Can Love Exist Without Evil?: Evidence for God

SPEAKER A 00:00:00 - 00:00:28 If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why is there so much pain in our world? Today we are tackling the toughest question in faith and science. We're looking at why a good God allows suffering, and the surprising reason freedom makes love possible. If you have ever struggled with the problem of evil, this discussion is for you. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again, Dr. John. SPEAKER B 00:00:28 - 00:00:29 Hello, Kaysie. SPEAKER A 00:00:29 - 00:01:06 Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we're looking at some insights from this book. And in the chapter today that we are discussing, chapter 12, on the problem of evil, there's a lot of comments initially about how God has made such a beautiful world for us to enjoy. And in the midst of that, though, we see things like genocide, abuse, crime, all of this stuff. Why do we see that if God is good and He's a lover of things that are beautiful? SPEAKER B 00:01:06 - 00:01:32 Yeah, wow. Okay, well, that's a big question. And of course, a lot of people on the basis of there is evil don't believe that there is a God. In that, so their view would be that DNA is produced by random mutations and therefore people's behavior is random. SPEAKER A 00:01:32 - 00:01:32 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:01:32 - 00:02:19 Some people do good things, some people do bad things. And it's just that they're programmed that way. It's just a random thing in the universe. For me though, actually, and it's interesting for the author of the article, John Pauline, who who is a theologian and obviously believes in God. To me, the fact that we have this contrast here occurring, and it seems to be extremes, you know, the examples that, you know, we can think of genocide, you know, where countries have killed other people and tried to exterminate particular cultural groups. SPEAKER A 00:02:19 - 00:02:21 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:02:21 - 00:02:35 To, you know, abuse of innocent children, these sort of things. We see a lot of really bad things that have happened. But it's interesting that most people I talk to have a sense that that is wrong. SPEAKER A 00:02:35 - 00:02:36 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:02:36 - 00:03:15 That they're bad things. And often people that do these bad things, when they're confronted with issues, say they change their mind. They realize that what they did was wrong, which is a very, very interesting observation. And to me, The fact that we also have beauty, which gives pleasure, is spread throughout all these things. So we have a— and most of the— we associate, for example, a bad thing would be destroying beauty. SPEAKER A 00:03:15 - 00:03:15 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:03:15 - 00:03:48 So people get very upset about destroying rainforests and this sort of thing, right? So this is an interesting concept that we have that If we were programmed, just automatically programmed with our DNA, why do we sense that something is wrong? Because there— so there seems to be a moral position there. And for me, that because morality involves thoughts— SPEAKER A 00:03:48 - 00:03:48 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:03:48 - 00:04:34 Which are non-material, our thoughts are non-material as opposed to DNA, which is a material substance, it codes, it codes for the structure of our cells, the structure of our brain and this sort of thing, and nervous reactions and this sort of thing. But the fact that through our non-material part, we have this sense of right and wrong, to me points to the existence of a non-material reality. And I think this can really explain the problem of evil. So to me, the fact that we see this real contrast, to me, is powerful evidence that there is a non-material entity involved in this. SPEAKER A 00:04:34 - 00:04:56 Yeah, you make a very interesting point about the fact that we have this moral sense, because if we assume that everything came about randomly, well, morality, or a sense that this is right and this is wrong, Like, that's not random. That's very definite. And if you had randomness in that space, it would really be anarchy. That's what we would describe it as. SPEAKER B 00:04:56 - 00:04:56 Yeah. SPEAKER A 00:04:56 - 00:05:54 And so, yeah, having that element there really challenges us, doesn't it, to think about the bigger reality of God being in existence? I guess people might acknowledge that God exists, but they might think that because we see all this evil, somehow God is weak because there's like an underlying assumption that the fact that this exists, like, God should be doing something about that, like he should prevent it. If he was good, he would prevent it. And so this understanding is a real problem for people in reconciling God and who he is. How would a concept of free will help us to understand this a bit deeper and explain the existence of evil without blaming God for the choice of it happening? SPEAKER B 00:05:54 - 00:06:09 Yeah, sure. So I guess it can't— when you look about why do people, say in the case of genocide situations, why do the people go and kill all the want to kill all the people in that other tribe? SPEAKER A 00:06:09 - 00:06:10 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:06:10 - 00:06:58 Or why do people want to do some indescribable, horrible thing to someone? And when you look at it, it's a choice that those people make. Now, in some cases, the person might be under the influence of some sort of chemical substance that's affected their brain, such as alcohol or drugs. And I know when I was researching the effects of alcohol on people, on the human body, and essentially crimes committed under the influence of alcohol. One thing that stood out to me was that often people