Questions from an atheist part 5

June 19, 2:39 PMSt. Louis Presbyterian ExaminerAlicia Donathan

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Now, on to Templeton's next question:

Q:  "If there is a loving God, why does He permit--much less create--earthquakes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters which kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children each year?"  

The answer:  "I don't know."  And neither does anyone else. 

Though more can be said in connection to this question (and more will be said), the straightforward answer is, "I don't know."  Everything else that will be added to the discussion serves to explain why it is that we don't know; but nothing changes the basic answer.  Christians need to be unafraid of this.  

As Tim Keller has said, all worldviews have their "white spots."  By this he referred to those areas that used to exist on old' maps that simply had no data, because nobody could say what lay in that region.  Nobody knew.  So in every account of reality, there are gaps.  There are questions to which there are no answers.  There are limits to human knowledge.  This question is one of those.   There are questions that arise within the Christian worldview that have no answers, just as there are questions that arise within an atheistic worldview (and other worldviews, for that matter) that have no answers.  This is part of the territory.  Adherents of any worldview need to be wise enough to understand the meaning of those unanswered questions.  

Lest we want for examples, here are some of the questions left unanswered in a purely materialist account of reality:  What is consciousness?  How does the mind relate to the brain?  We don't know.  What is the "soul"?  We don't know.  How can purely material beings nevertheless be free, responsible beings?  We don't know.  What is the nature of the universe--linear, cyclical, or something else?  We don't know.  What caused the "Big Bang"?  We don't know.  Short of introducing God, how can morality (right and wrong standards of behavior applicable to everyone) be derived from a purely descriptive posture toward reality?  We don't know. 

Though theories have been offered for all these questions, none has a firm answer.  A Christian could also construct a list of questions without answers, according to his own worldview. (E.g., How can Jesus be both God and man at the same time?  How is God both three and one?) The point is, that all views of reality have them.  Some of the questions may be answered one day; others may never be answered. Therefore, we are not to seek an account of reality that has all the answers, but rather we should ask what sort of questions are unanswered in a given account, and what these questions mean for the livability of a given worldview.  

More to come...