Episode 3: Good and Evil

Show Transcript

Jay Lee [00:00:00]:

Hey, this is Pastor Jay Lee, and I want to introduce you to God. The Intro to God Podcast, Episode 3, Good and Evil. Hey guys, Pastor Jay here, and welcome back to the Intro to God podcast. And as I have said from the beginning, I'm just so thankful that you guys would take time to engage in these conversations. Now believe it or not, today is the penultimate episode of season 1, which is basically just a complicated way of saying that this is the second to last episode of the first season. Now, I know 4 episodes is a very short season, but I always intended that this podcast would really just be a conversation starter between you and me or between you and your friend or family member who introduced you to this podcast or maybe just even a conversation starter between you and yourself. And so I really hope that some of this content has been sparking new thoughts and new avenues of Questioning in you and perhaps putting you on a journey to meet God Now it is possible that I'll maybe throw in an extra episode or 2 if I start receiving comments and questions from you guys that I want to address. And so with that being said, if you're out there listening, I would love to hear from you.

Jay Lee [00:01:41]:

If you have any comments or questions or pushback, just want to say hi, please reach out. You can visit our website at intro to God pod dot com and you can record a voice message there for me or you can send me an email, but let's connect and maybe it'll equal a few extra episodes of season 1. And so today we are going to talk about the third classic argument for the existence of God, which is the morality argument. And so if you guys are ready, let's not delay any longer. Here we go with episode number 3, good and evil. Good, and evil. If you ever have a conversation with somebody about the existence of God, and maybe in particular sort of the Judeo-Christian God, inevitably the conversation is going to move towards a discussion of morality, good and evil, and maybe in particular about evil. This is a very difficult question to wrestle with, maybe the hardest question, this question of evil and pain and suffering in the world.

Jay Lee [00:03:08]:

And some people even formalize this argument. And it usually goes something like this, though, you know, sometimes there's slightly different constructions of this, but essentially the argument goes, if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent, meaning he's everywhere, and if God is all good, then evil would not exist. But evil does exist. Therefore, either God is not all-knowing, or He is not all-powerful, or he is not omnipresent, or he does not exist at all. And like I said, different people might frame the argument in slightly different ways, but essentially what it boils down to is, if God really exists, Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? And to be totally honest, even as a believer, as a person of faith, who is a Christian and believes in God, I still have to wrestle with this question pretty much every single day. Because rarely does a day go by where I don't at least hear about something that's happening somewhere that is just awful and horrifying, some just horrific evil done to somebody, or just absolutely tragic level of suffering. And so this is a real question that a person like me, a person of faith who believes in a good God has to deal with seriously and honestly. And so we are going to come back in and talk about this a little bit more specifically in the final episode of season 1 next week But I want to sort of leave that off to the side for today because as difficult of a question this this problem of evil is for the person of faith it actually raises an equally difficult question for the person who doesn't believe in a God for the atheist or even the agnostic While people of faith like me have to wrestle with this problem of evil, I think the person who does not believe in any kind of God or Creator or higher power has to wrestle with the problem of good and evil and really any moral claim.

Jay Lee [00:05:55]:

See, in a world without a God or creator, someone who is a lawgiver, someone who can serve as the authoritative source of morality and ethics, of what is good and evil. In that kind of world, can there be such a thing as good and evil? Now, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Because I know that immediately some of you are hearing me say that if you are an atheist, that you are all just crazy, immoral people who are just evil all the time and and don't do anything good If that is what you think you're hearing from me, please let me dispel that right now I am NOT saying that a person who doesn't believe in a God can't do good things or or live moral lives. In fact, I think that it's probably true that there are a lot of people out there who are atheists or agnostic who are doing more good than a lot of Christians, and maybe even have higher moral standards than a lot of Christians or religious people. So that is definitely not what I'm trying to say. But what I am saying is that for the person who doesn't believe in a God, who doesn't believe that some moral ethical being created us and and serves as the authoritative source of what good and what evil is what is right and what is wrong. That that person has a very, very difficult task of trying to explain what good and evil are and whether there is such a thing as good and evil at all? And so I think a key question here for us to consider is this. Is there a way to ground morality? To ground good and evil, right and wrong, as objective, real things, words that truly have some sort of meaning without appealing to a God, some sort of lawgiver.

Jay Lee [00:08:32]:

For the person of faith who believes in a Creator God, it's easy to ground our belief in good and evil as something that is real and objective. For the Christian like me who believes in a good and moral God, who created us to be representations of his own image. That we can easily understand good and evil and right or wrong to be reflections of God's own character. And that it is true and objective and authoritative because he is the creator he is the lawgiver he is the source of our life and he is our designer he knows how he made us to live in relationship with 1 another But if we don't believe in any such God, how do we ground good and evil? Or maybe a simpler way to say it, how do we define what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong? Like if I say that it is wrong to steal something from another person, or that it is evil to murder somebody, or to abuse a child, how do I justify that belief? On what basis can I say with any kind of authority that it truly is wrong to steal or that it is evil to murder somebody or hurt somebody? And maybe there's a lot of different ways that people try to explain How you can define good and evil apart from a God? I think 1 simple definition is that Evil is defined as things that hurt people and good as things that help people Now kind of an expanded version of that simple explanation is what we would call a utilitarian definition of good and evil, which is basically to say that which is the most beneficial to the most number of people that that is what is good or what is right. And so let's examine those for a moment. Could those serve as the standard or the definition of what good and evil are? And while on the surface I think they sound okay, when you think about them a little bit deeper, I think you realize it starts to fall apart a little bit. If the definition of what is evil is that which hurts people and the definition of good is that which helps people, well what if something is helpful to 1 person but actually hurts another person? What if something benefits me but is detrimental to you? Is that good or is that evil? Or is it both? And I think you can apply a similar question to the utilitarian definition that whatever is the most beneficial to the most number of people that that is what we define as good. But it sort of raises a lot of different questions.

