VOLUME 24.3 I WWW.RZIM.ORG

THE MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES JUST THINKING

+ MUST THE MORAL LAW HAVE A LAWGIVER? PAGE 02 LONGING TO COMFORT PAGE 22

NO MATTER THE COST PAGE 26 BY HIS HAND PAGE 30 Just Thinking is a teaching resource of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and exists to engender thoughtful engagement with apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRant Editor

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HELPING THE THINKER BELIEVE. HELPING THE BELIEVER THINK. TABLE of CONTENTS VOLUME 24.3

22 Longing To Comfort A painful situation with her young daughter causes Naomi Zacharias to look at her relationship with God in a new light—revealing how we often relegate God to the sidelines when grief or anger arises. 02 Must the Moral Law Have a Lawgiver? John Njoroge carefully examines the arguments made by atheists that we don’t need God to understand morality and offers several reasons why their conclusions are unsustainable. 26 No Matter the Cost Andy Bannister considers the troubling reality that many people, including Christians, lack conviction because they have no absolute sense of right and wrong.

36 One Question 30 As one who has stood before By His Hand various audiences around the “Without knowledge of self there world facing hard questions is no knowledge of God,” wrote for over four decades now, John Calvin. Danielle DuRant Ravi Zacharias can almost observes how the gospel offers predict one question he will the most plausible and hopeful get in nearly every setting, understanding of who we are whether in a public forum and why we are here. or private conversation. Must the Moral Law Have a Lawgiver? By John Njoroge

Atheists don’t believe we need God to understand what is right and wrong. Yet, Christians point to a moral law that is written on our hearts by God, and our conscience testifies either for us or against us with regard to morality.

[2] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES efore I respond directly to the entirety of one’s being, including the question raised in the title of mind—a major part of the Greatest this article, let me say a word Commandment (Matthew 22:37-8)—is Babout what I take to be the not only commanded in the Scriptures, place of arguments for God’s but it is also integral to spiritual growth. existence. To the person who has walked Moreover, it is true that a rational pres- with God for any length of time and who entation of the gospel routinely serves as has experienced firsthand the reality of the catalyst that propels many to faith in God’s work in his or her life, offering God. For some people, the way to their arguments for God’s existence can feel as heart is through their mind. And when awkward as planning a surprise birthday the will is right—when what we want is to party for Auntie Jenny in her presence. I submit to a reality not of our own mak- suppose most people do not believe in ing—we find that God has really put us in God as the end result of logically airtight a world fraught with clues of his holy pur- conclusions built upon indisputable suit. Among other things, we are rational premises; they are first confronted with beings, and it stands to reason that our their own sinfulness and the need to be minds, properly chastened, should not be reconciled with a Holy God as encapsu- at war with the truth, wherever it may be lated in the gospel message and then found. To quote the legendary scientist build a rational case for their newfound Galileo, faith as questions, and sometimes doubts, arise.1 We should be careful not to over- I do not feel obliged to believe that emphasize the intellect at the expense of the same God who has endowed us the will. Just like any other good thing our with senses, reason and intellect has Lord has freely given to us, we can use intended us to forego their use and reason to conceal our flight from Him. by some other means to give us When it comes to making a decision knowledge which we can attain either for or against God, the defining by them.2 issue is the deceptively simple question Jesus asked the disciples of John the So, what do our senses, reason, and Baptist who expressed interest in follow- intellect tell us regarding the existence of ing Jesus, “What do you want?” (John God? There are many different strands of 1:38). Doubt and skepticism are valid pos- evidence available to us in answer to this tures as long as they are motivated by the question. We could, for example, consider search for truth rather than a repudiation the origin and complexity of the universe, of it.What we want to be the case can the presence of information in the DNA, keep us from accepting what is in fact the the origin of life and consciousness, bibli- case, in spite of the amount of evidence at cal history, including the resurrection of our disposal. Elsewhere, Jesus puts it this Jesus, and our immediate experience of way, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God. In this article, I will concentrate on God will find out whether my teaching the moral nature of our universe, which I comes from God or whether I speak on take to be one of the peskiest pointers to my own” (John 7:17, emphasis added). God for anyone who is intent on turning Nevertheless, there is indeed a his or her back on Him. place for taking a step back to consider In what follows, I will offer some the nature of the rational evidence that of the reasons why I believe we cannot may be marshaled in defense of our faith. make adequate sense of our experience of The process of loving God with the morality without God. My goal is not to

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [3] focus on the moral argument as a whole you must affirm a moral law on but on the obligatory or normative aspect the basis of which to differentiate of the moral law that I will argue cries out between good and evil. But when for a moral lawgiver. As the philosopher you admit to a moral law, you must Immanuel Kant noted several centuries posit a moral lawgiver.3 ago, morality is largely constituted by cat- egorical imperatives: nonnegotiable rules of Now, anyone who may be unfamil- behavior to which every human being iar with the academic literature on the must conform. I will argue that such a source of our moral intuitions might be demand makes sense only if there exists a surprised to learn that most philosophers moral lawgiver who made us as moral who teach ethics, including atheists, agents capable of apprehending an objec- accept almost each one of the claims tive moral standard external to us and Ravi makes in the above quote. In popu- applying it to ourselves. We exist in a lar culture (and in a few academic circles world that comes packaged with a moral as well), there are various attempts to law that we did not invent. We discover it explain morality in terms of evolution, and once we do, we find that we are bound social contracts, relativism, etc.4 Much of by it. This is, indeed, our Father’s world! the interaction on moral issues tends to take place at that level in popular circles. THE MORAL ARGUMENT And because there exists a gap between Like hundreds of other young men and the academy and the so-called masses women I have met in my travels around (and we are all members of the “masses” the globe, my first foray into system- outside our professional or academic atized philosophical thinking as it applies disciplines), addressing these topics in to Christian apologetics was occasioned the manner in which the masses grapple by a “chance” encounter with the spell- with them is vitally important. But binding lectures and messages of Ravi academic ethicists realize that morality Zacharias, especially his 1992 Veritas is too central and binding a reality in Forum lectures at Harvard University human experience to be relegated either that eventually found their way into his to individual or collective human will, provocatively titled book Can Man Live desires, or beliefs. Nor can it be Without God. I was barely out of my adequately understood on the basis teenage years, and I had traveled to the of social contracts or evolution. US to study medicine. But God used That morality is objective, binding, Ravi’s messages to lead me on a different and inevitable is most evident to us when path as I came to terms with the infinite we are either the victims of injustice or value of God’s Word, properly communi- when our sympathies for the helpless are cated. The rest, as they say, is history. awakened. Everything within us cries out One of the points Ravi emphasized against such experiences. A number of in his lectures, one that I found to be years ago, I read a story about a woman quite persuasive, was the fact that there is who had given birth through C-section in a very compelling link between morality a certain country. In the process of the and God. Here is a succinct summary of delivery, something went horribly wrong. his argument in response to a question: The doctors, one would hope inadver- tently, inflicted deep wounds on the When you say there is evil, aren’t baby’s face. The baby could not breathe you admitting there is good? When and breastfeed at the same time. The you accept the existence of goodness, doctors assured the mother that the baby

[4] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES would be fine in a couple of days and true if God exists. Morality is indeed encouraged her to take the baby home. grounded in God. Once one begins to Well, the baby got worse. When the realize that morality is not relative, that it mother took the baby back to the hospi- cannot be grounded in biological evolu- tal, she discovered that, to her horror, the tion, and that it cannot be fully explained hospital staff had purged all the records on the basis of social conventions or indi- of her ever having been to the hospital. vidual taste, one immediately feels drawn They told her that if she ever set foot in to the conclusion that God must exist. that hospital again, they would call the In my travels, I have discussed the police on her because of what she had claims I’ve made so far with a lot of people, done to her own baby. It is impossible including atheists. I find that most people for me to imagine any morally healthy accept our thinking thus far. They believe person reading such a story without that there is something rationally duplici- reacting strongly against the injustice. tous about claiming that there is an An unabashed craving for justice is objective set of dos and don’ts imposed deeply woven into the very fiber of our upon human beings while denying that being, and it is strongly awakened in God exists. such moments. But as Ravi notes, such “That is simply preposterous!” one a reaction betrays the fact that we are self-proclaimed atheist friend said to me. very much aware of the existence of a “Only a person who just wants to avoid moral law that applies to all of us. We God would grant the objectivity of can’t complain about evil without at the morality while rejecting God. If there same time invoking the primacy of good, is an objective moral standard, then there and to do so is to acknowledge that is a moral lawgiver, which means God morality is objective. exists.” For most people, what we have said We both laughed out loud when I so far is enough to establish the depend- uttered a hearty “Amen!” in response. As ence of morality on God. All the pieces an aside, you may be wondering how my we need to build that puzzle are not only friend could still describe himself as an present but in their rightful places. We atheist if he believed morality points to know that some things are really wrong. God. Sadly, he chooses to deny morality. Other things are really right, and there is He agrees that if you accept that morality an objective moral standard that helps us is objective, then you must believe in differentiate between the two. We also God. But, he reasons, if you reject morality, sense quite strongly that this can only be then you don’t need to worry about

For most people, what we have said so far is enough to establish the dependence of morality on God. All the pieces we need to build that puzzle are not only present but in their rightful places. We know that some things are really wrong. Other things are really right, and there is an objective moral standard that helps us differ- entiate between the two. We also sense quite strongly that this can only be true if God exists. Morality is indeed grounded in God.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [5] morality pointing you to God. As we will pens to be the most important, i.e., the see later, my friend is not alone in this. direct link between morality and God. But yes, I did let him know that denying The controversy is centered on the last morality—denying that some things are line of Ravi’s quote: the claim that it is really evil and some things are really not possible to have a moral law without good, regardless of what anyone says—is a moral lawgiver. just as preposterous. That conversation For reasons such as the ones we’ve reminded me of the following quip by already talked about, most philosophers GK Chesterton, are unwilling to deny the reality of moral- ity. They agree that acknowledging that If it be true (as it certainly is) that a good and evil exist invokes an objective man can feel exquisite happiness moral law, but they also think that the skinning a cat, then the religious moral law stands on its own without any philosopher can make one or two need for further justification. In other deductions. He must either deny words, one does not need to appeal to a the existence of God, as all atheists moral lawgiver to acknowledge that there do; or he must deny the present is indeed a moral standard that is inde- union between God and man, as all pendent of human decisions, will or desires, Christians do. The new theologians and that helps us differentiate between seem to think it a highly rationalis- good and evil. For example, atheist tic solution to deny the cat.5 philosopher Louise Anthony writes,

