Author Randy Alcorn asks in his most recent book If God is Good, why it is that many atheists claim to reject God because others suffer — while so many people who do the actual suffering are drawn even closer to that same God.

While Western atheists turn from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering, many brokenhearted survivors of that same tsunami found faith in God. This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don’t suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.

Imagine eavesdropping on a conversation between [atheist and supposed "former Christian" author/activist Bart] Ehrman and the very people whose suffering he uses as an argument for disbelieving in God. After hearing Ehrman’s case, someone says, “You’ve lost your faith because of my suffering? But my faith in God has grown deeper than ever. Why would I turn away from the only one who can comfort me, the only one who has planned eternal life for me, the only one who suffered immeasurably, beyond any of us, so that one day I need suffer no longer?”

You won’t find the strongest Christian churches in the world in affluent America or Europe, where the problem of evil [as a debate issue] has the most traction. In Sudan, Christians are severely persecuted, raped, tortured, and sold into slavery. Yet many have a vibrant faith in Christ. People living in Garbage Valley in Cairo make up one of the largest churches in Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of India’s poor are turning to Christ. Why? Because the caste system and fatalism of Hinduism give them no answers. So they turn to a personal God who loves them and understands suffering. I have interviewed numbers of people who take comfort in knowing that this life is the closest they will ever come to Hell.

Later, Alcorn quotes the final “nihilism”-laced paragraphs of Ehrman’s book (which is rather cheekily titled God’s Problem). First he presents Ehrman’s encouragement to seek money, material goods, nice cars and homes and families and the good life. Then Alcorn continues with the quote:

What we have in the here and now is all that there is. We need to live life to its fullest and help others as well to enjoy the fruits of the land. … But just because we don’t have an answer to suffering does not mean that we cannot have a response to it. Our response should be to work to alleviate suffering wherever possible and to live life as well as we can.

Do you see the inconsistency here? If we follow Ehrman’s advice to “drive nice cars and have nice homes” and consume expensive meals and drinks and spend as much as we can—in fact, “the more the better”—then we will not be working to alleviate suffering whenever possible.

What percentage of the royalties from Ehrman’s best-selling book has he ear-marked for easing world suffering? If it seems unfair to ask, remember that I am merely applying the standard he expects God to live up to: using all of one’s resources to relieve suffering. Does Ehrman place himself under the same condemnation he places God? Based on the lifestyle he seems to advocate, the answer appears to be no.

These questions seemed appropriate in my response this morning to a young man who claims to embrance “nihilism.” However, he admits his life has been an easy one and he has not really suffered like others do.

And this, as Alcorn and many others note, is the problem with such religious faith in life’s supposed meaninglessness: they cannot deal with the “problem of good” any more than some Christians struggle to address the “problem of evil.” Furthermore, without belief in a God who is good, there is no “problem of evil” anyway — for no belief  or action can truly be called “evil.”

To an atheist cyber-acquaintance whom I hope will take this to mind and heart,

I’m still wondering why it seems so vital for you to “prove,” either to me or to yourself, that the Bible is not God’s Word. Are you sure it’s not because it messes with your own moral ideas? Are you sure it’s not because of the offensive ideas that God rightly judges people for their deeds?

Though you started out with a list of commonly cited errors in the Bible (each one of which an online search could easily answer), I doubt that is your main reason for faulting Christianity for evils and nastiness. Instead it is the concept of God’s Law that you find most offensive — making value judgments based on your own subjective imposition of morality, by the way. Also offensive to you is the idea that God has the right to allow evil for His greater good.

For 2,000 years Christians have addressed these same questions — they are not new, and neither are atheists’ accusations on both fronts. Also consider: Christians are people who often also struggle with these issues. Yet they continue their faith in a good and holy God Who loves His people and will redeem His creation. I do the same; I have also asked God your questions.

Try to wrap that around your mind, please, and also consider what C.S. Lewis said about all those supposedly dumb desert wanderers who wrote the Bible: they suffered a lot more.

“Reflect for five minutes on the fact that all of the great religions were first preached, and long practiced, in a world without chloroform,” Lewis gently advised.¹

So it’s approaching the worst kind of elitism to claim only we have discovered that life stinks.

