The Problem of Suffering and the Goodness of God - Ravi Zacharias at Johns Hopkins

welcome to the Veritas forum engaging University students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life thank you well it's a real honor to be with you tonight and I hope I do not add to the problem of pain as I speak on this particular subject the good news is that after I finish speaking on it as best as I can within the time that we have on hand I'm going to be joined by to my colleagues dr. Vince Vitale who is a lecturer at Wickliffe hall at Oxford University he did his studies at Princeton and his doctoral work at Oxford you hear more from him about him later and dr. Nabil qureishi who is actually also on our team he is a medical doctor but has also quite a couple of postgraduate degrees in theological training and texts of Scripture and so on they will tell you more about them as they come onto the platform but I think it's wonderful for me to have them at least for a couple of reasons number one anything that I say that makes sense I'll be glad to answer your questions about those if it doesn't make sense they will be answering the questions on those for a couple of reasons Vince Vitale when he was at Princeton then at Oxford was not only a student of philosophy but also was a light welterweight boxing competitor there did extremely well and anyone who has been in the business of inflicting pain ought to be able to out justify it as to why that was done and the bill Kureishi as a medical doctor would have been on the other side of the ring catering to the needs of the one that was felled so he'll give you justifiable reasons for why he alleviates pain looking at two of them I'm really glad they're here and in all seriousness I think you will find our time of interaction to be very very meaningful we come off various itineraries from different parts of the world and different kinds of audiences and everyone knows that this is possibly the most daunting question that challenges any theistic framework but also any naturalistic framework because both worldviews have to explain in the former case how the doctrine that they hold to in terms of the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God can allow the kind of evil and suffering that we experience in the world but from the counter perspective those who deny the existence of God on the basis of such suffering then have to find a way to explain moral reasoning both of them have tried it I'm not sure that I have found the answer from the counter perspective very convincing people like Daniel Dennett and Hitchens and Dawkins and sam Harris Sam Harris particularly as written most recently on the subject and Daniel Dennett goes to great lengths in his interviews to point out what he will call the evidential problem with the existence of God namely the problem of evil the problem of pain and the problem of suffering so that is a backdrop hopefully we will touch some of these authors as we go along and certainly in the question answer time I hope we will do our best to interact with you let me just say that as a speaker and one who talks on themes such as these although it's been a long time since this particular subject was assigned to me suddenly comes from the floor no matter what the subject is and the defense of theism that we are fully aware of how tough these questions are anyone who minimizes it obviously doesn't understand the question and sometimes I get the feeling when those who attack theism or the Christian faith in particular seem to think that we're sort of foolish in ignoring this problem we actually don't ignore it Daniel Dennett referring to Alvin Plantinga and his debate with the great philosopher Planum you said well his argument was very logical but his belief is preposterous now that's interesting isn't it so making a value judgment after actually denying that values actually exist quite pronounced quite dramatic but both sides feel the struggle and every worldview wrestles with this in fact it has been rightly said that virtual in distress and vice in triumph often makes atheists of mankind virtue in distress and vice and triumph often makes atheists of mankind Andrew Fletcher the 18th century Scottish political activist said this let me write the songs of a nation I don't care who writes its laws let me write the songs of a nation I don't care who writes its laws and the reason Fletcher said that was that while Lea reason and logic and argument may come to you from the front door of rationality music and the arts often come to the back door of the imagination and that's why sometimes my work at Cambridge University was in really the Romantic poets and when I see how poetry and music and the arts so often raise the question in very thorny ways they sometimes even hint at the answer that oftentimes those who are given to pure reasoning do not even move in that direction the fame music group of moody blues said this why do we never get an answer when we are knocking at the door with a thousand million questions about hate and death and war because when we stop and look around us there's nothing that we need in a world of persecution that is whirling in its greed why do we never get an answer when we are knocking at the door that is the musician raising it and anytime you see the problem raised you begin to see how easy it is to give a long list of tragedies and atrocities as if we're in need of justifying that evil and suffering really exists what I want to do is try to illustrate for you this evening that not only do we feel it not only do we wrestle with it not only do we argue our way through it and debate it in our own minds but I've come to the conclusion