Our experience of morality, espe- I take it that theists and atheists cially when we are the victims of injustice, will agree about what it means to is too powerful to be illusory. To deny say that morality is objective: first, that there are things that are right, and whether something is right or others wrong, is as absurd as denying the wrong does not depend on any cat as in Chesterton’s example. But if the human being’s attitudes toward it, point is so obvious, and if so many have and second, moral facts are inde- turned to God on the basis of the pres- pendent of human will.6 sure morality puts on their unbelief, how is it possible that some of the leading Similarly, Erik Wielenberg, also an ethics professors in the best of our uni- atheist, writes, “[My view] is non-theistic in versities around the world can affirm the that it implies that objective morality objectivity of morality while rejecting does not require a theistic founda tion; God? How do they manage to have their indeed, the view implies that objective cake and eat it too? morality does not require an external foundation at all.”7 Other examples could DENYING THE CAT: be given. OBJECTIVE MORALITY To understand how someone can WITHOUT GOD accept that morality is objective while If you are reading carefully, you will note rejecting the existence of God, we will that I said that most ethicists, including look at two of the best arguments for the atheists, accept almost each one of the position. These arguments are (1) we can claims Ravi makes in the quote above. make perfect sense of objective morality So what part of the argument do they without God, and (2) invoking God in dispute? Unfortunately, the most hotly discussions about morality actually creates debated part of the argument also hap- more problems than it solves.

[6] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES Before we delve into the arguments, You know immediately that you let’s first say a word about “arguments” in ought to draw the following conclusion: logic. An argument in logic is not a quar- 3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. rel. It is the juxtaposition of statements in such a way that the truth of one of You know immediately and instinc- those statements (called the conclusion) tively that the conclusion follows from is entailed by the other statement(s), the premises. In addition, if you pardon which are called premise(s). Logical con- the pun, you know immediately that 2+2 sistency is one of the tests of the truth of is equal to 4. These are truths that are a worldview, so logic is extremely impor- simply a part of reality, truths that we tant. But logic calls for clear thinking, employ in our day-to-day lives without which can be hard at times. Like Apostle invoking God, or so the argument goes. Peter, I invite you to “gird up the loins According to this thinking, moral truths of your mind” and join me on a mental work the same way. They are just there as adventure. It will be rough going in part of reality, and we apprehend them places, but I promise you the trip is more and use them in the same way we appre- than worth it. As followers of Jesus hend and use truths of logic and mathe- Christ, logic is our friend, not our enemy. matics. We do not need God to appre- hend and apply these truths to our lives. I. CAN WE REALLY MAKE However, I hope you can spot a SENSE OF OBJECTIVE move that has been played on us, which MORALITY WITHOUT GOD? makes this argument seem much more The first argument for morality without compelling so far than it really is. Namely, God is fairly easy to grasp. It is simply the we have switched from talking about claim that morality is not different from where morality comes from (what it is other truths that we grasp about our uni- grounded in) to talking about how we verse without having to appeal to God. It know about morality. To use some fancy is not different, for example, from our philosophical terms, the former is an grasp of logical and mathematical truths. ontological task (concerning the nature of Consider the following argument, one that reality), the latter an epistemological one is found in many logic textbooks. Suppose (concerning the nature of knowledge and you were given these two premises, how we acquire it). Even if it is true that we apprehend moral truths in the same 1.All men are mortal. way that we apprehend logical and math- 2. Socrates is a man ematical truths (which I believe is true),

I hope you can spot a move that has been played on us, which makes this argument seem much more compelling so far than it really is. Namely, we have switched from talking about where morality comes from (what it is grounded in) to talking about how we know about morality. To use some fancy philosophical terms, the former is an ontological task (concerning the nature of reality), the latter an epistemological one (concerning the nature of knowledge and how we acquire it).

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [7] Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

[8] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES it does not follow that morality is not ment would be too weak to convince pro- grounded in God. It could be the case fessional ethicists to accept morality that God made us in such a way that we while rejecting God, though it regularly are in fact able to apprehend laws of works at the level of the masses. So we mathematics, logic, and morality immedi- must now consider the second step taken ately. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures in defense of the argument. Philosophers teach that this is exactly what happened, proceed to point out that logical, mathe- specifically with regard to the moral law. matical, and moral facts are necessary In Romans 2:14-15, the apostle Paul truths. When philosophers say that writes, something exists necessarily, they mean that it has always existed and it will Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not always exist. It is not possible for it not to have the law, do by nature things exist. That, we should note, is what we required by the law, they are a law believe about God. He is from everlasting for themselves, even though they to everlasting. His existence is uncaused do not have the law, since they show —He simply exists. that the requirements of the law The argument follows similar logic are written on their hearts, their in maintaining that, in addition to God consciences also bearing witness, who is a necessary Being, there are other and their thoughts now accusing, necessary entities, and they include the now even defending them. laws of mathematics and the laws of logic. Laws of mathematics and logic sim- The requirements of the law are ply exist. Even God, who is a rational written on our hearts, and our conscience Being, must follow these laws. He cannot testifies either for us or against us with violate them, the argument continues, regard to morality. That is why God and it makes no sense to ask where they judged Gentile nations in the Old came from or what they are grounded in. Testament for their evil behavior, even Now, if the laws of logic and mathe- though they did not have the Bible. They matics can exist without any need for a ought to have known better. That is why logical or mathematical lawgiver, the God judges people who have never read argument continues, why can’t the laws of the Bible and who may not care about it. morality exist in the same way? Why do They ought to know better. So, we should we need a lawgiver for the moral law but not let a skeptic get away with saying that not for logical or mathematical laws? since we can tell the difference between Those who insist on uncoupling morality right and wrong without appealing to from God obviously insist that we should God, we don’t need God to ground understand the laws of morality in the morality. A good number of skeptics same way that we understand the laws of think pointing out that we can tell the logic and mathematics. The moral law difference between right and wrong all by also exists necessarily and it therefore ourselves is enough to dissociate morality doesn’t need to be grounded in anything. from God. It is not enough. How we I hope you can now appreciate the learn about morality and what morality is reason why so many philosophers find grounded in are two very different ques- this argument in support of the claim tions. that we can make sense of morality with- But if that were the only reason out God compelling. But before we offer given for the claim that we can make a response, let’s review the argument sense of morality without God, the argu- briefly. We are simply aware of the laws of

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [9] morality in the same way we apprehend they exist necessarily needs to be defend- the laws of mathematics and logic. We ed, not just asserted. Showing that some- responded by saying the question we are thing exists necessarily is not the same answering is not how we come to know thing as showing that it needs no expla- about these laws but what they are nation for its existence. To state the point grounded in. The part of the argument differently, something can exist necessari- we are considering now is the claim that ly and still require an explanation for its since these laws are unalterable, non- existence. As far as I know, there is no negotiable, and they exist necessarily, we good reason to think that once one shows therefore don’t need to ask where they that something exists necessarily, questions come from or what they are grounded in. about what explains its existence become They have always existed, and they will irrelevant. As a matter of fact, argues always exist. Even God cannot change William Lane Craig, such a position can them. Now we must respond to this sec- be shown to be false. He writes, ond strand of the argument. In response to the argument, we The assumption here seems to be begin by noting a couple of things. First, that necessary truths cannot stand we are now well beyond the boundaries to one another in relations of atheists normally draw around the ulti- explanatory priority. Not only do I mate nature of reality. We are regularly see no reason to think that assump- told that all of reality can be fully tion true, but it strikes me as obvi- explained by matter, energy, and the ously false. For example, “States of interactions that take place among or consciousness exist” is necessarily within material particles. With the argu- true, since “God exists” is necessari- ment we are now considering, the story ly true. That is to say, the fact that a shifts dramatically. In addition to materi- personal, metaphysically necessary al particles and energy, we now have an being like God exists explains why entirely different realm of reality—a real- it is necessarily true that states of ity that consists of abstract entities that consciousness exist. To give a non- exist necessarily and to which human theological example, the axioms of beings are subject. That is no small shift. Peano arithmetic are explanatorily We now have one foot in the unseen prior to “2+2=4”, as are the axioms world, where God lives. Exit materialism, of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory to to which much of the modern atheistic the theorems thereof.8 movement is intricately wedded. Secondly, the claim that the laws of Consequently, it is not enough for logic, mathematics, and morality do not one to point out that the laws of logic, need to be grounded in anything since mathematics, and morality exist necessar-

The claim that the laws of logic, mathematics, and morality do not need to be grounded in anything since they exist necessarily needs to be defended, not just asserted. Showing that something exists neces- sarily is not the same thing as showing that it needs no explanation for its existence.