Metaphors in context

It would also be approaching elitism for me to act as though I can answer all your questions to your satisfaction. Make no mistake — I can answer that long string of questions you started out with. But first, ask yourself: will you be satisfied by the answers? Are seeming contradictions in the Bible really troubling to you, or do they just give you ammunition to shoot at Christians?

First to start with one of your last points in the litany of perceived Bible errors:

If your answer to any of the above is “It’s a metaphor” explain how you tell the difference between a metaphor and a literal text.

The same way I do with anything you would write: context, plain meaning, maybe hashing it out between scholars familiar with the language and time period. Respect for the author to tell the difference (regardless of his age) helps as well — the same respect I hope I’m giving you.

Christians call this hermeneutics, and it is not nearly so vague as some assume. Unfortunately it’s becoming quite trendy to go on about how the Bible is supposedly so hard to understand.

Where are the four pillars holding up the earth? […] Are the pillars a metaphor?

Some years ago I had a fiction character answer this common objection. It’s based on — well, most often simple hearsay — but in the actual Bible, 1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6 and Psalm 75:3.

But even with just an English-language Bible I can tell from the indented margins that these are figurative expressions used in poetic praise to God. For Hebrew scholars, they can tell from the passage’s context. Some Biblical passages are difficult to discern; these aren’t among them.

Resurrection ‘contradictions’

Who was the first to the tomb, and what did they see when they got there?

Again: you’re reading this next with a sincerely kind and open mind, I hope. I don’t mean to patronize you, but your entire tone was far beyond simple challenging, and nowhere near hinting at honest inquiry. Maybe you did mean it that way, and it got lost in the style.

Let’s have my character, named is Josh, answer this. Here he’s debating an atheist on campus.

Loren read from his paper. “We have four Gospels which detail the life of Jesus Christ. He was killed on a cross by the Roman Empire.”

“Historically true,” Josh interjected. “But we all killed Him in a way—”

“That’s not relevant to my question!” Loren said back. “Wait. Now, according to the gospel of Saint Matthew, on Sunday, Mary Magda-line and someone else named Mary went to the tomb. It says the tomb was empty and there’s an angel sitting on top of a stone. In Luke it says the women found two angels, behind them. In John you don’t read about these people at all, you read only about Mary Magda-line going there first, and finding the tomb empty, and no angels. How are we supposed to figure out what happened first? How were the people back then supposed to know? It’s contradictory.”

[. . .]

Josh had to pause. For real. Answer him. Do it now! “First . . . these are four different books of the Bible. They tell about mostly different events. I’ve read each of them all the way through, at least once. Everybody has a different perspective on the life of Jesus. Matthew stresses Jewish things, and talks a lot about the kingdom of Heaven. Mark writes for people who don’t want to hear many details . . .”

“You haven’t answered the question.”

Loren had just cut him off, and he sounded annoyed. That’s good . . .

And even better, because now Josh was coming up with the answer. “There’s no mistake here, Loren. What happens when a big news event breaks?”

Loren paused before realizing the question was for him. “What?”

“Big news breaks, and reporters run all over the place. They try to get the story. They hear stuff. They put their own perspectives on things. They’ll tell you one thing happened, and maybe not mention that something else happened first. Sometimes there will be conflicting reports . . . I mean, reports that seem contradictory, but then all make sense later . . . and they’re all true. It’s the same thing with Jesus’ resurrection. The Gospel writers wrote about it differently. The details do make sense when you put them together. He died, and he rose again.”

Consider more from ApologeticsPress.org.²

Do these different lists contradict one another? No, not in any way. They are supplementary, adding names to make the list more complete. But they are not contradictory. If John had said “only Mary Magdalene visited the tomb,” or if Matthew stated, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were the only women to visit the tomb,” then there would be a contradiction. As it stands, no contradiction occurs.

By now your defenses may be up, yet I hope you’ll be enough of a good sport to keep reading.

You’ll find the “what about Jesus’ imposition of the Law to enter the Kingdom” answer at the end of this column. (I can already tell I need to continue in a second part.)

(Seemingly) endless genealogies

How many generations are there from David to Jesus, and why does Joseph have different fathers?