that the problem of evil is better stated as a mystery rather than a problem why do I say that I believe a problem is very easy to to describe I think it is Gabrielle Marcel who said that a mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question so in a mystery when it encroaches upon itself and you are part of the very question being raised that becomes harder to answer but a problem is easier to deal with as someone said getting to Mars as a problem falling in love is a mystery so let me repeat what Marcel says a mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question you and I are not outside of this question we are in the question itself I remember a medical doctor and the Middle East ones describing to me how shocked he was to go through the experience of a heart attack and he is a pain management specialist he said Ravi I realized when I was in the throes of that heart attack how difficult it was to describe it he said when a person says my arm is hurting my leg is hurting my head is hurting it is as if whatever you are describing is experiencing pain is an appendage and something attached to the essential you he said when I was going through the heart attack the only way to describe it was that I was in the pain I was in the pain the very organ that was intended to generate life instead was generating pain for me and the problem of evil I believe is pretty much the same let's look at it first the reality of it David Hume discusses a skeptic put it this way were a stranger to suddenly drop into this world I would show him as a specimen of its sales a hospital full of diseases a prison crowded with Mal factors and debtors a field strewn with carcasses a fleet floundering in the ocean a nation languishing under tyranny famine or pestilence honestly I don't see how you can possibly square with the ultimate purpose of love interesting that the skeptic raises the question with a varieties of pain and suffering and then brings it to a closing statement on trying to square it with the ultimate purpose of love another existentialist put it this way it is not science that has led me to doubt the purpose of God it is the state of this world it is this pitiless unending struggle for existence among the nations it is the collapse of our idealisms before the brute facts of force and chaos that there is a radical twist in the very constitution of the universe which will always defeat man's hopes make havoc of his dreams and bring his pathetic optimism crashing in disaster purpose look at the world and that settles it for me now notice the first one in raising the question interjects the possibility how does the impossibility of squaring it with the purpose of love the existentialist says how can they really be any purpose in life if all that we see around us in this piteous unending struggle for existence so it is not science that was knocking him off any belief it was just the fact that there was such despair and meaninglessness in the world that he saw around him but second is the universality of the problem Gautama Buddha in moving away from being born a Hindu and in search of answers looking at suffering and looking at old age looking at death looking at these sites as he was raised in a palace left the palatial precincts and the comfort of it ironically on the very night that his first child his son was born he left the palace went away in search of answers to the problem of suffering and by the way the word he uses is the word dukkha which is much more than the idea of pain or discomfort dukkha can best be described as an anguish that is so overwhelming to you almost in the essential nature of who you are so it's not mere philosophy it's a struggle within that soullessness that is you which is what Buddha was talking about so he gave up his bringing up upbringing in a in Hinduism renounced some of the teachings of the Vedas and the whole idea of the caste system and he went in search of enlightenment and then came up with his Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths the first one of which was all life is suffering and his conclusion was if you cease to desire if you stop wanting you will eliminate any suffering whatsoever so Buddha went along that path which tells you there's a universality to it now I was raised in India's my ancestors were Orthodox Hindu priests on the deep south and I find it very fascinating that India which is so intensely religious is also a country that has lived with a lot of suffering and a lot of deprivation the the songs that they sing the music that that's often present in their movies will often time talk of the pain and suffering and yet with that pain and suffering is that intense sense of religiosity and yet if you move through Europe in the West and come into the United States and so on with all of the prosperity and all of the comforts we are gradually becoming more atheistic all the time fascinating difference where cultures in the midst of pain have sought answers for the spirit those in the midst of greater comforts are walking away from belief in God is it we're more intelligent than them better qualified more degrees understand reality better than the great philosophers that have come from the east and continue to look at this as a struggle for the soul so first is the reality second is the universality third is the complexity of the problem you've got the metaphysical aspect of it what is the source of it which is what we wrestle with most here then there's a physical aspect of it natural disasters there's the moral aspect of it how can an all-powerful and all-loving God allow this so metaphysically physically and morally we struggle to find answers but here it