[10] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES ily. One must also offer valid reasons as to Here is the argument: If we say that why we should think that they do not moral obligations are commands that need to be grounded in anything and are God issues and which He requires us to not in need of any explanation. As Craig obey, we must be assuming that we are puts it, “…if necessary truths can stand to already obligated to follow God’s commands one another in asymmetric relations of even before He issues any command at explanatory priority, then there is no all. In other words, the fact that we have objection … to holding that moral values the obligation to obey commands issued exist because God exists.”9 by God is itself an obligation that is sim- Thus one can argue that the laws of ply true—it is not one of the commands mathematics, logic, and morality are all God issues. You obey God’s commands grounded in God. They exist necessarily, because you already have the obligation but they are also in need of explanation, to obey God. God cannot make it the and that explanation is God. Although case that you ought to obey the com- much more could be said about this, I mands He issues if it weren’t already the would like to pursue a different line of case that you ought to do so. thinking in order to show that the moral An example might be helpful here. law does indeed require a moral lawgiver. Suppose you are made aware of the com- I will argue that, even if we grant for the mand that you must set aside Wednesday sake of the argument that we don’t need as a holy day and you are to do no work to appeal to God to explain the laws on that day. You ask who issued that com- of logic and mathematics, morality is mand. Would you really feel obligated to sufficiently different from logic and do so if you found out that the order to mathematics to demand a moral lawgiver. keep the Sabbath on Wednesday came Specifically, my claim is that the fact that from your next-door neighbor, Bill? I morality contains within it a normative suppose the answer is “No!” You are or obligatory character does indeed pre- under no obligation to keep any com- suppose the existence of a lawgiving, mands issued by Bill. So, why think that transcendent Personal Being. In other we have the obligation to obey God’s words, morality is agent-centered—it commands but not Bill’s? J.L. Mackie requires a thinking being with the stated the objection as follows: authority to issue commands. But before we look at that response in more detail, The commands of a legitimate let us examine briefly the second argument human ruler do not create obliga- given for the claim that morality is not tions: if such a ruler tells you to do grounded in God. X, this makes it obligatory for you to do X only if it is already obligato- 2. DOES INVOKING GOD IN ry for you to do whatever the ruler MORALITY CREATE MORE tells you (within the sphere in which PROBLEMS THAN IT SOLVES? X lies). The same applies to God. He At this point, the skeptic has another can make it obligatory for us to do weapon in his arsenal. For someone who Y by so commanding only because is not philosophically inclined, the sub- there is first a general obligation for tlety of this argument can easily make it us to obey him. His commands, seem quite abstract and irrelevant, not to therefore, cannot be the source of mention bewildering. So, once again, I moral obligation in general.10 implore you to gird up the loins of your mind. We’ve come too far—it’s too late to turn back now!

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [11] We could respond by saying that ity is a matter of human convention, then God has the authority to issue commands, we must assume that we have the prior, yet a human being, like Bill, doesn’t. independent obligation to obey the direc- Given who God is, I am under his tives of the community. If we say that authority and I must obey his commands. what is right is determined by the majori- The crucial point here is this: Just as Bill ty, then we must suppose that we are cannot make it the case that you ought to obligated to follow the dictates of the obey the commands he issues just by issu- majority. Here is how Mark Schroder ing that as a command, God cannot make states this point: it the case that you ought to obey Him just by commanding you to do so since, if So if [this] argument successfully you are not already obligated to obey shows that not all obligations can Him, you would not need to worry about be explained by God’s commands, this command either. You obey his com- then it looks like it must also show mands because there is an antecedent, that not all obligations can be independent obligation owed to Him explained by self-interest, by hypo- simply because of who He is, whether He thetical contracts, by what would has issued any commands or not. maximize the good, by what is in But that creates a problem for our accordance with rules no one could original claim that our obligations are reasonably reject, or any other commands issued by God. We have said source.11 that God doesn’t need to issue any com- mands for it to be the case that I am obli- In other words, we are left with no gated to obey his commands. But if I am possible way of offering an explanation already obligated to follow God’s com- for the source of our moral obligations. mands before He issues any commands, The skeptic set out to uncouple obliga- then it follows that there is at least one tion from God and ended up making the obligation that is just true, namely, the idea of obligation even more mysterious. obligation to follow any command God The reason this has happened is because issues. Here is the linchpin of the argu- the attempt to show that obligations do ment: if it is possible for there to be just not come from God rests on an equivoca- one moral obligation that is simply true, tion.12 Consider these two statements: i.e., one that is independent of any commands issued by God, why can’t we 1. We are obligated to do what say the same thing about all the other God commands. obligations, especially if we concede 2. There exists an antecedent obligation that moral truths exist necessarily? to obey whatever God commands. If your head is spinning at this point, don’t worry. The argument will In order to make the argument become crystal clear to you right before against explaining our moral obligations you go to bed, and then you’ll stay up all in terms of God’s command work, the night wondering how to answer it! If skeptic must assume that the second that happens, just come back to the statement above is true. But the theist next section of this article for a brief but, is not at all committed to the second I believe, effective response. The first statement; all the theist needs is for the thing to note about the claim being made first statement to be true. There is no here is that it can be applied to any moral antecedent, mysterious obligation that theory. If we say, for example, that moral- needs to be explained.

[12] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES The skeptic set out to uncouple obligation from God and ended up making the idea of obligation even more mysterious. The reason this has happened is because the attempt to show that obligations do not come from God rests on an equivocation.

The moral of the story thus far is Western philosophy has its roots in that even the best of the reasons routine- Christianity, which conceives of ethics, ly given for thinking that we do not need and especially moral obligation, in terms to appeal to God to ground morality do of laws given by God.14 With the aban- not succeed. If there is a moral law, there donment of Christianity among many in must be a moral lawgiver. But we can Western philosophy, Anscombe coun- strengthen the argument even further by seled her fellow philosophers to jettison showing that morality, and specifically the concept of obligation as well since its moral obligation, is both agent-relative (it metaphysical foundation was no longer can only arise in the case of persons) and plausible for them and talk of obligation objective (it transcends human will). If has thus become incoherent. moral obligation is grounded in a person When we consider what it means (or persons) and it is not dependent on to say that we have moral obligations or human beings, then it must be grounded duties, we quickly begin to see the validi- in a supernatural Person, i.e., God. ty of the point that Anscombe was making. The eminent moral theorist John Stuart MORAL OBLIGATION AS Mill described the concept of moral duty AGENT-RELATIVE as follows: e normally take it for granted that we have obligations to do We do not call anything wrong Wor not do certain things. When unless we mean to imply that a tragedy strikes, our political leaders invoke person ought to be punished in this sense of obligation to justify the some way or other for doing it— actions they believe we should support. if not by law, by the opinion of his Speaking about the need for the US to fellow creatures; if not by opinion, take care of its veterans, President Obama by the reproaches of his own con- stated, “The bond between our forces science…. It is a part of the notion and our citizens has to be a sacred trust, of duty in every one of its forms and that for me, for my administration, that a person may rightfully be upholding our trust with our veterans is compelled to fulfill it. Duty is a not just a matter of policy, it is a moral thing which may be exacted from obligation.” 13 It’s a common assumption a person, as one exacts a debt.15 that we have the moral obligation to act in certain ways. Morality binds us, leaving Not only are certain things wrong us with no choice in the matter. Shame to do, we are prohibited from doing and guilt are the result of disregarding them. Not only are some things good to the dictates of morality. do, we are required to do them. As Mill But as far back as 1958, Cambridge notes, duty is something we owe in the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe argued same way we owe debts. One is hard- that the concept of moral obligation in pressed to make sense of owing duties

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [13] (and debts) to no one in particular. The we require [them to do so] on moral best way to make sense of talk of duties grounds or for moral reasons.”17 For is in a social context where duties (like Wolf, the “we” that stands behind these debts) are owed to other persons. requirements is the social community. In support of the claim that obliga- In other words, human beings are the tion requires agency, Yale philosopher moral community that gives obligation Stephen Darwall argues that neither the its normative force. moral “ought” nor practical reason is suf- The point made thus far is that ficient to bring about obligation. One can moral obligation is a social concept. have very good reasons to do something Accountability makes sense only if we morally right and still not be obligated to are accountable to other persons. In the do it. Accountability and responsibility next section, we will see that the Person are also needed, and we are responsible to we are ultimately responsible to is God. someone. Darwall notes that such diverse Since obligation is not only a social con- philosophers as Suarez in the late 16th cept but also an objective one, the exis- and early 17th century, John Stuart Mill, tence of God makes the most sense of and Nietzsche have defended this view. our experience of morality. Human soci- He says, eties or communities cannot adequately account for moral obligation. I think it’s a conceptual truth that But it is important to address a what we are morally obligated to do common misconception about the nor- is what we are responsible to the mative character of morality in a more moral community for doing. direct way. It is often assumed that Exactly who is the moral communi- reason by itself is adequate to give us all ty is itself contestable. Theological we want in terms of knowing and acting voluntarists might believe it is really upon our moral obligations. What is just God. You and I might believe moral to do, the claim goes, is what is it is just persons—people who are reasonable to do. But although morality capable of holding one another is indeed reasonable, the relationship morally responsible.16 between the two is not as clear cut as the foregoing claim implies. It is one thing to As is evident from the quote, have good reasons to do something and Darwall defends a secularist approach to quite another to be obligated to do it. morality. Similarly, Susan Wolf, another Having reasons to perform an action does secularist philosopher, points out that it not necessarily imbue one with the kind is not enough to say that moral require- of obligation morality requires. ments are requirements of morality; that An illustration given by C. Stephen to follow moral obligations is simply to Evans might be helpful here.18 Suppose do what morality requires of us. When someone is offered, say $5,000, to deliver we demand of people that they live up to a lecture he has delivered several times their moral duties, “…we mean to say that before on an afternoon when he is free

The point made thus far is that moral obligation is a social concept. Accountability makes sense only if we are accountable to other persons.

