A Pactical Application of Van Tilian Prusuppositional Apologetcs

 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 

By: Dr. Greg Bahnsen 

        This book is about knowing some kinds of objection which are raised against the Christian faith by those who disagree with the biblical worldview. This is thought by many to be the most difficult of all the problems which apologists face. Man’s inhumanity to man is notorious in every age of history and in very nation of the world. In this world we have the story of a long oppression, indignity, unkindness, torture in tyranny because of the power that they have. We also find war and murder greed and lust, dishonesty and lies. We also encounter fear and hatred, infidelity and cruelty, poverty and racial hostility. Moreover, even in the natural world we come across so much apparently needless suffering and pain.

We Christian need to understand the reality and serious nature of evil. And the subject of evil is not only the heinous crime that everybody should know. Even in the small things the evil will overtake that to catch you. A well known passage from the pen of the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, readily stirs our emotions and makes us insistent about the wickedness of men, for instance men who are cruel to little children. It is found in his novel, Brothers Karamazov.

The problem of evil is much more serious challenge to the Christian faith. The problem of evil amounts to the charge that there is logical incoherence within the Christian outlook—regardless of how much evil there is in the universe, compared to how much goodness can be found. If Christianity is logically incoherent, no amount of positive, factual evidence can save its truth. The 18^th century Scottish philosopher, David Hume, expressed the problem of evil in a strong and challenging fashion. “Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then He is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” What Hume is arguing is that the Christian cannot logically accept these three premises: God is all powerful, God is all-good, and nevertheless evil exist in the world.

Accordingly, it is crucial to unbeliever’s case against Christianity to be in a position to assert that there is evil in the world—to point to something and have the right to evaluate it is an instance of evil. Perhaps the unbeliever takes good to be whatever evokes public approval. However, on that basis the statement “The vast majority of the community heartily approved of and willingly joined in the evil deed” could never make sense. Intuitionism would suggest that goodness is an indefinable property which we do not come to know empirically or through nature, but intuitively.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

How the unbeliever can make sense of taking evil seriously? What philosophy of values or morality can the unbeliever offer which render it meaningful to condemn some atrocity as objectively evil? If the Christian biblical principles is the basis unbelievers cannot actually discern divine spiritual moral values in the bible says Psalm 1:1-6.But some of the unbelievers they’re doing good or doing good works and that’s is our mission to share God’s word and telling the truth that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and the essential is to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. But those who take evil seriously are ungodly, wicked people those are murderers, scorers, practices witchcraft etc. On this book it showed that unbelievers have a different point of view, contrasting about the belief, lack of faith. Also the unbelievers they’re had no intimate relationship with GOD for me this is the ultimate reason why the unbelievers still don’t believe the existences of the evil and also they are spiritually blame.

              God can maintain sovereignty through morally responsible beings freely choosing according to their desires, establishing man's responsibility, while accomplishing the good and perfect will of God in accordance with all that God decrees. Man is not forced to act against His will in choosing evil, but has freely acted, unknowingly resulting in the fulfillment of the decrees of God.

              God is all powerful God in His perfect goodness is not the author of sin nor has He in any way forced or coerced man to sin against his own free will. God's decree and foreordination of sin in the world was accomplished by mankind freely choosing according to each individual's own desires. God has never laid aside His goodness at any time in eternity nor has He forced or enticed man to sin for such involvement would be sin in itself. From the beginning his goodness and power has revealed. 

              In the beginning evil exists or happen from the story of Eve and Adam, from the book of Job and also in life of Abraham here we know that the evil is already exists because God allowed it, and surely God has a perfect reason why he did it for. But the unbelievers they don’t still believe because of the problem in their mentality, physiologically that they are walking by sight not by faith they also the problem is the they are refusing our God, they ignoring the truth , they are not believing by the power of our GOD and by his goodness. If the unbelievers is trying to open their heart and mind and they willing to know who is God for sure they experience the power of God to conquer the torment that we experience here in this word and we conquer the evil exists that God permitted to happen. God has a wonderful reason why he is allowing this. As a believers we should trust God wholeheartedly and believe by his goodness, kindness , his power , his grace and mercy that everything happens has a perfect reason.

              Evil supposed to be the punishment for sinning God’s warning against for their sins. God gives man free will the ability to choice the direction to do good or evil. Many Christian say much better have a world with dignity than a choice the evil to make creature automaton or a robot which is right but we cannot fathom God sovereign and his thoughts. Still God works through evil, God works through restraining evil, God illuminate evil eventually and    God clean-up the mess someday. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent in the bible verse Isaiah 55:9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.