Eternal Sovereign Justice

A “Christian” Who Lost His Faith: A Case Study

We begin Section 3 of Randy Alcorn’s book “If God Is Good” in chapter 11 titled Problems For Non-theists. Chapter 11’s title A Case Study: A “Christian” Who Lost His Faith is a look at Bart Ehrman and his best-selling book God’s Problem.

You can find any of the previous chapters under the heading Bible Studies in the menu above. Unless otherwise noted, I will be using Scriptures from the NKJV.

Why This Chapter?

Bart Ehrman is a self-described “formal evangelical Christian,” which personifies the potential consequences evangelical churches face when they fail to address the problem of evil and suffering.

Unfortunately, Ehrman’s Christian-to-non-theist testimony gives apparent credibility to his claims. Therefore, he functions as a winsome evangelist for atheism. While he states he doesn’t intend to cause believers to lose their faith, it’s easy to wonder why else he would write such a book.

Randy Alcorn points out one final point before he continues with this chapter: and that is that Bart Ehrman claims that he was a “devout and committed Christian”, a claim that is highly debatable. However, what isn’t debatable is that he once was part of the evangelical subculture.

Throughout this chapter the author Randy Alcorn looks at the following issues of Bart Ehrman:

  • His book God’s Problem documents how a “former Christian” denied his faith because he couldn’t reconcile evil and suffering with God’s goodness.
  • How Ehrman lost faith in scripture before losing faith in God.
  • The argument is that the answers given in the Bible are not only unsatisfying but contradictory.
  • Unproven premises reflect his bias, then draws logical conclusions based on his faulty premises.
  • Identification with only one biblical book, Ecclesiastes, in determining his worldview; Yet totally ignoring God’s related teachings in other books.
  • Ignores the richness of the biblical teaching about Heaven and the New Earth.
  • Ehrman has become an atheist poster boy, presenting himself as a reverse C. S. Lewis, compelled by intellectual honesty to abandon his faith.
  • Portrays himself as a courageous figure, when in fact he has moved from an academically unpopular viewpoint to a popular one.

God’s Problem Introduction

Randy Alcorn begins by looking at Bart Ehrman’s self-introduction to his book God’s Problem.

Bart Ehrman begins:

The problem is suffering has haunted me for a very long time. It was what made me begin to think about religion when I was young and led me to question my faith when I was older. Ultimately, it was the reason I lost my faith.

For most of my life I was a devout and committed Christian… Early in my high school days I started attending a youth for Christ club and had a “born again” experience… I chose to go off to Moody Bible institute in Chicago where I began training for ministry…. At Princeton I did both a Master of Divinity degree, training to be a minister and, eventually a PhD in New Testament studies.

I had solid Christian credentials and knew about the Christian faith from inside out, in the years before I lost my faith… I served as a youth pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church… but then… I started to lose my faith. I now have lost it all together. I no longer go to church, no longer believe, no longer consider myself a Christian. The subject of this book is the reason why.

Bart D. Ehrman, God’s Problem (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 1-3.

Man’s Problem With God’s Plan

Ehrman lost faith in Scripture before losing faith in God. Ehrman referring to his earlier book, Misquoting Jesus, said that his belief in the bible’s truthfulness diminished the more, he studied it.

He decided it was not God’s inerrant revelation, “but a very human book with all the marks of having come from human hands.” He stated that he left Christianity kicking and screaming. Ehrman also stated:

“I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things. For many people who inhabit this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to a point where I simply could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it.

Ehrman, God’s Problem, 3.

Randy Alcorn believes that Ehrman seems to want the reader to suppose that disbelieving Scripture did not contribute to Ehrman’s loss of faith. However, Alcorn asks “how could it do otherwise?”

Once we call some parts of the Bible false, on what basis do we judge other parts true?

We all trust something. When we abandon trust in God’s revelation we replace it with trust in our own feelings, opinions, and preferences, or those of our friends and teachers, all of which can drift with popular culture, including academic culture.

