there are no moral values, then yeah, there's no judgment, there's no need for God. You can do whatever you want to survive. SPEAKER A 00:13:28 - 00:13:42 And then why should we feel guilt or shame or anything like that when we do do something wrong? Like an evolutionary or relativistic sort of mindset with no accountability, you shouldn't feel anything. Who cares? SPEAKER B 00:13:42 - 00:13:43 That's right, exactly. SPEAKER A 00:13:43 - 00:14:03 That's how it should be. But we feel guilt and shame. There's an acute awareness that exists in us, which we don't— like, how can you explain that? You can't even explain that from an evolutionary model, but a model that's acknowledging God, absolutely, it makes perfect sense. SPEAKER B 00:14:03 - 00:14:32 And I think this is the part of the very powerful evidence that here we have a person who, like Jeffrey, who could commit all these terrible crimes. And yet afterwards, realise that and come to believe that, hang on, I've done something really, really bad. Even though you'd think after that time he would have been totally conditioned. It was still there. SPEAKER A 00:14:32 - 00:14:32 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:14:32 - 00:14:41 When he— and so this again points that Absolute moral values are real. Because at that point, he was confronted with reality. SPEAKER A 00:14:41 - 00:14:42 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:14:42 - 00:14:43 The reality from his conscience. SPEAKER A 00:14:43 - 00:15:03 Thank you for bringing out those points on that very interesting example story. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God's existence or known someone who has? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else who's searching for answers.