Table of Contents
In today’s post, I will be sharing excerpts from chapter 14. This is the last chapter in Section 3 of Randy Alcorn’s book If God Is Good. In this chapter, Randy Alcorn tackles the unbeliever’s problem of extreme evil. You can find the posts of previous chapters under the heading Bible Studies in the menu above. Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures used are from the NKJV.
Introduction
Throughout his book, Randy Alcorn uses illustrations of what he would call superhuman goodness, acts of loving sacrifice, and courage that go beyond anything we might expect of human beings. These serve as evidence for the Christian/Biblical worldview that includes the supernatural presence of a good God and righteous angels.
The problem of extreme evil, however, usually takes center stage with unbelievers. It’s the most frequently cited argument against God, and many consider it the most devastating. However, upon closer examination, extreme evil may actually, be seen as evidence for God’s existence, not against it.
WARNING: This chapter contains graphic examples of evil, necessary, according to Alcorn, to address this crucial issue.
Why Extreme Evil Poses A Problem For Unbelievers
The Christian/Biblical worldview explains the existence of extreme evil far better than atheism does. If you have toured or read about medieval castles you may have learned of tortures inflicted there, that defied all reason. In most cases, the torturers had little interest in extracting information. It costs much more time and material resources to keep prisoners alive rather than simply killing them.
However, why commit evil just for evil’s sake, or why take pleasure in inflicting suffering? All pragmatic, naturalistic, and evolutionary explanations of such evil prove inadequate.
On The Other Hand
The Bible speaks of an unseen realm full of powerful spirit beings that project their cruel and malignant thoughts and wills on humans. These beings, far more powerful than humans, also exceed them in their evil. These malevolent beings push us to expand our evil beyond the boundaries of what could be expected even from fallen humans.
Since non-theists believe in nothing outside of the visible realm they must explain such evils on the basis of human perversity alone.
As Americans reeled from the events of September 11, 2001, no one explained the terrorist actions from a naturalistic worldview. A naturalistic worldview just couldn’t account for such wickedness.
Acts of Extreme Evil are Arguments for Supernaturalism
Alcorn shares in his book that he spent hours walking through Cambodia’s Killing Fields. It was a mind-numbing experience as he saw the piled-up skulls and stood by the mud pits where killers through hundreds of bodies. As he noticed a human jawbone laying at his feet, he picked it up and held it in his hand, and wept. Alcorn stated:
“The darkness felt overwhelming. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered nearly one-third of the country’s population. Yet the 3 million slaughtered in Cambodia amount to less than one*fifth of the murders by 20th-century tyrants, who killed mostly their own people. Hitler, Stalin, and Mayo accounted for most of the carnage, but the ongoing state-sponsored killing in Sudan, including the Darfur region, follows the same script. (This figure ignores the staggering number of preborn children aborted throughout the world.)” (1) (2)
Vek and Samoeun Taking’s Story
Vek and Samoeun Taking, the escorts of the small group which included Randy Alcorn shared that Samoeun’s parents both starved to death. One of her brothers was murdered; they never again heard from the other brother. Vek’s brother and sister-in-law and six of their children all perished. They stood together at a tree where the Khmer Rouge soldiers held children by their little feet, swinging them into the tree to smash their heads. Who could imagine such unthinkable, horrible evil crimes?
Randy said he just looked again at a photograph of one sign written in Cambodian, referring to the “sea of blood and tears.” The sign in its awkward English translation captured the sentiment as follows:
“We are hearing the grievous voice of the victims who were beaten by Pol Pot men with canes, bamboo stumps or heads of hoes. Who were stabbed with knives or swords. We seem to be looking at the horrifying scenes and the panic-stricken faces of the people who were dying of starvation, forced labour or torture without mercy upon the skinny body…. How bitter they were when seeing their beloved children, wives, husbands, brothers or sisters were seized and tightly bound before taking to mass grave! While they were waiting for their turn to come and share the same tragic lot.”
“The method of massacre which the clique of Pol Pot criminals was carried upon the innocent people of Kampuchea cannot be described fully and clearly in words because the invention of this killing method was strangely cruel. So it is difficult for us to determine who they are for they have the human form but their hearts are demons hearts.”
Randy Alcorn states that of all he learned on that day, the one sentence that rocked him was:
“(They have the human form, but their hearts are demons’ hearts.) That was it! Nothing on a merely human level could explain the gratuitous torture, the tireless cruelty inflicted even on helpless children. This was superhuman evil.”
Randy Alcorn
Alcorn and his wife visited the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC years before they had even a more unforgettable experience in the Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. It was the burning candles and the reading of the names of children killed in the Holocaust that remain among the most haunting and unforgettable experiences of his life. They saw sobbing men and women pouring through books to find the names of their murdered relatives. What surrounded them cried out for an explanation even bigger than human depravity.