Ehrman’s story should challenge us to come to the problem of evil and suffering with a Christian worldview rooted in a well-informed belief in the reliability and authority of God’s Word. If we vacillate on that conviction, we will first reinterpret the Bible, then outright reject it.

NOTE: You may like to review these related posts:

Contradictory Answers?

Ehrman argues that the answers given in the Bible are not only unsatisfying but they’re contradictory. Oddly, he thinks that the Bible’s answers vary, which makes them contradictory.

The idea that they supplement one another doesn’t seem to occur to him. While Ehrman finds it troubling that the Bible approaches the issue in different ways, I find it reassuring.

No single reason gives a sufficient explanation, but different threads of biblical insight, woven together, form a durable fabric.

Alcorn also finds the book subtitle iconic: How The Bible Fails To Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer.

The problem is not that the Bible fails to answer it; Ehrman himself documents that it offers multiple answers. He simply doesn’t believe them.

Faulty Premises

Ehrman states unproven premises reflecting his bias, then draws logical conclusions based on his faulty premises. Ehrman summarizes, often accurately, the biblical teaching. Then he disagrees with it, usually citing no authority beyond his personal opinion. He seems to assume that any rational person would join him in rejecting Scripture’s claims.

Ehrman uses phrases such as “scholars now believe” as if some universally recognized group of experts passes judgment reliably and unanimously, rather than that a large array of authors start with different presuppositions and reach different conclusions.

He would write more truthfully if he stated, “the scholars I agree with believe…”

If Ehrman began with true premises, he might arrive at valid conclusions. Unfortunately, readers who lack familiarity with the Scriptures will have no way of knowing when his assumptions are false.

Ecclesiastes

Ehrman identifies with only one biblical book, Ecclesiastes in determining his worldview; yet he totally ignores that book’s God-related teachings.

What’s interesting is that Alcorn found 40 instances where Ecclesiastes directly speaks of the God that Ehrman says doesn’t exist.

Randy Alcorn summarizes what Ecclesiastes says about God, not only for the benefit of its teaching but to demonstrate the inaccuracy of Ehrman’s claims that the book supports his worldview.

NOTE: You can read my collection of what the Scriptures state concerning our Heavenly Father in Ecclesiastes here.

Ecclesiastes affirms that despite the apparent emptiness of life as viewed without an eternal perspective, the only answer to the meaning of life is to fear and obey the Creator God, preferably before life’s greatest hardships fall (see Ecclesiastes 12:1–3).

From where does evil come? As The Message words it, Ecclesiastes answers, “God made men and women true and upright; we’re the ones who’ve made a mess of things” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come….Then man goes to his eternal home… and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 5, 7).

When we limit our perspective to the horizons of this world, life is indeed meaningless. But that is not how Ecclesiastes ends. It concludes with an emphatic message that cuts through the apparent meaninglessness and uncertainties of life, right to the heart of our existence:

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

Heaven and the New Earth

Ehrman ignores the richness of the biblical teaching about Heaven and the New Earth. He states:

“the Christian notions of heaven and hell reflect a development of this notion of a resurrection, but it is a notion that has been transformed, transformed because of the failed apocalyptic expectations of Jesus and his earliest followers.

Ehrman, God’s Problem, 258.

In nearly 300 pages, there are but five sentences comprising the book’s one paragraph about Heaven.

As we will see in chapter 28, the biblical teaching of Heaven and the New Earth was not some after-the-fact development by disappointed Christians. Without the teaching of eternal life with God and his people on a resurrected Earth in a redeemed universe, the biblical case for evil being defeated and suffering being redeemed does not stand up.

That Ehrman would make this stunning omission reveals a gaping hole in his understanding of the biblical doctrine of eternal life with God in a resurrected universe. Therefore, Bart Ehrman’s case appears persuasive only because of what he leaves out.

