Why God Didn't Destroy Satan: Evidence for God

SPEAKER A 00:00:00 - 00:00:29 Our world is clearly broken, but science and scripture give us 2 different reasons why. Today we are exploring the fall of man and the cosmic insurrection that changed everything. We're going beyond the story of the forbidden fruit to understand the origin of evil and why the evidence for creation shows a world that was once perfect but is now under siege. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again. Hi, Kaysie. SPEAKER B 00:00:29 - 00:00:30 Hello, Casey. SPEAKER A 00:00:30 - 00:00:57 Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we're drawing on some insights from chapter 12 by John Pauline. And John, so according to this chapter, why couldn't God just destroy the author of evil immediately to prevent the fall of man when he was created according to the biblical account? SPEAKER B 00:00:58 - 00:01:14 Yeah, sure. Okay, so this is a biblical position here, or a position in the Bible that underpins Christianity, which probably gives the best explanation of the situation that we see in the world today. SPEAKER A 00:01:14 - 00:01:14 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:01:14 - 00:01:32 And I think this is why Christianity appeals to so many intellectual people. When they read the Bible and understand, they can see what has happened around them. And so many of our greatest philosophers, and so forth have been Christians. SPEAKER A 00:01:32 - 00:01:33 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:01:33 - 00:02:13 Of course, there have been many that have opposed this. But one of the things that it always comes back to is this: they still have a sense of right and wrong. So if we look, for example, at Richard Dawkins, who is a very strong atheist, very opposed to creation and the biblical view, it would seem, and is famous for saying, you know, the world around us is what we would expect expect if it arose purely by chance and there's no such thing as good and evil. But yet he has a sense of there are things that have happened that are really bad. SPEAKER A 00:02:13 - 00:02:14 Right. SPEAKER B 00:02:14 - 00:03:17 You know? So it's really conflict in that, well, he says there wouldn't be good or evil, but in a way he recognizes that, yeah, there are some things that are bad, that are evil. And when I look around, and I mentioned it previously, in that why sometimes good people seem to be targeted, the Bible gives us this picture that there was a fall in heaven and one of the angels chose to do bad things. Now, it's very interesting to examine the underlying reason here, because we look at, you know, why God didn't destroy, for example, Lucifer, who then became Satan. So if we look at the original sin, what happened was Lucifer was given freedom, a lot of freedom of choice and the ability to experience pleasure. SPEAKER A 00:03:17 - 00:03:17 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:03:17 - 00:03:22 Now, the ability to experience pleasure also involves desire. SPEAKER A 00:03:23 - 00:03:23 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:03:23 - 00:03:29 And what happened was Lucifer desired to be like God. SPEAKER A 00:03:29 - 00:03:31 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:03:31 - 00:04:12 So what happened is in— so in other words, it's taking something away. So this leads to a very interesting thing is that the Bible describes God as being true. So if something isn't true, that's the opposite to God. And so this leads— so if something belongs to you, right, and then you go and take that from someone, you're now creating a situation that really isn't true. Because that particular thing that you take, took, belonged to someone else. It was his, right? SPEAKER A 00:04:12 - 00:04:12 Someone else. SPEAKER B 00:04:12 - 00:04:42 So you can see how this leads to a very interesting principle. Once you move away from things that are true, right, And then you create a whole lot of problems. Now, the simple thing that Lucifer did was he desired to be like God. And again, through his creative abilities, he began scheming to do along these lines. SPEAKER A 00:04:42 - 00:04:42 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:04:42 - 00:04:57 And the Bible explains this in part, and it also explains that A whole lot of the angels, these supernatural beings that are outside our space-time system, they're outside our material world, right? SPEAKER A 00:04:57 - 00:04:58 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:04:58 - 00:05:37 They operate under completely different systems. A number of those followed. And we can see, too, that those people were able to interact with us as part of God's creation. The Bible describes the scenario in Eden that Satan spoke through a serpent. And again, encouraged Eve to make a choice. And this choice was underpinned by 2 things. Firstly, God had warned them not to eat of this tree that gave them the ability to know both good and evil, right? SPEAKER A 00:05:37 - 00:05:38 Right. SPEAKER B 00:05:38 - 00:06:07 Right and wrong. And Satan said, again, told a lie. told you, hang on, if you eat of that tree, you'll be like God. And also that you won't die. So dying was a consequence of knowing about evil or doing evil, which essentially purifies the system. You get rid of, you know, bad things. SPEAKER A 00:06:07 - 00:06:08 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:06:08 - 00:06:19 And so it's interesting that Satan told 2 lies there. And essentially by telling that lie implied that God was a liar. SPEAKER A 00:06:19 - 00:06:20 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:06:20 - 00:06:57 And this is why truth is a fundamental aspect that underpins science. It underpins reality as well. And a lot of the issues that we face in society today is where people want to move away from something that is true or they want to change something that is true. And those situations lead, if people think about it, deeply to most of the moral evil that we see in the world today is moving away from that area. So the thing is, why didn't God then just destroy Satan when he saw that? SPEAKER A 00:06:57 - 00:06:59 And stop it from spreading, yeah. SPEAKER B 00:06:59 - 00:07:18 And the thing is, I think as we talked in an earlier episode, if God then zapped Satan and removed him from the system, Because God had been accused of being a liar, it's very hard to then justify yourself. SPEAKER A 00:07:18 - 00:07:18 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:07:18 - 00:07:19 Because whatever you say— SPEAKER A 00:07:19 - 00:07:22 How can you prove it? SPEAKER B 00:07:22 - 00:07:41 Yeah, you can't sort of justify it by just saying, well, I'm not, because you're a liar. So it puts you in a very tricky situation. And the other thing is, if you can imagine the angels saying, wow, look what happened to Lucifer. He just raised, you know, some issues with God and— SPEAKER A 00:07:41 - 00:07:43 He's gone. SPEAKER B 00:07:43 - 00:08:17 People would follow God out of fear. And that's because God is love. And we experience this when, I think, in a particular way, when we become parents, that you want your children to love you. And we've seen an example just recently in the news here in Australia of where a child, murdered his parents. And so we can see that's the very opposite. No parent would ever want that to happen. SPEAKER A 00:08:17 - 00:08:17 Yeah. SPEAKER B 00:08:17 - 00:08:52 But it's a choice that that person made at that time to do that because that person had free will. And God made us humans to have a— we can understand from the Bible position to have that relationship with Him out of love. So that's why God took the risk To love us in that way and allow, I guess, people to see the consequences if you keep going down the route of evil. And we've seen those consequences in the world today. SPEAKER A 00:08:52 - 00:09:34 Yeah, so the natural consequences of evil and sin form the parts of our world that we innately know are bad and wrong. You know, when people do these things that are, you know, crimes or what have you, or if things happen where we don't care for the environment, we destroy it, all of that then brings further consequences and destructions and that sort of thing. So I guess we see this blending, don't we, in our world of still the influence of the good that God originally intended, but at the same time, the results of a choice to abandon truth and believe lies, as you have said. SPEAKER B 00:09:34 - 00:09:47 And And we need to remember also that there will be a consequence. One day evil will be destroyed. So people are saying, well, why didn't God do it straight away? SPEAKER A 00:09:47 - 00:09:49 Yeah, that's the big question. SPEAKER B 00:09:49 - 00:10:04 God is going to do it. But what He's done is He's allowed humanity, whom He loves, who were created special, whom were created in the image of God, to see the consequences of sin. SPEAKER A 00:10:04 - 00:10:04 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:10:05 - 00:10:19 And that takes us all the way down to, you know, the interesting situation of Jesus and as God dying on the cross, which is a big question we can talk about. SPEAKER A 00:10:19 - 00:10:19 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:10:19 - 00:10:51 But we can see that, and I think a lot of people don't realize as they're searching for life in outer space, we already have supernatural life meddling with us here on Earth. People that I've spoken to, a number of missionaries that have worked in areas where the spirits are worshiped and the reality of supernatural events and so forth is very real in those cultures. SPEAKER A 00:10:51 - 00:10:52 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:10:52 - 00:11:23 And so, we have people from Western cultures grown up that are going out and seeing these things happen and report back that there's real spirits warfare going on affecting people's minds. And I think one of the issues that people don't realize is that where do thoughts come from and can our thoughts be influenced by these evil spirits? And the Bible suggests that they can be. SPEAKER A 00:11:23 - 00:11:23 Hmm. SPEAKER B 00:11:23 - 00:11:57 And so this again is something where, you know, people dismiss the whole idea of spirits in our world today, demons we might say, in our world today. and we're looking for something from outer space. I think we have overwhelming evidence down through history and also from the many missionary encounters with these cultures that these spirits are very active and they're still active in our society today. And we see, for example, the rise of Satan worship, for example, in the United States. SPEAKER A 00:11:57 - 00:11:58 Mmm. SPEAKER B 00:11:58 - 00:12:31 These sort of areas today. Anyway, to me, I think the evidence is very clear for the supernatural realm that is operating. And it's an evil supernatural world, entities operating. And also, though, we see evidence of good angels or good spirits operating as well. It's a little bit deep to discuss here, and people need to actually read the accounts recorded in the Bible down through history. SPEAKER A 00:12:31 - 00:12:47 I really I really like just a statement here in this chapter we're discussing, which John Pauline really— I think he just captures it well. He says, evil does not exist in this world because God is evil. It exists here because the world is enemy-occupied territory. SPEAKER B 00:12:47 - 00:12:49 Yes, yes. SPEAKER A 00:12:49 - 00:13:21 And I think if we keep that in mind, it helps explain it. And in the midst of— yeah, we see all the good and bad because we're in enemy-occupied territory. But in the midst of all of that, what God is trying to do is he's trying to deal with the problem of evil in a way that he can build trust with those who have had the trust undermined by the lies that have been thrown about God. So he's trying to, I guess, justify or validate his name by his approach in dealing with evil. SPEAKER B 00:13:21 - 00:13:23 Yes, yes, very true. SPEAKER A 00:13:23 - 00:13:37 Yeah, so this whole question has all of these different elements that you've mentioned that we're talking about here that help to explain and give us a fuller understanding of why we see this mix of good and bad around us. SPEAKER B 00:13:37 - 00:13:38 Yes. SPEAKER A 00:13:38 - 00:13:41 And why God is dealing with it the way He is. SPEAKER B 00:13:41 - 00:14:10 Yes, yes, and there's so much evidence there if people look for it, if they open their eyes and look for it and read the accounts from the different missionaries and so forth. We have powerful, overwhelming evidence that exactly as he points out, The earth is under siege. Our minds essentially are under siege. There are massive battles going on for our minds in the world today to take us away from God. SPEAKER A 00:14:10 - 00:14:26 Very good thoughts and reflections on that topic. Thank you so much for sharing. 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.