is as we look at this I want you to understand right from the beginning what has to be a framework from which we answer this question however you answer it there has to be a framework and the framework is this this is just one question that tries to define what ultimate reality is all about but the question hinges on too many others the moment you move in the direction of coming to a conclusion on this for example the staunch atheist who says there is no way to see the existence of an all-powerful all-loving God therefore this world is really God less we have to find meaning and purpose in this very world there's no way to sustain the existence of God the question then comes for that person how is this then inextricably not joined to the question of meaning it ties in to the question of purpose and meaning I'll tell you why in saying that we experience suffering and evil we are looking for a purpose to explain it but then we conclude sometimes the skeptic does that there is no purpose to life itself it actually creates a bigger when there is no ultimate purpose why we need to find tiny little purposes after all other than the justification of being purely pragmatic CS Lewis put it in these words when a ship goes on to the high seas it has to answer three questions number one how to keep that ship from sinking he said that's personal ethics number two how to keep from bumping into other ships that is social ethics he said but the most important question is why is the ship out there in the first place that is essential ethics do you realize that for the skeptic the most important question is unanswered they can come up with sort of social ethics sort of a construct we can create or personal ethics why it is not good for me to cheat you or lie to you if the species is to survive but they have still not been able to give us what the purpose of life is all about we're just here time plus matter plus chance and so as I deal with it I want to take on three challenges that come to the Christian theist or to the theist in general and then give you what I consider the judeo-christian answer at least in a series of steps number one it is this the evidential challenge basically says that I cannot believe in God because of the presence of evil there is too much evil therefore there cannot be an ultimate all-powerful being I recall in my earlier days when I was starting out speaking at the University of Nottingham it was in the middle of a whole series of lectures and I was talking once on the search for meaning and a fellow stood up right at the back and he said just shout it out at me said there's too much of evil too much of evil there simply cannot be a God so I said can I interact with you for a moment so he remained standing I said sir when you say this evil aren't you assuming that such a thing is good he says yeah I said when you say this such a thing is good aren't you assuming that such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil he paused and struggled with that a bit you know sort of looking around and thinking I said let me help you here I said when Bertrand Russell was debating the philosopher Frederick Kapil stone at one point cobblestone looked at Russell and said to him do you believe in good and bad you believe that such a thing is good and says he bad he said yeah he said how do you differentiate between it but on Russell said the same way I differentiate between blue and green Coble sansar wait a minute you differentiate between blue and green by seeing don't you russell said yes he said how do you differentiate between good and bad this great philosopher mathematician gave this answer on the basis of feeling what else now coppleson was a kind man somebody ought to have turned to Bertrand Russell and say mr. Russell in some cultures they love their neighbors in other cultures they eat them both on the basis of feeling do you have a personal preference my bass are feeling really on the basis of feeling so he's all right I'll grant you there's such a thing as a moral law so I said when you say this evil you assume this good when you assume there's good you're saying that such a thing is a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil he said I'll get all right I'll grant you that I said but if you grant me a moral law you must pause it a moral lawgiver because that's whom you're trying to disprove and not prove because if there's no moral lawgiver there's no moral law if there's no moral law there's no good if there's no good there's no evil what is your question he stood there eyeballed me and said what then am I asking you I said if you don't know how am I supposed to help you what it is you're asking now let me be fair here somebody might pause and say Ravi I'll grant you that there is evil and good I might even stretch it a little bit and say oh there are such things as moral laws people like Dennett and Harris will sort of not go for the absolute but they would certainly go for moral reasoning and moral thinking as something as having an antique referent to which by which we can make our judgments but why do we have to have a moral lawgiver and my answer to that is this all questions about evil are either raised by a person or about a person all questions on evil is either raised by a person or about a person which means the questioner is making an incredible assumption that human beings have essential value and that's what makes their question justifiable that as a questioner my question is valuable because I'm a person of value and have the right to raise it or the one I'm talking about in whose defense I have come I am raising this because that person has essential value why do we argue for justice