The climatic teaching of “no more tears, no more crying, and no more pain” as well as “no more curse” is the single greatest assurance that God will put an end to evil and suffering while demonstrating that God’s redemptive purposes are worth the cost of temporary suffering.

Randy Alcorn

An Atheist Poster Boy

Just as Christians elevate the testimonies of former atheists who have come to Christ, so do atheists elevate Ehrman. I’m convinced that many Christians, younger and older, have faced very similar to which Ehrman abandoned – on the verge of being persuaded to jettison their weak faiths by college professors utilizing Ehrman’s kind of arguments.

Considering the great number of young people who reject their faith as college students or young adults, we need to ask ourselves two questions:

  1. What are we doing to help nominally Christian young people come to a true faith in Christ?
  2. What are we doing to help youthful genuine Christians go deeper in exploring Scripture, learning sound theology, and developing a truly Christian worldview and not a superficial one?

Ehrman portrays himself as a courageous figure when in fact he has moved from an academically unpopular viewpoint to a popular one. At times in the book Ehrman seems to congratulate himself on his courage.

He alludes to strained relationships among family and friends because of rejecting Christ. No doubt, but he doesn’t address the other side of the story.

On a university campus, how much courage does it take to roll your eyes and caricature evangelical Christianity?

In his professional circles, at least, Ehrman could expect to find far more support for his unbelief than his belief.

The human heart finds it appealing to reject a God who makes claims on our lives and who promises to judge us.

Where Faith Grows Deepest

Ehrman never mentions that while people living in relative comfort reject faith in God due to the problem of evil, those subjected to the worst evil and suffering often turn to God.

To his credit, Ehrman acknowledges he’s lived “the good life” and has avoided great suffering.

But isn’t it remarkable that from Sudan to China to Cambodia to El Salvador, faith in God grows deepest in places where evil and suffering have been greatest?

Randy Alcorn stated: “The great majority of human beings who have ever lived, nearly all who have faced evil and suffering worse than Ehrman or as I have, still believed in God.

Were they all primitive and stupid? Ehrman assumes he knows something that they didn’t. But what if they knew something he doesn’t?

JUST BECAUSE A BELIEF IS MODERN DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE.

Many western atheists turned from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering. However, 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.

The Strongest Christian Churches

You won’t find the strongest Christian churches in the world in affluent America or Europe, where the problem of evil 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 Village 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.

Randy Alcorn shares that he has interviewed many people who have taken comfort in knowing that this life is the closest they will ever come to hell. Many Christians who have faced evil and suffering embrace their faith with greater conviction.

Alcorn’s Interview with the Willis’s

While reading Ehrman’s book, Randy Alcorn interviewed Scott and Janet Willis concerning the tragedy of losing six children.

An unskilled truck driver who obtained his license through bribery allowed a large object to drop into a Milwaukee freeway in front of the Willis van. Their van’s gas tank exploded killing six of their children. Scott Willis shared:

The depth of our pain is indescribable. However, the Bible expresses our feelings that we sorrow, but not as those without hope. What gives us our firm foundation for hope are the Words of God found in Scripture… Ben, Joe, Sam, Hank, Elizabeth, and Peter are all with Jesus Christ. We know where they are. Our strength rests in God’s word.

The Willis family story is exactly the kind that Bart Ehrman features as overwhelming evidence for God’s nonexistence.

Yet, when Alcorn interviewed this couple fourteen years after the tragic event, Janet said, “today I have a far greater understanding of the goodness of God than I did before the accident.”

At the end of the two-hour conversation, Scott Willis said, “I have a stronger view of God’s sovereignty than ever before”

Scott and Janet did not say that the accident itself strengthened their view of God’s sovereignty. Indeed, Scott’s overwhelming sense of loss initially prompted suicidal thoughts. Rather, their faith grew as they threw themselves upon God for grace to live each day.

“I turned to God for strength,” Janet said, “because I had no strength”. She went to the Bible with a hunger for God’s presence, and He met her. “I learned about him. He made sense when nothing else made sense. If it weren’t for the Lord, I would have lost my sanity.”