[14] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES and has nothing to lose should he accept human societies can adequately account the offer. He would have a very good rea- for it. It is the society, period, that places son to perform that act. But he would not moral demands on its individual mem- be considered morally blameworthy bers. But while it is true that we have should he choose to play golf instead. obligations that are created by the soci- The point, once again, is that having eties to which we belong, the imperatival good reasons to do something is not the force of morality makes it doubtful that same thing as being obligated to do it. appealing to the society can account for Alternatively, violating rationality is not the entire range of the obligations we the same thing as violating moral obliga- acknowledge. tion. As Robert Adams puts it, To begin with, societies often err in prescribing behavior for their members. To the extent that I have done For example, those who obediently fol- something morally wrong, I have lowed the laws issued by the Nazis during something to feel guilty about. the Second World War were indeed car- To the extent that I have done rying out their societal obligations. But something irrational, I have their society was gravely mistaken about merely something to feel silly the obligations morality prescribed for its about—and the latter is much citizens. This suggests strongly that less serious than the former.19 moral obligations are not decided by the society. They are objective—what we are The only time when failure to heed obligated to do transcends individual or the demands of reason bears serious con- the collective human will, desires, or sequences is when there is a moral com- beliefs. Thus unless there is a law above ponent involved. For example, an error of human law, it is hard to see how we can calculation in designing a bridge is more justify our claim that some things com- serious than getting an answer wrong on manded by certain societies are wrong. an engineering examination. Moral obli- Philosopher Joel Marks has argued gation has a certain, distinct characteris- that obligation does indeed require the tic that gives it its compulsive force with existence of God, though he sadly rejects blameworthiness or guilt attached to it. morality instead of seeing it as further Moral obligation has the unique capacity evidence for God. He writes, to override any other reasons we may have to do or not to do something. Such a I had thought I was a secularist decidedly law-like character of obligation because I conceived of right and makes sense within a social context where wrong as standing on their own two demands or imperatives and accountabili- feet, without prop or crutch from ty are in force. Moral obligation is a social God. We should do the right thing concept: it is based on the assumption because it is the right thing to do, that there are persons involved. period. But this was a God too. It was the Godless God of secular MORAL OBLIGATION morality, which commanded with- AS OBJECTIVE out commander—whose ways were So far we have seen that we have good thus even more mysterious than reasons to think that moral obligation is the God I did not believe in, who a social concept. As already mentioned, at least had the intelligible motive many philosophers agree with this con- of rewarding us for doing what clusion. Some of those who argue that He wanted.20 obligation is a social concept claim that

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [15] Similarly, Yale law professor Arthur Secondly, the demands of morality Leff concluded his powerful critique of frequently conflict with our self-interests morality without God with the following in a way that suggests that they transcend words, mere individual or societal conventions. If we were solely responsible for assigning All I can say is this: it looks as if moral obligations to ourselves, why would we are all we have. Given what we we make them so difficult to fulfill, know about ourselves and each and why do we keep on trying to meet other, this is an extraordinarily them when we have proven that we are unappetizing prospect; looking incapable of doing so perfectly? Why around the world, it appears that not adjust our obligations to match our if all men are brothers, the ruling practical abilities? Our very struggle in model is Cain and Abel. Neither this area shows that we recognize the reason, nor love, nor even terror, transcendent, otherworldly source of seems to have worked to make us our moral obligations. The hound of “good,” and worse than that, there heaven is ever on our trail. Consider the is no reason why anything should. words of the following poem written by Only if ethics were something A.E. Housman:22 unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchal- And how am I to face the odds lengeable. As things now stand, Of man’s bedevilment and God’s! everything is up for grabs. I, a stranger and afraid Nevertheless: In a world I never made. Napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. They will be master, right or wrong; Buying and selling each other Though both are foolish, is depraved. both are strong. Those who stood up to and died And since, my soul, we cannot fly resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and To Saturn nor to Mercury. Pol Pot—and General Custer Keep we must, if keep we can, too—have earned salvation. These foreign laws of God and man. Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned. The speaker acquiesces to the There is in the world weight of moral obligation that he finds such a thing as evil. to be undeniable, even though it is foreign [All together now:] Sez who? to his preferred mode of existence. God help us.21 Morality doesn’t ask for our permission

The demands of morality frequently conflict with our self-interests in a way that suggests that they transcend mere individual or societal conventions. If we were solely responsible for assigning moral obligations to ourselves, why would we make them so difficult to fulfill, and why do we keep on trying to meet them when we have proven that we are incapable of doing so perfectly?

[16] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [17] before placing its burdensome demands out excuse” (Romans 1:20). Thankfully, on us. How is such compulsion to be there are many others who have found justified? Why should one yield to such their way to the cross after pondering the demands? Christine Korsgaard’s statement implications of an objective morality that in this regard is worth considering: is simply a part of the fabric of the uni- verse. After discussing some of the points … the question can become urgent, I have raised here with a seemingly hard- for the day will come, for most of ened, lifelong atheist university professor, us, when what morality commands, he completely caught me off-guard by obliges, or recommends is hard: confessing to me that the argument that we share decisions with people makes his atheism untenable. I have seen whose intelligence or integrity don’t students give their lives to Christ when inspire our confidence; that we they learn how to think clearly about assume grave responsibilities to morality and when they consider what which we feel inadequate; that we the gospel of salvation has to offer sacrifice our lives, or voluntarily them—not just for this life, but also for relinquish what makes them sweet. the life to come, as we will see at the con- And then the question—why?—will clusion of this article. press, and rightly so. Why should I Moreover, CS Lewis’s classic book be moral?23 Mere Christianity has played an incalcula- ble role in leading many to faith. One of In Christian terms, we should be the most compelling sections of his book moral because we are moral beings made is the section where he deals with the by a moral God in his image. We find our moral argument for God’s existence. In proper telos or purpose when we become his autobiography, Chuck Colson what we were originally intended to be. recounts the impact the moral argument That process begins in this life and con- had on him in his journey to faith as he tinues on to the next, where it will be read Lewis’s book, fully perfected. Morality doesn’t always keep its promises in this life; not only do As a lawyer I was impressed by nice guys not always finish last—some- Lewis’s arguments about moral law, times they don’t finish at all. But if this the existence of which he demon- life is not all there is, then the scales will strates is real, and which has been eventually be evened out, and morality perceived with astonishing consis- and happiness will one day coincide. tency in all times and places. It has not been man, I saw for the first THE REALITY OF MORALITY time, that has perpetuated moral find it absolutely mystifying that some law; it has survived despite man’s would choose to deny the reality of best attempts to defeat it. Its long morality rather than acknowledge existence therefore presupposes I 24 the fact that it indeed points us to God. some other will behind it. That is their prerogative, though in the end they will find themselves “without Similarly, Francis Collins, former excuse”: “For since the creation of the leader of the Human Genome Project world God’s invisible qualities—his eter- and now director of the National nal power and divine nature—have been Institutes of Health, recalls his reaction clearly seen, being understood from what to the moral argument as presented by has been made, so that people are with- CS Lewis:

[18] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES The hard part for me [as an atheist] we fail to keep the moral law that we was the idea of a personal God, who know exists. And our failure to keep it is has an interest in humankind. And more than just a matter of ignorance; it the argument that Lewis made bears the marks of what the Bible calls there—the one that I think was rebellion against God. As a result, we all most surprising, most earth-shatter- stand in need of forgiveness. The Bible ing, and most life-changing—is thus offers both an accurate diagnosis of the argument about the existence the human heart as well as the solution of the moral law. How is it that for our primary malady. we, and all other members of our species, unique in the animal In a chillingly profound passage, kingdom, know what’s right and atheist philosopher Joel Marks makes the what’s wrong? In every culture one following observation: looks at, that knowledge is there. Where did that come from?25 Philosophical ethics [has become] the pursuit of grounds independent The Christian has a ready and compelling of either God’s fiat or God’s answer to the question: morality comes instruction for telling the difference from a God who made us in his image between what we should do and and who makes it possible for us to what we should not do. Thus, apprehend and apply morality to our ironically, secular ethics seeks to lives. Christianity makes an empirically replicate the religious origin of sin verifiable diagnosis of our spiritual condi- (of wresting the knowledge of good tion; we have broken God’s law. We are at and evil from God’s providence).26 odds with a system of morality that we did not invent, and we stand condemned. Did you catch that? Marks says that the But Christianity does much more. It philosopher’s struggle to account for offers a solution to the human condition morality without God is reminiscent of through the Cross of Christ. At the cross, the account of the fall of humanity in the God marvelously honors his justice Old Testament book of Genesis, which while demonstrating his infinite love at offers an explanation for the origin of the very same moment. And, finally, the human evil. In Genesis 3:4-5, the serpent Word of God promises that we will one assures Adam and Eve that they are day be made morally perfect. At that mistaken to let God define right and point, morality will no longer be a subject wrong for them. He says to them, of debate—we will just live it out the “You will not surely die. For God knows way we breathe oxygen today, only with- that when you eat of [the tree of the out the threat of air pollution. Imagine knowledge of good and evil] your eyes that: we will one day live beyond right will be opened, and you will be like God, and wrong! knowing good and evil.” What the Tempter meant was not BEYOND RIGHT AND WRONG that Adam and Eve would know about In addition to accounting for the objec- good or evil or that some things were tivity and agent-centeredness of moral wrong to do. They must have known that obligation, Christianity fulfills and com- already, or the command not to eat from plements morality itself in ways natural- the tree of the knowledge of good and ism can never hope to do. When we are evil would not have made any sense to honest with ourselves, we all know that them. What the Tempter meant was that

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [19] The hope offered in the gospel message goes well beyond morality. In Christian terms, merely recognizing and even keeping the moral law is ultimately beside the point; one of the key goals of the biblical call to righteousness is to be transformed to become like God’s Son (see Romans 8:29). When we have achieved the status for which we were made, morality will cease to occupy the central place it does in our day-to-day lives.

Adam and Eve did not need to let God use and then to pass away in favor of define good and evil for them; they could something richer and deeper.”27 determine that for themselves. Marks detects the same spirit in the denial of Similarly, CS Lewis penned these God’s place in morality in contemporary profound words: philosophical ethics. When that happens, we become incapable of appreciating and I think all Christians would agree appropriating the power of the gospel in with me if I said that though our lives. This gospel is the forgiveness of Christianity seems at first to be all sin and the necessity of Christ’s death on about morality, all about duties and the cross—revealing also that human rules and guilt and virtue, yet it beings are morally at odds with God’s leads you on, out of all that, into righteousness. something beyond. One has a But the hope offered in the gospel glimpse of a country where they do message goes well beyond morality. In not talk of those things, except per- Christian terms, merely recognizing and haps as a joke. Every one there is even keeping the moral law is ultimately filled full with what we should call beside the point; one of the key goals of goodness as a mirror is filled with the biblical call to righteousness is to be light. But they do not call it good- transformed to become like God’s Son ness. They do not call it anything. (see Romans 8:29). When we have They are not thinking of it. They achieved the status for which we were are too busy looking at the source made, morality will cease to occupy the from which it comes.28 central place it does in our day-to-day lives. In a world where perfection reigns When we complain about evil, we and where all types of sin are completely do indeed presuppose the reality of the absent, talk of “right,” “wrong,” “duty,” good. Good and evil invoke an objective etc., would at best be forgotten altogeth- standard of right and wrong. Such a stan- er or be mildly entertaining. As George dard in turn points us to the God who Mavrodes notes, a theistic view of the made us, not just so we can recognize and world “gives morality a deeper place in apply morality to our lives in this life, but the world than does a [naturalistic] world so that we can actually enter into an inti- and thus permits it to ‘make sense.’” mate relationship with God and a process Perhaps it also “suggests that morality is of discipleship in his kingdom that begins not the deepest thing, that it is provision- to prepare us for the noblest existence al and transitory, that it is due to serve its possible: being in God’s presence forever.