Jay Lee [00:11:28]:

Like what if something is beneficial to a large number of people but hurts a smaller group of people like a minority. So for instance, does it really make sense for a handful of uber-rich people to have so much of the world's wealth while there are so many other people in the world who are in dire poverty. Like wouldn't it make sense for us to just take all the extra money that Elon Musk and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have and just distribute it amongst people who really need that money. Right. Wouldn't that be the most beneficial to the most number of people? Hey, I'm convinced let's do it. Sounds good to me and probably to a large majority of people, But can we really say that that is a moral thing to do? Just because it will benefit a lot of people, does that make it right or moral to hurt another person or to basically rob these other people. In that way it almost sounds like might makes right. You know I'm saying that if you have enough people and you have enough power to enforce something and make it happen that that makes it right.

Jay Lee [00:12:46]:

And going even further with that example, maybe doing that, redistributing their money to the masses, would be more beneficial to a large number of people in the short term, but maybe in the long term it is not more beneficial. Because I mean, how many jobs do their businesses create? How much easier do their businesses make our lives? Or how much better does the technology that they build make the world and become beneficial to a large number of people even though they're hoarding all the money. And so which 1 is more good? That which is more beneficial for more people in the short term or more beneficial for more people in the long term? What if something helps a large number of people now but something else would be more helpful to a larger number of people later? Which 1 do we call good or moral? And who gets to decide that? Who's deciding what is the most beneficial to the most number of people? And who even gets to say that that is somehow more moral than a smaller group of people benefiting more than a larger group of people. Who's to say, but let's say there was some way in which, you know, the masses could somehow come together and agree that this is what is right. This is what is good. This is what is good for society. But what if there's that 1 guy, right? And there's always that 1 guy who's just like, so what? You guys all agree that this is the right thing to do. You, you guys all, you guys all agree.

Jay Lee [00:14:31]:

So what? I disagree. And I don't care if there's a billion of you who have a different opinion from me. Who are you to say that your opinion is better than mine? And I have to say I kind of agree with that guy's logic. Who are we to say, even if there's a billion of us who all agree on that still. So what? Just because you guys agree on it. Why is that somehow binding? How, how is that any more than just a popular opinion? I mean, sure. You guys may have enough power because there's so many of you who agree that you could force that on me and enforce it on me but even still just because a majority of you agree and just because you have the power to enforce that vision of what good and evil is on me the minority who disagrees with you is that what makes something truly good or evil Is that really the definition of morality? And so I think we're still left searching for some way to ground the definition of what is good and what is evil, something true and objective and authoritative, And I don't think utility can be that answer. And so coming back to where we started this discussion, I think the consequence of the problem of evil and suffering in the world for a person of faith is trying to reconcile the idea that there is this all-powerful, loving God in the universe, and yet he would allow so much evil and suffering to happen in the world.

Jay Lee [00:16:46]:

We have to somehow reconcile. But the problem of good for those of you guys who do not believe in God, or just leaning heavily in the direction that there is no God, What you have to wrestle with and reconcile is that maybe more than maybe probably Good and evil are not real things that morality is ultimately a human fiction a construct that we have created to guide behavior in society, but that ultimately good and evil, right and wrong, are completely subjective, that those words don't ultimately mean anything in the end. But really, that anything that we deem as good or moral, and on the flip side, Anything that we deem as being evil and immoral is just your opinion. If you believe that stealing is wrong, that is just your opinion. If you believe that murder is wrong, child abuse, domestic violence, slavery, persecution, ethnic cleansing, right? The Holocaust, human trafficking, That all of these things that we see as being horrific evils in this world it's really just an opinion and subjective and Even if a majority of us agree that something is wrong and immoral and it shouldn't be done, so what? How is that opinion binding on anyone else in any real and objective and authoritative sense? And man, that is a dark reality. That is a harsh reality to swallow. And in fact, you shouldn't swallow it. None of us should swallow that.

Jay Lee [00:18:59]:

Even though here I'm asking you to play out the reasoning and see the cold, hard logic of this. I'm asking you not to follow that cold, hard logic, but actually to follow your heart, to follow your feelings. Because I think the vast majority of people refuse to believe that good and evil are meaningless. That the atrocities that we see in the world and the evil immoral things that have been inflicted on us are meaningless. When we search our hearts and souls, we refuse to believe that we can't believe that. And so I think when you reject this sort of nihilistic narrative and come out and actually proclaim that yes I believe we live in a moral universe and that we are moral beings I think that you are now on a path that demands you to ask, from where does this morality come? Where do good and evil find their meaning? And how do we discern them? And I think when you come to that place and begin asking those questions, honestly and sincerely that you are now on a path that demands that you at least consider the existence of a God. Again, I want to thank you guys for opening your hearts and your minds to honestly consider these things. And I really want to hear what you guys are thinking and feeling.

Jay Lee [00:20:48]:

Even if you feel like I've gotten it completely wrong, please reach out through the website introtogodpod.com and let's have a conversation about it. And so blessings everyone. Can't wait to pick up this conversation again next week. Take care. If you're enjoying the podcast and you want to support us, please share this episode with someone. If you would like to contact Pastor Jay, visit introtogodpod.com. Next time, Episode 4, Now What?