Extreme Evil Committed By “Regular” People Demands A Superhuman Explanation
Emmanuel Ndikumana
Emmanuel Ndikumana is a Hutu married to a Tutsi. This is remarkable. in the 1994 Rwanda slaughters, Hutu militia massacred a million Tutsis, many of them hacked to death with machetes. The Tutsis then took revenge on the Hutus. Teenage classmates at Emmanuel’s school targeted him for murder.
Alcorn shared:
“Do you know what struck me the most was when Emmanuel told me of his survival? It was that the Tutsi students who tried to murder him were in every respect, very normal young people. So were most of the Hutus who butchered innocent Tutsis. Yet the gruesome murders penetrated by both sides transcended natural explanation-so what explanation remains but a supernatural one?”
Then he asks:
“Once we affirm there is supernatural evil, can we fail to recognize supernatural good? God and Satan are not equal opposites, however, if there is a Satan and demons who do evil, then doesn’t it make sense that there is a God and righteous angels who do good?”
Extreme Evil: The Nazi Doctors
Robert Lifton’s book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide documents how intelligent medical professionals participated in cruel and deadly experimental surgeries on Jewish children, with appalling ease. These men were the best-trained medical personnel in Europe. They enjoyed normal family lives and loved their children and pets, but day after day they committed shockingly cruel evils.
Then there is Bobby’s Story…
The Extreme Evil of Bobby’s Parents
In People of the Lie, psychologist Scott Peck tells the story of Bobby, a young man suffering from depression. Bobby struggled with the recent suicide of his older brother Stuart. His condition plummeted after Christmas.
Dr. Peck asked him what presents he received for Christmas. Bobby told him, “a gun.” This alarmed Peck because of Bobby’s depression, especially since the boy’s brother shot himself. Then came the horrifying truth: his parents gave Bobby the same gun Stewart had used to commit suicide. Bobby’s post-Christmas depression suddenly made sense. His seemingly normal parents, with their Christmas gift, had invited him to take his life as his brother had.
Satan and Demons are the Source of Extreme Evil
Satan and demons provide the most rational explanation for unnatural evil. In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan cites terrible evil after evil to his Christian brother, Alyosha. He speaks of Turks nailing their prisoners by the ears to fences, only to let them suffer all night and then hang them in the morning. He says,
“People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws,… He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do so. These Turks took pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mother’s womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on points of their bayonets before their mother’s eyes. (3)
Alcorn stated that while Ivan considered this an argument against God, it actually provides a compelling argument against naturalism. Ivan is right. Mere animals would never do such a thing.
Below, Ivan speaks of apparently normal people, responsible and civil to fellow adults, who delight in torturing children:
“It is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children…. It’s just their defenselessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of a child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden-the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain. (4)
Where did the ideas for such malignant evil come from? If you would read the Bible and C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters you’ll discover the answer.
The Demonic Realm
Demons prompt the killing of children. The false god Molech is a demon, that demanded the sacrifice of children. In the first of a dozen passages warning against this bloodthirsty demon, God says:
“And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 18:21
The Amplified version reads:
“You shall not give any of your children to offer them [by fire as a sacrifice] to Molech [the god of the Ammonites], nor shall you profane the name of your God [by honoring idols as gods]. I am the Lord.”
God loves children, his tiniest image bearers. Demons hate them. In killing them, demons lash out at God.
Randy goes on to reiterate that the atheistic worldview simply cannot account for superhuman evil. Death and suffering, yes. But calculated, relentless, exhausting brutality toward the weak and the innocent? The death camps? The Nazi doctors? The Killing Fields? The despicable acts of apparently “normal” people such as Bobby and Stewart’s parents?
Jesus gave us the answer when he said of Satan:
“He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” – John 8:44
Randy goes on to share that three times in his life, each unexpected, he faced the powerful presence of supernatural evil. In each case, it was distinctly not of this world. Given the world’s atrocities, he asked, “Should it surprise us that supernatural powers can influence human beings?”
After witnessing the members of Sudan’s so-called Lords Resistance Army force children to hack their parents to death with machetes (or be killed along with them), my friend heard one man respond, “I now believe in God, for I have met the devil.”
Face to Face to the Supernatural
Extreme evil can wake us up to the reality of both good and evil, testifying to the invisible realities of God and Satan.
Unbelievers and believers both call certain things utterly evil, including child abuse. Some will cite such evil as evidence against God. But others will see things for what they are and come face to face with the supernatural. When evil grows awful enough, the unbeliever may abandon the sinking ship of moral relativism and its conviction that absolute evil doesn’t exist.
Because the Christian/Biblical worldview offers a well-grounded explanation for both human and superhuman evil, and a solid basis for moral outrage, those who find themselves morally outraged owe themselves a careful look at it.
The Inadequacy Of The Atheistic View
In previous chapters, we have seen that in arguing against God’s existence, atheists often display anger at God. However, why be angry with someone who doesn’t exist? Many atheistic books and blogs seethe with anger. Remarkably, the authors do not limit their anger to only Christians. They seem most livid with God.