Another objection commonly raised by atheists, and refuted in return.

It helps us both to know — or read respectfully those who’ve studied more than either of us — something about Jewish genealogies, the Gospel writers’ intents and other factors. Otherwise we’d be guilty of imposing our own cultural expectations on people of the past. It’s also commonly held that Matthew and Luke are tracing different genealogies: Mary’s and Joseph’s.

[Jesus has] a clear blood relationship through Mary. This genealogy is listed in Luke 3. It is clearly Mary’s genealogy, rather than Joseph’s (though some scholars disagree). Joseph’s father was called Jacob in Matthew 1. Yet Luke lists the generation before Joseph as Heli. Tradition has it that this was Mary’s father.

There is more than tradition at stake, however. It is notable that Matthew, writing to Jews, deliberately breaks some typical rules of Jewish genealogies—by not giving every generation and by including women. Both these factors emphasize the fact that Jesus does not hold His kingship through Joseph.

In the same way, Luke, writing principally for Gentiles, actually does stick to the Jewish rules of genealogies, in that he includes every generation and excludes women’s names. Therefore, Joseph’s name is included instead of Mary’s. Also, it should be noted that the phrase “the son of” really means “descendent of,” and its subject, in every case, is Jesus. Therefore, the genealogy could be expanded as follows: Jesus was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph; Jesus was the descendent of Heli; Jesus was the descendent of Matthat, etc. The purpose of this genealogy is to emphasize the blood descent of Jesus from David through Mary.³

Sorry, you’ve got the wrong Christian?

Is the resurrection a metaphor? What about the four riders of the apocalypse? Is the whole thing about [representing] a metaphor? How do you tell the difference.

No. Probably. No. Hermeneutics.

And I can do my best to explain each of those further if you’re truly interested.

Are you sure you haven’t been told “it’s a metaphor” by other confused or perhaps intentionally liberal professing Christians? Have ye not read that even with older documents such as the Bible, one can most often easily discern a text’s meaning based on its culture and context? We see this in the present, discerning between the focuses of essays vs. poems, newspaper articles vs. legal codes, fiction novels versus advice columns. Why would those rules stop at Scripture?

Let’s close for now with perhaps the most important point: the myth, which I might admit Christians have often themselves confused, that Jesus ignored or downplayed God’s holy Law.

What are the requirements to enter the kingdom of heaven, and how can anyone meet them all? [… A]re the 613 laws metaphorical? If not, why do the commandments apply, but not them to a Christian [sic], despite what Jesus allegedly says about knowing and keeping the laws better than a Pharisee?

If you are talking about Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” and His other requirements for what people must do — then that is exactly the point: no one can meet all these standards.

Undoubtedly you’ve heard some well-meaning Christians imply (or even say) that God’s Law was first the standard, but now Jesus has come and God has mellowed out a bit. This is not the Biblical message, easily shown by Jesus’s statement that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

Consider busting this dumb myth further, starting with God’s Law and Jesus’ Love, part 2.

And this is the part where a Christian would start talking about the Gospel, and any atheist would be offended at the notion that he/she isn’t a “good person” — yet I hope you’d listen.

I also hope you’ll read part 2, coming soon.

Christians have a lot of clichés — that’s part of why YeHaveHeard exists. But if that ever seems annoying or depressing, it helped me today to recall that Atheists have at least as many clichés, if not more. It was with that reminder that I started this rebuttal to an Atheist, trying (I hope) to be firm and Biblical, yet also kind and loving.¹

This sounds like a series — Answers to an Atheist — thus the 1 in the title. Any suggestions for more Atheist clichés to discuss or kindly debunk? Scribble away. Opposed, like sign, if you are an Atheist or Christian who wants to pick at my responses.

Here it is.

Of clichés and chronocentrism

I’m not late, because I arrived precisely when I meant to.

First a few thoughts to [F.O.E., the Atheist], before writing further comments to resume the discussion about morality, its origins and consistency and such with Irina.

How many times is it that I have heard the adjective “petulant” ascribed to the Biblical God? I am seriously wondering whether there is a stylebook out there. However, I hope the following will not be intended as mocking (though you’ve had quite a lot of that to offer against God), but rather will all due respect, though accompanied by a bit of rebuff.