hurt by people under the influence of alcohol was, was an innocent person that they didn't know. SPEAKER A 00:06:58 - 00:06:59 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:06:59 - 00:08:27 That was the very opposite in the community. And so there might have been a person that was a a volunteer, you know, maybe a doctor who was doing volunteer work to help a poor community, poor people in a community, this sort of thing. Somebody that was a really hard worker and thoughtful for other people. And they were the person that was randomly chosen to be killed. And I found this very interesting, that there seemed to be a much higher percentage of people that we would say are doing really positive things and good things in the community were killed by these random— in this random choice. And so there's that aspect there coming back to the free will situation. Because the other extreme of this is that if again, we were all robots programmed to do certain things, It takes away the ability to really enjoy pleasure or these sort of things. And also it undermines and takes away the meaning of things like love. So love is a response of choice where we choose to treat someone in a special way. and make someone else feel really special. SPEAKER A 00:08:27 - 00:08:27 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:08:27 - 00:09:19 So this is a whole concept there. And I think if you take away free will, the opposite to love is to hate and to hurt. So again, you can't experience things like love unless the opposite is available. And so this leads to very deep philosophical arguments in the area of, of free will. People have to be able to make the choice. And I think it's interesting that the Bible says that we were made in God's image and we are given the ability to create. We can create a lot of very interesting things. Part of that freedom is the ability to create things that hurt as well. SPEAKER A 00:09:19 - 00:09:20 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:09:21 - 00:09:38 or that do damage. And so this leads to a very interesting scenario there. If God had everything lined up so that it just operated like a machine, that's what it would be. It would be a machine. SPEAKER A 00:09:38 - 00:09:39 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:09:39 - 00:10:13 We would be robots. We wouldn't be responding really in a living or in a creative way. In a creative way, we, were able to experience pleasure and joy and these sort of things. So I think it was certainly very risky for God doing it, but it takes it to a much higher level. The ability to have freedom takes things to a much higher level than engineered robots just doing the same thing all the time. SPEAKER A 00:10:13 - 00:10:46 Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying for us to really even have an appreciation or even to be able to love itself, we have to be able to have a choice. Because if we don't have a choice, then is it really love? It's just robotics, as you said, I'm programmed to do this, I will do this. And if we had a relationship with 2 people that existed like that, there'd be absolutely no meaning in it because love is you give it and if the person gives back, it's like, wow, they actually like me or something. You know what I mean? SPEAKER B 00:10:46 - 00:10:47 Yeah. SPEAKER A 00:10:48 - 00:11:18 If that didn't exist, then, like, if that ability to love was not also associated with free will, then it would be redundant. And so God, in creating us and giving us free will so that we could have loving connections, he took a risk because he allowed the opportunity that people could choose not to love. And therefore the results of that can be seen. That's pretty much what you're explaining. SPEAKER B 00:11:18 - 00:11:26 Yes, yes. And it leads to the ability to have what we call a relationship. SPEAKER A 00:11:26 - 00:11:26 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:11:26 - 00:11:54 That's because— and that revolves around choice. And relationships involve pleasure, joy, these sort of things, you know, like walking through a garden. We wouldn't be able to if the opposite— if we didn't have the freedom for the opposite, and to be able to make choices to not have a relationship. There's no meaning really in terms of a relationship. SPEAKER A 00:11:54 - 00:11:54 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:11:54 - 00:12:33 And that's what it seems that God set up. God set us up to have that ability to have a relationship with Him. And that's what He hoped. And the consequence of that is that you can also force love, you know, sort of thing. And we know that unfortunately occurs in abusive relationships. And I think the author of the chapter gives an example, you know, if you start complaining about something, zap, you know. And why didn't God just wipe out evil initially? SPEAKER A 00:12:33 - 00:12:34 Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER B 00:12:35 - 00:12:45 What it would mean is that everybody would be scared because people would doubt, well, what was wrong with what was happening? I think we had to see what the long-term outcome was. SPEAKER A 00:12:45 - 00:12:52 In order to continue to love and not love out of fear, but to love for love's sake. Yes. SPEAKER B 00:12:52 - 00:12:55 Yeah. It's a very deep concept. SPEAKER A 00:12:55 - 00:12:56 It is a deep concept. SPEAKER B 00:12:56 - 00:13:00 But it's a concept that takes us out of the mechanical worldview. SPEAKER A 00:13:01 - 00:13:30 And that's an important point. We have to think about some of these deeper things in order to get a real understanding that's satisfactory about these questions in life. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think we're going to expand on this a little bit more in some of our next episodes. So, thank you. 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 searching for answers.