[20] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES 14 We know that we flout not only God’s G.E.M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral standards but also our own. How wonder- Philosophy,” in Philosophy, 33, no. 124 ful to know that forgiveness and eventually (January 1958). 15 eternal restoration are available for people John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism” (originally like us. What an incredible promise: that published in 1861), in Hackett edition, 1979, one day we will be able to live beyond 47-48. It is important to note that duty, or right and wrong! obligation, holds even when no punishment is intended. All that is needed is for there to be a person with the authority to issue a command. 16 John Njoroge is a member of the speaking Stephen Darwall, “The Second-Person team at Ravi Zacharias International Standpoint,” in The Harvard Review of Ministries and wrote his PhD on this Philosophy, vol. XVI 2009, 125. 17 subject. Susan Wolf, “Moral Obligations and Social Commands,” in Metaphysics and the Good: 1 I am convinced the reverse is also true: most Themes From the Philosophy of Robert Merrihew people do not reject the faith due to arguments. Adams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, They develop arguments to defend a position 2009), 351. 18 they’ve already accepted on other grounds. C. Stephen Evans, God and Moral Obligation 2 Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9-10. 19 Tuscany Galileo, 1615. Robert Merrihew Adams, Finite and Infinite 3 Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God Goods: A Framework for Ethics (Oxford: Oxford (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994), 182. University Press, 1999), 238. 4 20 I should note that in this article I use the Joel Marks, “Confessions of an Ex-Moralist,” terms “morality” and “ethics” interchangeably. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/ 5 GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (Wheaton, IL: 21/confessions-of-an-ex-moralist/?page- Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994), 11. mode=print. 6 21 Louise Anthony, “The Failure of Moral Arthur Leff, “Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Arguments,” in Debating Christian Theism, Law” Duke Law Journal, Vol. 1979, No. 6, 1249, edited by JP Moreland, et. al. (Oxford: Oxford online at http://digitalcommons.law. yale.edu/ University Press, 2013), 110-111. cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3810&context 7 Erik J. Wielenberg, “In Defense of Non- =fss_papers. 22 Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism,” Faith A.E. Housman (1859-1936), “The Laws of and Philosophy, vol. 26 no. 1 (January 2009), 24. God, The Laws of Man.” 8 23 William Lane Craig, “The Most Gruesome of Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity Guests” in Is Goodness Without God Good (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Enough?, ed. Robert Garcia and Nathan L. 1996), 9. 24 King (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Chuck Colson, Born Again (Grand Rapids: Publishers, 2009), 170. Chosen Books, 2008), 134. 9 25 Ibid. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/ 10 Quoted in Did God Really Command Genocide?: voices/collins.html. 26 Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Joel Marks, Ethics without Morals: In Defence of Copan and Matthew Flannagan (Grand Amorality (Routledge Studies in Ethics and Rapids: Baker House, 2014), 157. Moral Theory) (Kindle Locations 412-414). 11 Mark Schroder, “Cudworth and Normative Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. 27 Explanations,” in Journal of Ethics and Social George Mavrodes, “Religion and the Philosophy, vol. 1, no. 3 (October 2005), 4. Queerness of Morality” in Rationality, Religious 12 For an extended discussion, please see Belief and Moral Commitment: Essays in the Schroder’s article and Copan and Flannagan’s Philosophy of Religion, edited by Robert Audi relevant section in their book. and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca, NY: 13 See https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog Cornell University Press, 1986), 213-226. 28 /2014/08/26/our-moral-obligation-president- CS Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon obama-speaks-nations-largest-veteran-service- & Schuster, 1996), 132. organiza.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [21] Longing To Comfort By Naomi Zacharias

Seeing my daughter in tears, a parallel was not lost on me, with an awareness never considered before. How many times have I refused to allow God to come close in comfort and instead in my anger and lostness, forced Him to a distance?

[all our tossings]

[22] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES y little girl was just sixteen for him from the moment she saw him. months old when her She didn’t hold it against him seemingly younger brother arrived. I at all. It was me. I had not read that, I rocked her to sleep every had not prepared for the fact that it was nightM before he came. She was not one me she could feel abandoned her or who slept through the night, and I had betrayed her. While always close to her wakened with every cry, holding her again daddy, she suddenly attached to him with at various hours and countless times in a an adhesive that forbid another to come night. As each week fell into the next close. As hours and days melted into she began to show her growing dis- weeks and then months of eternity for pleasure—her annoyance, even—at me, she resisted all of my attempts to my protruding baby belly as she tried hold her, to be close to her, or to care to find a place on my shoulder where for her even when she was sick. Each it didn’t get in her way. I saw this as a morning as my husband left for work, kind of symbolism for the impending he had to peel her off of the safe zone change to her small world and tried to use of his shoulder and she would crumple to those days where I had enough arms to the floor in a pool of sobs that would hold each child as an opportunity to break your heart and crushed mine. Her affirm her invaluable place against me. beautiful round, light brown eyes were I researched how to prepare siblings flooded with an ocean of hurt, full lips for the arrival of a new little one. I placed trembling through the sobs. I tried so her tiny hands on my belly as the baby hard and so gently to get close, bending kicked and explained that he was talking down and holding my arms out to com- to her. I took her to appointments to see fort her. But she refused and angrily his black and white sketch on the screen pushed me away, choosing to ache entire- of the doctor’s office where she lay nes- ly alone. I felt deeply rejected, but even tled in the crook of my arm as I pointed more, it literally pained me to see her to toes and elbows of “her baby.” After hurting so much and opting to endure it many months, an appointment to my alone rather than allow me to provide doctor’s office resulted in the instruction comfort. So I stood at the distance she to drive straight to the hospital, for labor demanded, tears streaming down my own had begun early. Instead, we first drove face as I watched her struggle day after back to the house to tell our two little day. “All I want to do is to love you, to help ones where we were going, to have one you, and you won’t let me even comfort you,” last moment as the family of four familiar I felt and audibly whispered. to us all to navigate before receiving the And a parallel was not lost on me, tremendous gift to be five; to give them a with an awareness never considered hug and kiss before sleeping away from before. For how many times have I refused them for a few days; before introducing to allow God to come close in comfort and them to their baby brother whose arrival instead in my anger and lostness, forced would change their world as they knew it. Him to a distance in favor of my lonely I had been concerned she would puddle of fear, confusion, and grief? resent him. But she didn’t. She welcomed As I’ve thought about it, I realized him, she kissed him, she longed to care that I don’t think I have ever gone to Him

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [23] purely for comfort—not really, not sin- of the verses that tell me to trust Him, to cerely. I cry before Him when I am asking pray that his will be done, to desire the for an answer to a prayer for Him to pre- greater good. And while all of those vent, save, or restore. But when what was desires may be right, the picture carries lost was not resurrected in the way I the image of someone you choose to hoped, I have opted to withdraw alone avoid in your angst because while they into my grief, with feelings of abandon- may have the answers, they don’t engage ment or even anger rather than know in the raw grief part of the process where what it means to let Him sit with me in words don’t really find a place to sink in. the sadness of the “it will not be so.” Because if we are honest, true and even Several years ago a good friend drew kind reminders of perspective can often my attention to her grandmother’s serve to make us feel only more alone and favorite verse, words written by David in communicate a greater sense of a failure Psalm 56:8 (ESV): “You have kept count when we are engaged—and losing—a of my tossings; put my tears in your momentary struggle to peel ourselves off bottle. Are they not in your book?” I of the floor of defeat, devastation, and loved this affirmation that he saw, that he sheer grief. recorded the wounded parts of my story. But I missed it. I did not see Him It revealed that someone—not just some- as one who wants to enter into my very one, but God Himself—bore witness that grief itself, the messy part before any provided a kind of validation of those acceptance and answer can be embraced. tears and their birthplace. Some months It was when I stood helpless beside later, I was in the country of Turkey and my little girl, feeling her sadness and des- on a mission to find an old glass tear bot- perately longing to simply be in it beside tle. I had learned that family used to use her that I caught a glimpse of how God, these to bottle their tears and bury them too, has perhaps stood on the sidelines of with dear ones lost as a testament to the my grief when He longed to participate. fact that they were loved. So at my In the thick of her sadness and limited request to find this hidden treasure, a understanding she saw me at best as one friend took me to an old market in who exacerbated her pain, perhaps at Istanbul. She was not certain we would worst the one who caused it. And oh, find them, but there in the midst of the how my memory instantly put me on that maze of stalls filled with jewelry and scarves familiar floor and pool of tears where, like was a shelf with a handful of vintage tear a frightened animal, I would not let Him bottles of various shapes and colors. They enter in. were one of my greatest finds and served This image of Jesus is one that causes as a reminder that my Creator, my me to feel like a little girl again, to easily Comforter, keeps count of even my tears fold into tears and want to allow Him and the experience behind them. near my broken spirit and dreams. What But I still missed it, for his comfort if I could allow Him to come into that carries potential far greater that just unkempt and broken space with me, not keeping a journal of account; I missed for answers or reversals, but to experi- that He longs to step inside. ence God as Comforter? I didn’t recognize what I now see With fondness I remember a as his longing to comfort, or my role in Western woman I met in a Middle relegating Him to the sideline. Perhaps I Eastern country several years ago. There have tended to see Him as this distant was an immediate ease to our conversation, presence, reminding me from lofty places even a mutual affection. She shared a