[F.O.E.], please read all of the below, and consider it (for a few days?) before responding.

The bible is the cultural relic of a millenia old desert tribe.

That’s not a very nice way to speak about the Jews (12 tribes, actually), is it?

Perhaps it’s true that despite getting over some past racism, the only acceptable group to disparage is the group of the dead (maybe because they are certainly not a minority, it’s okay to slam them). C.S. Lewis called this chronocentrism, the tendency to hold one’s self up as so much more enlightened than those stupid, nose-picking people of the past.

And I’m not even yet claiming the Bible’s inspiration — though I do know it is God’s word to man and I trust Him and His Word (more on this later, to Irina). You say this is a circular argument? You trust in yourself as ultimate authority — which is also a circular argument.

One can easily debunk Bible “falsehoods,” “contradictions” and all that with some Google searches. Throw some at me and I can likely debunk them too, and I’m not even some great theologian or expert — I just read the Bible, as much as I can and *in its own context*, and know that God is love and not the idiot you’re saying He is.

There is nothing to rebel against.

Do you really believe that?

I wonder what atheists would do for fun without those ignoramus Christians around to pick on. I’m not saying all atheists spend their lives picking on Christians, but I’m not seeing much respect at all from you, for me or of course for a Christian’s belief, much less for God Himself.

Slipping on a bad grade

You cannot prove there is a god, and the evidence is overwhelming that there isn’t.

I doubt you know what kind of evidence you would accept. Think about it. And lest you say “well, if God appeared to me and told me Himself that He existed,” I don’t buy even that answer. An atheist friend once told me that, and I challenged him whether he would really believe that this glowing, blazing being in front of him was God. At this my friend admitted that he wouldn’t accept even that. He would instead wonder if this was some alien trick.

Anything but God. If He doesn’t exist, and there’s nothing to rebel against, why the rebellion?

I am not guilty of breaking any of god’s commandments, because they do not exist.

Then why do you sound so angry against a nonexistent God and nonexistent commandments? Why your own righteous rage against hypocrites and perverts? Sorry, you show you still know there are objective moral standards, even as you argue philosophically against them. The more sobering truth is that all of us fall short of this perfect Law, and God doesn’t grade on a curve.

In the bible, murder is supposedly a sin, except when a jealous and petulant god condones it.

[…]

If your god is so wonderful, why does he not do something about the Catholic Churches protection of paedophiles and its hoard of riches, or pastors in New Jersey who sexually assault and film young girls, or Colorado pastors who preach against gays but indulge in drug-fuelled homosexual orgies?

Apparently if it were up to you, you wouldn’t “let” Him do anything about these evils, because you’ve *a priori* declared that if God condones killing or punishment, that’s “murder” and it’s Petulant™. You’ve hamstrung this nonexistent divine dunderhead just a bit, haven’t you?

Somehow I think God knows how to handle sin and sinners better than you or me.

The Biblical answer is that certainly God will punish those who do evil — from pedophiles and greedmongers, to hypocrites and sexual perverts. Right now He’s giving them a chance to repent.² And be careful what you wish for. If the Lord went ahead and nuked everyone who was evil and hated Him and His love and Law, all those not saved would be among the first to die. Based on your disregard for His existence, love and holiness, I hope that wouldn’t include you.

I’m certainly grateful God didn’t punish all evil in the world before now. Otherwise, He would have never saved me. In fact, I wouldn’t have been born.

Scripture is clear: He has a bigger picture in mind. He doesn’t punish everyone now because He is merciful and offers people the chance to turn from their sins, embrace His sacrifice and forgiveness, and live eternally as changed persons who love Him more than anything else. If you want Him to punish evil, just wait and don’t gave a rat’s rip what He’s given to you — life, a conscience, air to breath, His own love. “All get what they want. They do not always like it.”

The old line is the true line: Repent and believe the Gospel. Sorry if some professing Christians have muddled it for you, but it’s as simple as that. And I don’t even need to pressure and whine and insist that you believe it, [F.O.E.]. If God wants you, He will get to you, using my words or not.