why do we come to the right to the defense of the innocent because deep within us we believe that a person of value and Worth ought not to be sacrificed at a whim the essential value of human life is assumed in raising the question and so the moral lawgiver has to be within the paradigm if there is no moral lawgiver I don't see how there is a moral law if there is no moral law there's no good if there's no good evil ultimately self destructs and the irony of it is this is where some atheistic philosophers are being forced to get off people like Dawkins and all whom I might quote but at the same time the tension remains and the struggle remains let me position this for you with two illustrations Vince Vitale and I are coring a book incidentally on the problem of suffering we're suffering through it right now trying to work through it and I was watching a BBC production on polar bears yeah I do those things I learned more from that than a lot of other stuff that goes on being idiot eyes in front of a box so amazed well watch that and so I was watching the BBC production on polar bears and thus polar bear wakes from its hibernation sleep and it's two young cubs are waiting to be fed so it marches off it's looking for food and the ice is rather thin there and he's making his way but it gets to a pack of walruses and he's eyeing for the youngest and the most baby walrus out there any spots one but the bigger ones are aware that the predator is near and so they're closing in and a bit of a circle finally with bounding strides he leaps into them it's desperately trying to get this baby walrus the bigger ones are budding away at this polar bear and the polar bear ultimately unable to penetrate these defenses and gets bloodied in the process the last scene is the polar bear turning and walking or a back and digging its own grave it does not now have the strength to make it all the way back to the cave I know you look at it and your heart goes out feeling sorry to see that happen and the BBC commentator ends with this comment he said you know what if there weren't any such thing as global warming the polar bear would not have taken so long to get to its prey and that's why we are responsible for the death of that polar bear Wow you almost feel like putting up your hand coming forward getting on your knees and say dear polar bear please forgive me for what I had just done here's what I want to say to you suppose he is right suppose he is right why didn't he blame the polar bear for over sleeping even it got up a couple of days earlier maybe it had more strength than God God got the some other kind of prey why didn't he look to the beastly world to find some kind of incrimination he goes to us as human beings you see the inescapability of moral reasoning that comes around into the human heart where you and I have to ask ourselves the question if that is true what responsibility must I bear for something like this and I then have to take my personal responsibility in a world such as this second question moving completely away to a different scene my whole life has been surrounded by experiences that I never dreamed I would ever have I don't know how many of you are even aware of my own journey spiritually I was totally non-theistic if not atheistic growing up in this home and I had no time for any of the religions in which I was raised not and at the age of 17 attempted to take my own life and on that bed what a Bible was brought to me it's a long story how my heart was changed my life was turned and subsequent to that I never dreamed of all the experiences through which I was going to have to go in life - both enrich and to both plant questions within my mind and my pursuit of truth I made my commitment to Christ at the age of 17 I speak to you now 50 years later is the most dramatic moment and the most incredible transformation that about who my father were here he would tell you of all my children I never ever dreamed that this my boy would make anything out of his own life and so traveling around I sometimes watch things happen when I was in my 20s I was in Vietnam also in Cambodia I saw the horrors of war I saw a dreadful mangling of bodies taking place on the side of the highway and I thought to myself it's incredible absolutely incredible what I'm witnessing and in 1980s during the Cold War I was in Auschwitz if none of you has ever been to a death camp it would be the most sobering trip of a lifetime to go and see one not a concentration camp a death camp I'd been to concentration canal book involve Dachau and all of those had never been to a death camp but I was speaking at the universities in Poland and a second one day to see it when I walked through the rooms and saw what humanity had done to its fellow human being and at that time the most educated nation in the world inflicted by the rhetoric and the power of one man who seemed to think there was a super race and a better race that could eliminate all the weak ones in the world and make this a better world for whoever survived the strong ones in one room there was 14,000 pounds of women's hair stashed behind glass women who were scalped before they were taken into the gas rooms there to the rooms where the poison gas was just released through those jets and as they were stacked up like animals collapsing onto their knees being obliterated in Auschwitz alone at the rate of 12,000 every day one room with children upon whom Mengele performed his experiments standing there castrated little boys like that if you looked into their eyes you were just staring at absolute emptiness and Mengele was doing his scientific experiments on them as a rock musician would say knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules the fate of all mankind I see was in the hands of fools so he was doing it and then I walked over to the gas Southern's there and I saw a sign by Adolf Hitler I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience imperious relentless and cruel now here's the treasure conundrum here's the difficulty people like Dennett and harris and all can pontificate on these ideas how we can arrive at values this is the whole search of Harris in his book the moral landscape that we have to solve this issue of value Dennett anind interview keeps on repeating this thing and he says so long as we don't believe in absolutes well that itself is an absolute statement but apart from that he comes through this incredible comment at one point he said if within a culture you had certain values that you hold to don't impose them on another culture isn't that an absolute isn't that an absolute and so listen here's what jail Mackie the Australian atheist says here's what he says we might well argue that objective intrinsically prescriptive features supervenient upon natural ones constitutes so order cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful God to create them the kind of configuration we need says this atheist to explain values and objectively intrinsically prescriptive features it's most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful God to create them and hence the Atheist also Michael ruse talking about the kind of answers that Harrison tallgeese is illusionary illusionary answers he said there is no way to get away from the fact that we've struggle to explain moral reasoning think for example of what kind of Sandy of Canadian atheist says we have not been able to show that reason alone requires the moral point of view or that really rational persons unhooded by myth or ideology need not be individual egos of classical a moralist reason doesn't decide here the picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one reflection on this really depresses me pure practical reason even with a good knowledge of the facts will not take you to morality it's an atheist so where do we get off we get off with Richard Dawkins here's what he says in a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication some people are going to get hurt and other people are going to get lucky and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it nor any justice the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom no design no purpose no evil and no good nothing but blob a blind pitiless indifference DNA neither knows nor cares DNA just is and we dance to its music you know about three four months ago the Australian cricket team was in England and they were playing these Test matches which last five days people can never figure it out how a match can last five days but they do if you love cricket it's a foretaste of heaven I enjoyed playing cricket but there was an English cricketer by the name of Stuart Broad he was of the crease batting and he was out the ball hit the bat and he was caught behind by the catcher he knew it everybody knew it but the Empire didn't see it was the Empire gave him not act now you have an appeal but they had run out of their appeals and the Australian cricket team could not and could not appeal about that and broad because of the few extra runs that he made afterwards ended up being the difference between winning and losing you should have seen the outrage of Richard Dawkins he tweeted I'm ashamed of being an Englishman here he said this is not triggered he should have walked Stuart Broad is a cheat and he wasn't prepared for the huge deluge of tweets that came Richard it's okay he's dancing to his DNA fascinating you can dance to your DNA but not when the other person is dancing to his and you are the victim I say to you what GK Chesterton said all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind in a modern skeptic doubts not only the institution he denounces but the doctrine by which he denounced it so he writes one book complaining that Imperial oppression in salsa purity of women then he writes another book a novel in which he insults it himself as a politician he cries odd that war is a waste of life then as a philosopher that life itself is a waste of time a Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant then proved by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself a man denounces marriage is a lie then denounces our stroke Radek profligates for treating it as a lie the man of this school goes first to a political meeting where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts then he takes his hat an umbrella and goes on to a select meeting where he proves that there practically are beasts in short the modern revolution is being an infinite skeptic is for a very engaged and undermining his own minds in his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men therefore the modern man in revolt becomes practically useless for all purposes ruled by rebelling against everything he's lost his right to rebel against anything an infinite skeptic so when you talk about the evidential problem you have to end up with Dawkins as there's no such thing really as evil I asked the student at Oxford University after I gave a talk there some years ago and he said I don't believe in absolutes and he was surrounded by a lot of students with him and as I can ask a question if I take a one-year-old baby on this platform and they take a sharp butcher knife and I carved up that baby and chopped that baby up into pieces for my pure pleasure do you think I would have done anything morally wrong he paused through some design with his toe and the