I was not able to publish a post on Saturday. I'm trying to make a conscious effort to keep affairs of the world out of my mind on the Lord's Day (today). I can though, make a few comments from a Christian perspective on the terrorism that threatens to consume the world. British philosopher Anthony Flew was the foremost atheist in the world...up until 2004, when he announced that he had changed his mind, there had to be a God. I just finished his book on this "change of mind" called There Is A God, How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind, written with Roy Abraham Varghese) As of the writing of the book, he has not accepted a "personal God" but admits that the question is still open with him. It's compelling reading.
I want to mention just one issue that helped keep him from belief in God. That issue was the existence of evil. One of the reasons Professor Flew came to theism was the dazzling and the complete interdependence of theories of physics with each other. There simply had to be a Creator! Certainly, the same complete interdependence was fashioned by God in His greatest creation, man. If there is good, there has to be evil or the design would be incomplete. How would one know love with the absence of an alternative. How would you know good if there was never bad? Just as the universe was magnificently complete, so was God's creation of man! The ability to love demanded the ability to hate or it would not be love. Man also has the capability to be indifferent, to neither love nor hate. Man can terrorize and take life, and he can oppose terror and defend life...and he can be indifferent. The church of Laodicea was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm and God said He would "spit them out of my mouth." We cannot be lukewarm on terror or God's hand will surely depart and we will be consumed, both as individuals and a nation. There is no evil in heaven, nor will there be any when we are there, but we will know what it was. We will know God's love and His goodness.
I want to mention just one issue that helped keep him from belief in God. That issue was the existence of evil. One of the reasons Professor Flew came to theism was the dazzling and the complete interdependence of theories of physics with each other. There simply had to be a Creator! Certainly, the same complete interdependence was fashioned by God in His greatest creation, man. If there is good, there has to be evil or the design would be incomplete. How would one know love with the absence of an alternative. How would you know good if there was never bad? Just as the universe was magnificently complete, so was God's creation of man! The ability to love demanded the ability to hate or it would not be love. Man also has the capability to be indifferent, to neither love nor hate. Man can terrorize and take life, and he can oppose terror and defend life...and he can be indifferent. The church of Laodicea was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm and God said He would "spit them out of my mouth." We cannot be lukewarm on terror or God's hand will surely depart and we will be consumed, both as individuals and a nation. There is no evil in heaven, nor will there be any when we are there, but we will know what it was. We will know God's love and His goodness.
