He wants to know about the problem of evil. My answer to the problem of evil is this: There is no problem of evil in an atheist’s universe because there is no evil in an atheist’s universe. Since there is no God, there is no absolute moral standard, and nothing is wrong. The torture of little children is not wrong in an atheist’s universe. It may be painful, but it is not wrong. It is morally wrong in a theistic universe, and therefore, there is a problem of evil of perhaps the psychological or emotional sort, but philosophically the answer to the problem of evil is you don’t have an absolute standard of good by which to measure evil in an atheist’s universe. You can only have that in a theistic universe, and therefore, the very posing of the problem presupposes my world view, rather than his own. God has a good reason for the evil that He plans or allows.
The Great Debate: Does God Exist? University of California, Irvine, 1985.
He that doth not believe that there is a God, is more vile than a devil. To deny there is a God, is a sort of atheism that is not to be found in hell.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 28.
This is the difference between religion and atheism; religion does not grow without planting, but will die even where it is planted without watering. Atheism, irreligion, and profaneness are weeds that will grow without setting, but they will not die without plucking up.
As Christians we accept one foundational truth – God – and everything else makes sense. An atheist denies God and has to accept incredible explanations for everything else. It takes more faith to deny God than to believe in Him.
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press, 1983, p. 38.
Society set free from God is its own worst enemy.
Revelation, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1977, p. 274.
We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God.
Taken from Knowing God by JI Packer. Copyright(c) 1973. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, p.19. Get this book!
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager , then, without hesitation, that God exists.
Pascal’s Wager.
As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.
Men may live as if there is no God, but they cannot deny his existence.
General Revelation, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.
What do you conceive God to be like? Some would say to believe at all in a personal God requires a giant leap of faith – but I am convinced that belief in God is a far more reasonable position than atheism. Nature, the personal experience of literally billions of people, and something innate in the heart of man all testify to the existence of God.
Who Said That? Moody, 1994, p. 210.
Were all human beings suddenly to become blind, still the sun would shine by day and the stars by night, for these owe nothing to the millions who benefit from their light. So, were every man on earth to become an atheist, it could not affect God in any way. He is what He is in Himself without regard to any other. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections; to doubt Him takes nothing away.
Secret Church 2008.
Why is the Atheist’s main target always Jesus of Nazareth, and never Buddha, Confucius, or Mohammed? Why is the aspiring athlete’s target always the true champion and never the also-rans?
Beware of that practical atheism which excludes God from His own world; which excludes Him from your individual history. He is not only present in His created universe, but He is as much in personal events of life, shaping, guiding, overruling each and all.