[24] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES story from years past when she was She goes to Jesus and falls at his feet preparing for the mission field and and weeps. She weeps that Jesus did not learned she was pregnant with her first come and that her brother is gone. And child. And then she told how she lost her what did He do? He wept. He cried with infant son when he was only weeks old. her even though He knew that the life I well remember her describing the mourned was about to be resurrected and moment of her indescribable loss; how as her pain relieved. First, He stopped to her husband, with tears streaming down grieve with her for the loss she endured— his face, said a prayer of acknowledgement the experience of losing her brother and that their son returned to his maker. perhaps the many other disappointments Instead, she cried out in protest, for she in that story He knew she felt. was not ready for him to go. Broken- It requires a dying to the self and an hearted, she could not bear to think of awakening of heart and mind to see God the mission field, a journey she had imag- as Creator and Savior, but we are invited ined with the son part of that vision. And to a particular vulnerability to also know it was twenty years before she ultimately Him as “the Father of mercies and God found the healing needed to go. Where of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3, emphasis do you think God was with her in those added). twenty years? I do not think He was He keeps count of all our tossings, angry or impatient. I think He was sitting bears witness to all that happened, and on the floor of her sadness and grieving remembers. He will sit in the lonely room with her. where we grieve. He will come and weep The Gospel of John tells the story even when there is a miracle to come, and of the death of Lazarus. When Lazarus how much more when there is a loss to got sick, his sisters, Mary and Martha, endure. He asked Mary, “Where have you immediately sent word to Jesus. But He put him?” And she led Him to a tomb. did not come for three days, and in the Does He ask us, too, where we have laid meantime, Lazarus passed away. When our loss, and when the answer is the tomb finally the women heard that Jesus was of our heart, does He also ask to enter in coming, Martha ran out to meet Him, and weep alongside us? I believe He but Mary stayed inside. I wonder if she does—sometimes for the moment, some- felt betrayed or forgotten when He did times when it takes twenty years, and for not come in time for the miracle she a lifetime when that is how long it is hoped for. John tells us that when endured. Yes, we all want the miracle. But Martha returned inside, she told Mary while on this temporal earth that holds that Jesus was calling for her, and instant- both beauty to know and mortality to ly she stood and ran outside to Him. I hold, loss is a part of our experience in picture this wounded woman who had living. How comforting to know that He felt abandoned by the one person she put who dwells in the heavenly heights is able her faith in. And so even when she hears —and chooses—to descend to the floor of He is near, she doesn’t go to Him. But our sorrow. Can we let Him come close? then, she hears He called her by name, For the God of Righteousness, the and she runs. Maybe it was that demon- Lord our Sanctifier, the Everlasting God, stration that He had not forgotten her. is also the God of all comfort today. Maybe it was because He was the only one who could really comfort her. And so Naomi Zacharias heads RZIM’s Wellspring she allows Him to enter in to her disap- International, working on behalf of at-risk pointment and questions and grief. women and children around the world.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [25] No Matterthe Cost By Andy Bannister

How different might our culture look if Christians were prepared to live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ as if we really meant it?

[character of convictions]

n a fascinating essay in Education As Anderson told Aisha’s story and Forum, the magazine of the displayed the picture of her hauntingly Ontario Secondary School beautiful but marred face,2 he was hoping Teachers’ Federation, Stephen his students would display strong moral Anderson tells a chilling story of a outrage. But he was shocked to discover philosophyI class he was teaching on ethics.1 that nothing of the kind happened, Wanting an “attention getter” to shock rather there was a fear of saying anything his students into thinking morally, he that might appear critical or judgemental. displayed a photo of Bibi Aisha. She was a “It’s just wrong to judge other cultures,” young Afghani girl who, at just fourteen, one student stated. Another timorously was forced into marriage with a Taliban said: “Well, we might not like it, but fighter who proceeded to horribly abuse maybe over there it’s okay.” Anderson her. After suffering four years of violence, went on to suggest that we have succeed- Aisha fled but was soon captured. Her ed in raising a generation of students who husband and other family members then have imbibed one key idea: “never judge, hacked off her nose and ears and left her never criticize, never take a position.” to die in the mountains where she was later rescued by aid workers.

[26] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES His findings are not unusual. A sim- have any suggestions?” I thought for a ilar phenomenon was recounted by Kay moment before replying: “Next time your Haugaard, who described how her class friend says something like that, reach of literature students were discussing across and steal her iPhone. When she Shirley Jackson’s short story “The protests, reply: ‘You’ve persuaded me that Lottery,” in which each year the residents morality is relative. I like your phone, so I of a small, rural town choose one member thought I’d take it. After all, there’s noth- of their community to stone to death to ing wrong with stealing phones, is there?’ ensure the wellbeing of the community I wonder if your friend might discover at and the crops. In 1948 when the story least one moral absolute quite quickly.” I was published, it provoked outrage. But never heard how the story played out— Haugaard found her class responded with I hope it may have worked—but even if sentiments like “If it’s part of a person’s it did, it is hardly encouraging if moral culture, it’s okay.” It was not that her bedrock is only embraced once it person- students were unwilling to take a stand ally benefits us. on their convictions; rather, they had no There was one more disturbing convictions at all.3 discovery from the Barna study. Many of The trend seems to be growing. A those surveyed claimed to be Christians, study by the Barna Group revealed that yet of these, only 32% said they believed 64% of American adults and a startling in moral absolutes. Among the teens who 83% of teens believe that morality is rela- self-identified as Christians, 11% said that tive, with only 6% of teens willing to say they made moral decisions based on what that it is absolute.4 When asked about how would produce the best outcome for they make moral decisions, 31% of adults them. One can hear the echoes of Judges and 38% of teens said they do so based on 17:6: “Everyone did as he saw fit.” “what feels right for them.” Given that, as Now, is it unfair to pick on the Stephen Anderson discovered, criticizing Christians in the survey sample like this? another person’s culture or belief makes No, and for this reason: you cannot most teens and young adults feel deeply accuse an atheist of hypocrisy, because uncomfortable, we appear to have a prob- they are beholden to nobody and thus lem. As Robert Simon put it, what we their moral relativism is at least consistent. have is “absolutophobia”: an unwilling- But a Christian? A Christian is one who ness, if not an outright fear, of committing claims to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one to any moral position.5 who follows their master even if it hurts. More concerning, the Barna study As Jesus Himself said, “If anyone would revealed that 16% of teens said they make come after me, let him deny himself and their moral choices on the basis of “what- take up his cross and follow me.” 6 ever outcome would produce the most In front of the main building of the personally beneficial results.” At an event Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Toronto, I recently met a high school stands a small, semi-circular courtyard, student who waited behind after I had the Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, which is spoken to ask me a question. “I am dedicated to the memory of brother and struggling with a friend of mine,” she sister Hans and Sophie Scholl. They were explained, “who is a complete moral founders of the White Rose resistance relativist. No matter how hard I try to group during the Second World War, encourage her to take a position, nothing which brought together students and works. She insists that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ others who were opposed to the evils are just personal preferences. Do you of Nazi regime. But what was it that

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [27] There was one more disturbing discovery from the Barna study. Many of those surveyed claimed to be Christians, yet of these, only 32% said they believed in moral absolutes. Among the teens who self-identified as Christians, 11% said that they made moral decisions based on what would produce the best outcome for them. One can hear the echoes of Judges 17:6: “Everyone did as he saw fit.” animated their activism and caused them pamphlets left and deciding it would be a to take a stand? It was their faith in Christ.7 shame to waste them, they climbed the Neither of the Scholls had been stairs to the top of the atrium and flung particularly religious during childhood, them into the courtyard. Unfortunately but at high school that all changed. There they were spotted, the authorities called, they encountered men like Carl Ruth, a and the group were rounded up and Catholic professor who was bold in his arrested by the Gestapo. Four days later denouncement of the Nazi regime, who they were tried before the Volksgericht (“The encouraged them to take a fresh look at People’s Court”), found guilty of treason, Christianity. They began to read the Bible and sentenced to death by guillotine. and Christian books and Hans in particu- Asked at their trial why they had lar was deeply influenced by the preach- carried out their actions, Sophie replied ing of Bishop Clemens von Galen. On 7 simply: “Somebody, after all, had to make December 1941, Hans wrote to a friend: a start,” while Kurt Huber gave a lengthier “I’m thinking of you this second Sunday statement: of Advent, which I’m experiencing as a wholehearted Christian for the first time You have stripped from me the in my life.”8 Around the same time, Sophie rank and privileges of the professor- was recording her journey to faith in her ship and the doctoral degree summa diary. Her older sister, Inge, said of them cum laude which I earned, and you both: “The Christian Gospel became the have set me at the level of the low- criterion of their thoughts and actions.”9 est criminal. The inner dignity of As they began to work out the the university teacher, of the frank, implications of their faith, they became courageous protestor of his philo- increasingly convinced that they needed sophical and political views—no to take a stand against the Third Reich. trial for treason can rob me of that. With the help of one of their university My actions and my intentions will professors, Kurt Huber, the White Rose be justified in the inevitable course group was formed and they began distrib- of history; such is my firm faith. I uting leaflets explaining the evils of hope to God that the inner strength Nazism. Their materials caused a storm that will vindicate my deeds will in and the Gestapo began actively hunting good time spring forth from my for the publishers. On 18 February 1943, own people. I have done as I had to Hans and Sophie brought a suitcase full of on the prompting of an inner voice. pamphlets to the university, leaving piles I take consequences upon myself in of them in corridors for students to find the way expressed in the beautiful when lectures finished. They had a few words of Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