Randy Alcorn asked Scott and Janet, “what would you say to those who reject the Christian faith because they say no plan of God, nothing at all, could possibly be worth the suffering of your children, and your suffering over all these years?”

“Eternity is a long time,” Janet replied. “It will be worth it. Our children’s suffering was brief, and they have the eternal joy of being with God. We and their grandparents have suffered since. But our suffering has been small compared to our children’s joy. 14 years is a short time compared to eternity. We’ll be with them there, forever.”

La Rochefoucauld may have best captured the difference between Ehrman’s lost faith and Willis’s deepened faith: “A great storm puts out a little fire, but it feeds a strong one.”

If Ehrman Would Refocus…

Ehrman would benefit from spending more time talking with people whose faith increased in the midst of horrific suffering.

Randy Alcorn states that If Ehrman has spoken with people like the Willis’s, he never mentions it. However, Ehrman does cite the Holocaust as evidence that God doesn’t exist.

We need to consider as Randy Alcorn argues that there are some who lived through the Holocaust that has come to a radically different conclusion. Moreover, it completely defies Ehrman’s logic.

Ehrman decries God for not doing enough to diminish suffering and then concludes we shouldn’t hesitate to spend our money on ourselves. He argues that a good God would never withhold relief that was in his power to give, then comes to a revealing conclusion:

“I think we should work hard to make the world, the one we live in, the most pleasing place it can be for ourselves… We should do what we can to love life—it’s a gift and it will not be with us for long.

Ehrman, God’s Problem, 277.

Resisting the urge to ask how life can be a gift if it has no giver, Alcorn quotes Ehrman’s final sentences of God’s problem:

“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.”

Ehrman, God’s Problem, 277–78.

Randy Alcorn points out the inconsistency here. He states: “ 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 wherever possible.

Christian Students are Easy Targets

Bart Ehrman’s evangelical heritage serves as a warning to Christian families, churches, and schools: we need to carefully address the problem of evil. Even Christians who do not outright reject their faith may quietly lose confidence and commitment because of their struggle with this issue. Christian students in every university, including Christian ones, face frequent, impassioned arguments against biblical teachings, whether from professors, fellow students, or textbooks.

Most Christian students have seldom personally faced the problem of evil and suffering, and in most cases are inadequately prepared to deal with it. Knowing a few Bible stories proves insufficient when facing an issue of the magnitude of evil and suffering.

Churches and small groups can study and discuss a book such as If God Is Good (Alcorn recommends others as well). Families can interact with these issues at age-appropriate levels. We should not allow culture or schools to lead the way in shaping our worldview, or our children’s.

The Real Problem

Bart Ehrman’s presumptuous title of his book is off-center; the problem of evil is man’s problem with God, not God’s problem.

While God suffers with his children, he does not struggle with his attributes and decisions. He knows what will be worth it in the end. He knows how his goodness, omnipotence, and wisdom fit with evil and suffering. It would be more accurate if Bart Ehrman titled his book My Problem.

The problem of evil and suffering is not God’s problem. It is Bart Ehrman’s problem… and yours, and mine.

God questions Job, “Will the one who contends with The Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!… who has a claim against me that I must pay?” (Job 40:2; Job 41:11)

God has not asked us to give Him a performance review so that He may do a better job the next time He creates a universe or devises a redemptive plan.

Rather, He promises that at The Judgment He will give us a review when we stand before God. We will either thank Him for the justifying work of Christ, or we will face the problem of trying to justify ourselves on some other basis.

That will be the real problem.

A Few Additional Resources

I hope that you are finding help by going through this book with me. As we come to the close of this age, evil and suffering will increase until the Lord’s Second Coming establishes His reign upon this earth for 1000 years.

I have listed a few additional resources below which you may want to review.

Maranatha! Until next time, I am Passionately Loving Jesus, the Anchor of my Soul.

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