Monday, October 10, 2011

Quick answers to difficult questions

Sometimes when we talk with others about Christianity, we don't have a lot of time to develop our answers. Greg Koukl, president of Stand to Reason, has two quick answers to two difficult questions.

The one issue that usually gets brought up as an attack on Christianity is the problem of evil. If there is a good God, why is there evil? Greg suggests an initial question – "So you believe in objective evil then?" If the challenger doesn't, the problem goes away. If there's no objective evil, there is no problem of evil. That should take care of relativists who raise this issue.

Then there's his follow-up question – "What do you mean by evil?" Normally, people will give all sorts of examples of evil, like murder, torture, child abuse. Greg says we should ask them instead to tell us what it is that makes those things objectively evil in the first place. This can lead to a discussion, when there's more time, about transcendent moral law and the need for a transcendent moral law maker. In other words, God must exist before you can even raise the objection about evil. If there's no God, there are simply your preferences.

The second issue raised against Christianity involves Jesus being the only way. Greg has a pretty sharp answer for that issue: "Well, that's what Jesus thought. Do you think he had any insight into spiritual things?" The advantage now is with you because the critic must take on Jesus. Good luck.

This paragraph is my own suggestion about this second issue. When people complain about Jesus being the only way, they usually follow it up with a criticism of Christianity as being narrow-minded or intolerant. Of course, we simply need to point out that these people are just as narrow-minded since they believe they are right just as much as we believe we are right. They seem to be just as intolerant about our views as they say we are about theirs.

Now, there are obviously ways to get deeper into these issues. But these responses can keep us from being inarticulate or defensive. Try them out sometime.

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