[28] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES “And thou shall act as if Stephen Anderson had to offer. Rather, On thee and on thy deed cultural transformation must begin with Depended the fate of all Germany personal transformation, and that will And thou alone must answer only happen when people really see what for it.”10 the gospel looks like when it is lived out. What our country, our culture, our world A few years ago, a colleague of mine needs are Christians who are willing to was traveling in Pakistan. During the trip display the character of their convictions, he met a Pakistani Christian pastor who no matter the cost. had been arrested many times and horri- bly tortured for his faith. He rolled up Andy Bannister is Director and Lead his sleeves and showed my colleague the Apologist for RZIM Canada. scars that he carried. As they talked, the pastor asked, through an interpreter: 1 “What it is like for Christians in the Stephen L. Anderson, “Moments of Startling West?” My colleague, slightly embar- Clarity: Moral Education Programming in rassed, replied: “The greatest fear most Ontario Today,” Ontario Education Forum Christians in the West have is embarrass- Magazine, Fall 2011, online at ment. They are afraid of looking foolish, http://www.scribd.com/doc/74339193/ Moments-of-Startling-Clarity. so most do not talk about Jesus.” The 2 See Aryn Baker, “Afghan Women and the pastor replied with tears in his eyes, Return of the Taliban,” Time Magazine, August through the interpreter: “Such a church 9, 2010, online at http://content.time.com/time is dying.” Then the interpreter paused /magazine/article/0,9171,2007407,00.html. 3 and apologized: “I am sorry,” he said, The account is reported in James Emery “I interpreted that badly. What the White, A Mind for God (Downers Grove, IL: pastor actually said was: ‘Such a church InterVarsity Press, 2006), 76-77. 4 is already dead.’” “Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on How different might our culture Feelings,” The Barna Group, online at look if Christians were prepared to live https://barna.org/component/content/article/ out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ 5-barna-update/45-barna-update-sp-657/ 67-americans-are-most-likely-to-base-truth- as if we really meant it? If we daily on-feelings#.VvL6AOIrK4Q. 5 demonstrated our willingness to take a Robert L. Simon, “The Paralysis of stand for Christ no matter what conse- ‘Absolutophobia,’” The Chronicle of Higher quences might follow? Unlike Hans and Education (June 27, 1997). 6 Sophie Scholl, Kurt Huber, or that Mark 8:34. See also Luke 9:23. 7 Pakistani pastor, we are not yet, at least Inge Scholl, The White Rose: Munich 1942-1943, in the West, likely to face imprisonment, translated by Dorothy Sölle (Hanover, NH: University Press), 101-102. torture or death. But what about being 8 willing to sacrifice our reputation, our Greg A. King, “Though the Heavens Fall,” popularity, our chance of promotion, our College and University Dialogue, online at easy, comfortable middle class existence? http://dialogue.adventist.org/en/articles/ 10-2/king/though-the-heavens-fall. Or are we, if we are entirely honest with 9 Cited in Richard Terrell, Christ, Faith and ourselves, more tempted to choose the the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN: WestBow path of personal benefit? Press, 2011), 100. 10 The only answer to moral relativism Cited in Steven Garber, The Fabric of will only come not from better education Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and strategies—which, at the end of his essay Behavior (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity “Moments of Startling Clarity,” is all that Press, 2007), 184.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [29] [come to me]

By His Hand By Danielle DuRant

Although some today no longer believe we need God in order to understand ourselves and our world, we often struggle to make sense of our impoverished hearts, even toward those we claim to love.

[30] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES “WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF SELF there the infinitude of good which resides is no knowledge of God,” penned John in God becomes more apparent Calvin almost 500 years ago in the opening from our poverty. In particular, the lines of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. miserable ruin into which the revolt “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is of the first man has plunged us, to say, true and sound Wisdom, consists compels us to turn our eyes of two parts: the knowledge of God and upwards…. Thus, our feeling of of ourselves. But as these are connected ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, together by many ties, it is not easy to in short, depravity and corruption, determine which of the two precedes and reminds us, that in the Lord, and gives birth to the other.”1 none but He, dwell the true light of Calvin proposed that one’s identity wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant cannot be separated from one’s relation- goodness. We are accordingly urged ship with God: we understand ourselves by our own evil things to consider only by knowing God and we come to the good things of God; and, know God as we in turn gain knowledge indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in of ourselves. Who are we and who is earnest until we have begun to be God? Calvin continues: displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in him- [N]o man can survey himself with- self? Who, in fact, does not thus out forthwith turning his thoughts rest, so long as he is unknown to towards the God in whom he lives himself; that is, so long as he is con- and moves; because it is perfectly tented with his own endowments, obvious, that the endowments and unconscious or unmindful of which we possess cannot possibly his misery? Every person, therefore, be from ourselves; nay, that our very on coming to the knowledge of being is nothing else than subsis- himself, is not only urged to seek tence in God alone. … Here, again, God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.2

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [31] Knowledge is relational, suggests to music.”4 Harris then argues in his book Calvin—we discover who we are in relation The Moral Landscape: How Science Can to others—an idea that scientist and Determine Human Values that we don’t philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) need God to define what is good or assist would formally develop in his seminal us with being good. Rather, reason is work Personal Knowledge. That is, we don’t enough to show us that the values of just know someone, namely God, “out kindness and compassion maximize our there.” We are also known by Him, our well-being and are “good.” Really? “What Creator and Redeemer who leads us “by is good?” and “Why should we be good?” the hand to find him,” and that knowl- are inescapably metaphysical questions edge shapes our understanding of who we that science cannot answer—any more are. Left to ourselves and our own than reason can inspire us be kind to our thoughts, we tend to justify our actions enemies when we have everything to lose, or measure ourselves by our own stan- including our lives. dards or against other people. Left to Perhaps, though, many would ourselves, we are “unknown” to ourselves acknowledge that “Something Is Wrong and “disposed to rest” there. Yet through- and Somebody Is To Blame,” as Colin out his Institutes, Calvin shows that the McGinn titles his article: Scriptures reveal that we are both frail and corrupt creatures in need of God’s [T]he modern world has produced grace, kindness, and sustenance, and in an abiding sense that there is some- knowing Him, we find his “wisdom, solid thing deeply wrong with our lives. virtue [and] exuberant goodness.” We want to be better and freer Calvin’s magnum opus was revolu- from guilt, but the old ways of tionary, helping to stir the Reformation escaping guilt are gone. Officially that transformed every sphere of life we no longer believe in original sin, from education, the arts, and literacy to but we are haunted by its secular work, the family, and the church. The progeny. Much of this is irrational effects were far-reaching and lasting in or arbitrary, but some of it goes to both the academy and culture. the core. Nevertheless, some today would regard Calvin’s view of humanity and God to be Maybe religion didn’t so much merely a product of his times or worse, cause guilt as give it an acceptable woefully ignorant and simply inaccurate. form; now we are struggling with a We don’t need God to understand our- beast we don’t really know how to selves; indeed, God (if He actually exists) classify, let alone tame. I would is an impediment to self-expression. characterize it as a kind of precari- Rather, we create our own identities ous shadowy unease, and a felt and determine who we want to be, even poverty of spirit. The more com- our gender. fortable we become on the outside In fact, Richard Dawkins dismisses the more this elusive guilt gnaws on God as a “psychotic delinquent” and “a the inside.5 virus of the mind.”3 Similarly, in his article “God’s Dupes,” atheist Sam Harris scoffs, Why do we do what we ought not “Everything of value that people get from to do and why don’t we do what we religion can be had more honestly, with- ought? Why, with all the scientific out presuming anything on insufficient advances and advantages of living in the evidence. The rest is self-deception, set 21st century, are we still confounded by

[32] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES Why do we do what we ought not to do and why don’t we do what we ought? Why, with all the scientific advances and advantages of living in the 21st century, are we still confounded by not only wide- spread hate and evil but also the malevolent inclinations in our own hearts—even towards those we claim to love? not only widespread hate and evil but also to find our purpose and home elsewhere. the malevolent inclinations in our own In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, hearts—even towards those we claim to “My people have committed two sins: love? In our restless and troubled moments, They have forsaken me, the spring of I think we sense, “There is something of living water, and have dug their own a cognitive mess at the core of our lives. cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold We are inconsistent in our choices, inco- water” (Jeremiah 2:13). herent in our convictions, persuaded The gospel offers us a window into where we ought not to be, and deluded our hearts and God’s grace to see our that we know ourselves transparently.”6 desires and our desolation. I am reminded In her lyrical yet sobering book of a letter I received some years ago from Living by Fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winning a woman who wrote to RZIM to tell me writer Annie Dillard attributes our that days before her release from prison, malady to the loss of shared values once her unexplainable self-defeating behavior firmly held: landed her back in maximum security. “We need reminders that God is near,” she If meaning is contextual, and it wrote, “God is here—revealing Himself is, then the collapse of ordered and His plan.” Western society and its inherited And this gospel offers us so much values following World War I can- more. It offers us a relationship with the not be overstressed; when we lost One who made us and who knows and our context; we lost our meaning. loves us as no other can and with this We became, all of us in the West, relationship, the freedom and power to more impoverished and in one receive all that God longs to give us: love, sense more ignorant than pygmies, joy, peace, patience, self-control.8 who, like the hedgehog, know one “The entrance of your words give great thing: in this case, why they light,” wrote the psalmist of God.9 Rare are here. We no longer know why is the person who can speak into our lives we are here.7 with both truth and love. I think particu- larly of Jesus’s conversation with the It is in this place that the Christian Samaritan woman at the well. He discloses gospel speaks so uniquely into our frag- that He knows about her five marriages mented, media-saturated lives, for the and current man she is living with and gospel alone offers the most plausible and that He is the living water for which she hopeful understanding of who we are and thirsts. We might not be surprised if she why we are here. We are made in the had turned away in anger and shame, but image of God—who is the “infinitude instead, she leaves her water jar and goes of good” (Calvin)—to honor Him and back to her village to exclaim, “Come, see reflect his splendor, but we have sought a man who told me everything I ever did.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [33] Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29). Indeed, it is because “The Word became Jesus doesn’t seek to demoralize her but flesh and made his dwelling among us … to tenderly unveil her life so that she full of grace and truth”10 that we can trust might discover her “broken cisterns that his description of who we are and who cannot hold water” and find the One who He claims to be. He understands our will never leave her thirsty. frailties, our fears, our disordered affec- Rarer still are the ones who can love tions. He knows our longing for love and us even when we push them away or our unwillingness to surrender. He knows refuse to trust them. Consider Jesus’s the knots of cynicism, heartache, and dis- relationship with his disciple Peter. trust that can tangle our desire to believe, Hours before Jesus was arrested and whether we’re a skeptic or a Christian. sentenced to be crucified, He tells Peter, To each He offers his hand and says, “[B]efore the rooster crows today, you “Come.” “Come to me, all you who are will deny three times that you know me” weary and burdened, and I will give you (Luke 22:34). Peter protests but soon does rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn exactly what Jesus predicts, whereupon, from me, for I am gentle and humble in “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. heart, and you will find rest for your souls. And Peter remembered the word of the For my yoke is easy and my burden is Lord … and he went out and wept bitterly” light” (Matthew 11: 28-30). (verses 61-62). One poignant glance from Jesus undoes him, exposing Peter’s pride Danielle DuRant is Director of Research and betrayal of the one he claimed to love and Writing at Ravi Zacharias and follow, even to his own death. But International Ministries in Atlanta, GA. thankfully, the story doesn’t end there, 1 for the resurrected Jesus will meet John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Peter on the shore of Galilee and invite online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/ him not once, but three times, to recog- institutes.iii.ii.html. 2 nize he is forgiven and restored (see Ibid. 3 John 21:15-19). Richard Dawkins quoted in Alister McGrath Throughout the Scriptures we see (with Joanna Collicutt McGrath), The Dawkins evidence of hearts awakened when God Delusion: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine (London: SPCK, 2007), 1, 40. comes near. There is God wrestling with 4 Sam Harris, “God’s Dupes.” The Los Angeles Jacob and Job crying out for mercy. There Times (March 15, 2007). Article available at is the risen Lord walking with the dis- http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/gods- mayed travelers to Emmaus who didn’t dupes1/. 5 recognize the long-awaited Anointed From Colin McGinn, “Something Is Wrong One they were hoping for was at their and Somebody Is To Blame,” Book Review of side. There is this same Jesus appearing to Paul Oppenheimer’s Infinite Desire (Madison, Saul, a violent persecutor of Christians, 2001), The Wall Street Journal (13 February on the road to Damascus. In each instance 2001), A24 and online (subscription only) at http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB98203977957817365. and countless others, each are offered 6 more than they could have hoped for and Greg Bahnsen, “The Crucial Concept of Self- imagined: an intimate encounter with Deception in Presuppositional Apologetics” in Westminster Theological Journal LVII (1995), 1-31. their very Maker and Lord and the grace Available online at http://www.cmfnow.com/ and forgiveness that would forever change articles/pa207.htm). 7 their lives. Annie Dillard, Living by Fiction (New York: “Every person, therefore, on coming Perennial Library/Harper & Row, 1982), 25-26. 8 to the knowledge of himself,” suggests See Galatians 5:22-23 among other verses. 9 Calvin, “is not only urged to seek God, Psalm 119:130. 10 but is also led as by the hand to find him.” John 1:14.