Alcorn states:
“I don’t believe in leprechauns, but I haven’t dedicated my life to battling them. I suppose if I believed that people’s faith in leprechauns poisoned civilization, I might get angry with members of the leprechaun churches. However. there’s one thing I’m quite sure I wouldn’t do: I would not get angry with leprechauns. Why not? Because I can’t get angry with someone I know doesn’t exist. Though I see why atheists get irritated Christians, I don’t understand why they seem so furious with God. Unless, deep inside, their atheism isn’t a rational denial of God as much as an attempt to retaliate against him.”
Andrea Weisberger
Andrea Weisberger, an atheist philosopher argues that the problem of evil makes it irrational to believe God exists. She goes so far as to not even call God “he,” and would only say “it.” Moreover, she won’t even capitalize the “g” on God.
Alcorn admits that he finds this extraordinary since Dr. Weisberger believes that God does not exist. He is just mere fiction. However, surely, she doesn’t refuse to capitalize Ebenezer Scrooge or Sherlock Holmes, both fictional characters. Or many of the other fictitious gods Zeus, Poseidon, or Hera, all fictional gods.
He says he’s left with the eerie feeling that demoting God to the lowercase might be her way of taking grammatical revenge against a deity who has profoundly disappointed her. The fact that she doesn’t bother exacting such revenge against Thor or Odin suggests she believes he’s different from those fictional gods. (5)
How might God be so different? Perhaps he actually exists.
Non-Theists Don’t Consistently Live By Their Naturalistic Worldview
Non-theists don’t consistently live by the moral relativism of their naturalistic worldview. They object to many evils, particularly when it’s done to them. The “it all depends” morality, controversial 50 years ago when called situational ethics, denies the existence of any objective standards of right and wrong. What’s wrong for one person, so it insists, may be right for another. One uses internal, not external, standards to judge morality.
People who say they believe in such a shifting ethic, however, constantly make moral judgments. They may not oppose abortion or euthanasia, but they decry rape, environmental exploitation, genocide, and child abuse. Why?
When the attacks came on September 11th, 2001, American moral relativism reached a peak. Some people, who on one day emphatically denied the existence of moral absolutes, on the next spoke against these absolutely hideous evils.
Situational Ethics Contradiction?
Alcorn while teaching a college ethics course in his earlier years read an account of a university professor who had discovered that half of his students had received photocopies of the final exam and cheated on the test. Ironically, the professor was an outspoken advocate of moral relativism. The professor felt outraged at his student’s behavior. However, shouldn’t he have congratulated them for living out the very moral framework he had taught them?
This man, like all of us, innately recognized moral absolutes. The fact that his worldview couldn’t account for them should have prompted him to seek an alternative.
Closing Thoughts
This ends the third section and section four deals with proposed solutions to the problem of evil and suffering.
You may have noticed if you have been following along that when the author speaks of a “Christian worldview” I have taken the liberty to add to the phrase “Biblical”.
Why have I chosen to do so?
George Barna is a professor at Arizona Christian University and who leads the Cultural Research Center based at the university. His recent surveys show many who call themselves “Christians” do not all believe as per the standards of God’s Holy Word, the Bible.
Soapbox Moment:
Situational ethics is nothing more than a person who is rebelling against their Creator. Again we see this among people who do not have a biblical worldview. The Scriptures are full of absolutes. God and his laws are absolutes. What God says is true in his Word is just as applicable today as it was when it was penned. This is not open for debate. God said it, and that settles it. No matter what the wolves wearing the clothing of fake shepherds try to get you to believe.
Mass Murder: Abortion is the leading cause of death in the United States. there are between 1,500 to 2,500 abortions per day. Nearly 20% of all pregnancies in the USA (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. Guttmacher Institute reports 930,160 abortions performed in 2020 in the United States, with a rate of 14.4 per 1,000 women,” Worldometers reports. When contrasting the abortion numbers to other causes of death, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, traffic accidents, and suicide, abortions far outnumbered every other cause. abortion worldwide and is 14 times more deadly than COVID.
If you have aborted your child, there is forgiveness and healing in Jesus Christ. Many have been blinded to the truth of what abortion truthfully is. IT IS NOT A HEALTHCARE RIGHT! Don’t let the media and Hollywood convenience you otherwise. SATAN HATES THE FAMILY! HE HATES YOU AND HE HATES CHILDREN.
Our Creator, God loves us enough to tell us the truth if we would only listen to him and read his Word.
Scriptures that mention the demon Molech:
Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:2-5, 1Kings 11:7, 2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 32:35.
Maranatha! Until next time, I am Passionately Loving Jesus, the Anchor of my Soul.
Sources
- : 12/25/21 – WHO states Around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year. Six out of 10 (61%) of all unintended pregnancies, and 3 out of 10 (29%) of all pregnancies, end in induced abortion. https://1.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
- https://www.lifenews.com/2023/01/02/abortion-was-the-leading-cause-of-death-worldwide-in-2022-killing-44-million-people/
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Modern Library, 1995 ), 265.
- Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 268.
- David Wood, “A Reply to Andrea Weissberg, Part 5,” The Problem of Evil, March 24, 2007, www.problemofevil