[34] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES FOOD FOR THOUGHT

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RZIM Resources JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [35] Think Again One Question

As one who has stood before vari- law, you must posit a moral lawgiver—the ous audiences around the world facing source of the moral law. hard questions for over But, of course, this moral lawgiver is four decades now, I can precisely who atheists wish to disprove almost predict one and so they may retort, “Why is a moral question I will get in lawgiver necessary in order to recognize nearly every setting, good and evil?” Some may even go so far whether in a public as to add that they believe in objective forum or private conver- moral values but don’t need God (the sation. It is, “How can I believe God inescapable “moral lawgiver”) to posit exists with so much evil in the world?” that objective values exist. Sometimes the question is asked by But here’s where the questioner has an ardent atheist who, in effect, considers to feel the illogical nature of the question the question as the Achilles heel of theism. without God. You see, the question of Other times it is asked by a searching evil and morality is always asked by a skeptic or a Christian struggling to hold person and often about a person. The on to his or her faith in the face of enor- beast doesn’t wrestle with these assuming mous heartache or just a sheer disap- moral connotations. Only mankind does. pointment with life itself. Unfortunately, Hence, the personal aspect of human often I do not know a person’s back- worth and moral reasoning is assumed in ground or struggle and what specifically the question. The objective value of per- prompts such a question, and yet every sons is implicit within the question and face is a reminder that behind every the object of the question. In a nutshell, question is a questioner—and one must positing a moral law without a moral law- always seek to respond to the individual giver would be equivalent to raising the and not merely the question. question of values while denying any There are many approaches one value to the questioner or the object may take. When I am asked this ques- of the questioner. A moral lawgiver is tion, invariably one aspect of my answer necessary in order to recognize good and often involves this line of reasoning. Many evil for the simple reason that a moral are familiar with my approach. But it affirmation cannot remain apart from is worth repeating briefly. I take this personal worth. Herein is the rub. If we approach as a starting point only to point human beings are the random product of out that denying God’s existence while time plus matter plus chance, how do we positing evil as a real category is a self- arrive at intrinsic worth? We can only defeating approach. What do I mean? have extrinsic worth—that which is given When one asserts that there is such by some human government or statute. a thing as evil, one must assume there is Naturalism cannot have it both ways. such a thing as good. When one assumes It cannot assume intrinsic worth while there is such a thing as good, he or she must assuming accidental causes. Transcending also assume there is an objective moral law value and justice must come from a by which to distinguish between good and person of transcending worth and an evil. When you assume an objective moral ultimate law or value-giver—and the only

[36] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES reason people have intrinsic worth is that There is another underlying posture they are the creation of One who is of of mind that has to be raised. When I am ultimate worth and the perfect lawgiver. asked this question in certain settings, in That person is God. But in a world in truth I am sometimes tempted to ask the which no person or moral cause brought questioner, “Do you really want a solu- us into being, as naturalists claim, there tion or is the constant refrain ‘why’ a way can be no intrinsic personal worth and no of escaping the responsibility of the ultimate moral foundation. The raising of answer?” In reason, conscience, and reve- the question as a moral argument against lation, God speaks to the core of human God self-destructs. Morality is value- worth and the inescapable mutual moral laden, starting with the value of a person. trust by which we must live. For in fact, In response to this question I would the Bible tells us, “He has showed you, also add that all moral struggles that are O man, what is good. And what does the existentially inescapable have a personal Lord require of you? To act justly and to component to them, whether we think of love mercy and to walk humbly with your truth-telling, guilt, or forgiveness. I do God” (Micah 6:8). Jesus, too, wept over not go to my dog and hope to be forgiven his own beloved city and declared, “If for something. I may make an attempt at you, even you, had only known on this it but I do not see it as something that day what would bring you peace—but the dog can morally do for me. We do it now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke more to appease our own conscience. All 19:42). In instance after instance, the the laws that we make in the land, they Scriptures reveal that the problem was are not made for how animals should not the absence of answers, but rather, treat each other but how persons should the suppression of them. This is not to treat each other or how persons should dismiss the very real heartache of pain treat animals or the environment. Laws and suffering, which is another part of are meant for people. We do not make this question that I’m not addressing laws against nature or the environment here, but rather to underscore what (“Poison ivy, do not trespass into my yard!”) author George MacDonald once said: because, here again, there cannot be a “To give truth to him who loves it not is cognitive, personal dimension to such only to give him more plentiful reasons things as trespassing or truth-telling with for misinterpretation.” The love of truth an abstract or inanimate object; such and the willingness to submit to its things necessarily involve a person. demands is the first step. When we speak of moral values or the And our predicament, I believe, moral law or existential struggles, there is the same. There are some clues we is unavoidably a personal component in already have—enough to bring correctives the equation. within our reach. But do we really want So, whether you approach the the truth? question of the existence of evil and God Beyond the question is another from the essential nature of humanity to implication. Indeed, naturalists claim the existential experience with which we that “man is the measure of all things” live, we discover there must be personal and life is nothing more than DNA. intrinsic value and that can only come The issue of evil needing a transcendent from another entity. If it is to be objec- point of reference applies as well to the tive, that is, true for all people regardless question of finding meaning in life. I have of their belief, that being has to be God. heard academics mock the Christian Every life has essential worth and must for invoking any transcendent point of be considered inviolable. reference for life’s meaning. But here

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 24.3 [37] again, the contradiction of naturalism his one and only son, that whosoever plunders a life. I might well counter that believes in Him should not perish, but if meaning has no transcendent referent have eternal life.” The object of God’s and each one may choose his or her own love is “whosoever.” The expression of standard, why do we still marvel when belief is for “whosoever.” It is for mankind evil takes place? Is it because we cannot that God sent his Son. Our Savior is shake off the soul that speaks from with- personal; our need is personal. Our belief in to say that there must be a sense and must be personal; salvation is personal. purpose to life, otherwise, everything The totality of persons is what makes the falls apart at the center? That’s why we world valuable. That’s why persons ask even try to make sense out of suffering. the question and nothing else does. The J.L. Mackie, a vociferous atheist value of the question is directly related to who challenged the existence of God on the value of personhood. The gospel the basis of the reality of evil, granted at alone gives us supreme value. In a strange least this logical connection when he said, way, the question of evil is a compliment “We might well argue . . . that objective, to human worth. That compliment intrinsically prescriptive features, super- is only justified if we have a supreme venient upon natural ones, constitute so creator of infinite worth. Our worth odd a cluster of qualities and relations comes from Him. that they are most unlikely to have arisen The next time you ask the question, in the ordinary course of events, without remember why it is a worthy one. In an all-powerful God to create them.” finding salvation through our suffering You see, however one approaches Savior, we see our worth expressed in the question, it is hard to avoid the the purest of terms for the greatest of conclusion that nothing can be intrinsically destinies and the ultimate purpose: to prescriptively good unless there also exists a know Him, love Him, and dwell eternally God who has fashioned the universe thus. with Him in communion with Him. Meaning and suffering are meaningful We conquer through suffering to be challenges for every life and we pursue conformed to his image. Sin broke us. them with moral connotations. The truth He puts us back together. is we cannot escape the existential rub The story of the gospel is the law- by running from a moral law. Objective giver, the reason for the law, the violation moral values exist only if God exists. of the law, and how God was both just Meaning and purpose are real only if and the ultimate justifier. Love and grace there is an ultimate purpose to life itself. healed what the law alone could not I can understand why naturalists do and was never intended to do. As a hesitate to grant the reality of absolutes, person, God loved and God gave. The law because they don’t like where it leads. But is an ideal requirement. God is the perfect sadly, Christians often struggle with its being. We come to Him, and as we see the reality as well. The answer to that has to moral framework of life, we find ourselves be over and beyond the cause of our as the object of his love in the grace He existence to the purpose of our existence. provides. The question will often haunt. That becomes another whole subject. But his presence overcomes that pain. Once we find the purpose, we learn how God conquers not in spite of the dark Warm Regards, mystery of pain but rather, how He conquers through it. It is amazing that the most well- known verse, John 3:16, reminds us how “God so loved the world that He gave Ravi

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