carpet and he looks at me and said mrs. a cries I wouldn't like what you did but I couldn't honestly say that what you did was morally wrong and the same sound by the students standing there can you live existentially with that philosophy that there is no such thing as moral evil second attack we can find biological reasons sociological reasons by which we can arrive at this I bring to count responses to that number one if it's only physical if it's only biological how do we ever explain super rogatory acts as acts of nobility how do we ever explain supererogatory acts what is a super a rogatory act some years ago Daniel Goleman in his book emotional and intelligence told about Megerian Mary Jean Chauncey and the damn track train that went down in the south into the swirling waters in which one compartment after another fell into those waters and several people were killed my good friend RC sprawl was actually on that train his was the last compartment there that literally was dangling at the end it could not did not fall into the water welling water as he told us about its story but Gary and Mary Jean Chauncey had a wheelchair ridden little girl 11 years old and as they saw her struggling and wanted to know how they could make her escape at the same time young Andrea with cerebral palsy tied up in this wheelchair neither Gary no Mary Jean would leave by Levi leaving their girl in that situation they tried to hoist up that wheelchair and as the rescuers were swimming in the swirling waters they're trying to get closer and closer they held her as long as they could and with one last heave thrust her into the arms of the rescuers while both of them lost their lives in process that's a super a rogue Ettore act against the natural instinct because the fact of the matter is that little girl could not support herself the weaker was protected by the stronger whose life was sacrificed you see the same thing in Molokai he in Hawaii where I visited and so what father Joseph Damian did in the rescue of people with leprosy it's a beautiful island but plagued by leprosy for many many years and Damian came from Belgium took care of them when Damian himself contracted leprosy and died the Belgian government asked for his body to be flown back and the people in Molokai he said please don't take his body away we want to him to be buried here he loved us he took care of us and the stories are amazing of what Damian did for them and finally the Belgian government said he's one of our heroes we want him back here so then they wrote and said would you do us a favor can we cut off his right arm and keep the hand that touched us that embraced us and today in Malacca he Damian's right arm is buried as a memorial to the love and the grace that he showed to people who were deemed untouchable supererogatory act but then that comes a second question if biological bio science and all leads us into ethics the kind that Dennett and all talk about here's my question for you I've been to the Middle East many times I've been on peace missions with religious leadership to talk to both sides of it sometimes I would hear answers and just crush my spirit and wondered if there was any hope and when one of those I shall leave the man unnamed he was one of the leading violent part of violent group out there founded one of those terrorist groups and I asked him a question I can't really tell you what question I asked because it was a private conversation but the answer that he gave chillin absolutely chillin and I said to him I can't leave here without responding to you in some way I'm your guest but I want to talk to you about this so here's what I want to say listen to me very carefully in all of our efforts to find some kind of naturalistic explanation for why we must be good Noble guiding and I'm all for it and let me put a caveat in here I'm not for a moment saying that an atheist or a non theist or an agnostic cannot be a good person no no that's not what I'm saying I met many good decent people who don't believe in God so I'm not accusing the person themselves or not possessing that virtue I am just saying how does one bring about a rationally compelling way to defend it and when people of a different culture arrive at a totally different conclusion culturally and geopolitically what is the basis of telling them they have no right to come to their conclusion you see when Jesus was asked about the laws that was supreme Moses had given 613 laws david reduced them to 15 isaiah brought them down to 11 and then we we see going on down there that they brought down further to 6 and then micah comes up with 3 to do justice to love mercy and to walk humbly before your God when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment I find it fascinating he didn't answer with one he could have done it he said you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself he said on these two laws hang all of the prophets and all of the other laws you see because of the first the second follows without the first the second is with its feet firmly planted in made that I am obligated to love my neighbor even with their disagreements of my worldview I have no right to violate the sacredness of your life your marriage your property and that which you treasure neither have you the right to violate the sacredness my life and my home my marriage my property I think Jesus is spot on here to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself on these to hang all of the laws and the prophets and so when we talk about somehow neurologically or biochemically coming out we are ignoring a vast horde of humanity I was sitting with two young guys from a completely different worldview in Jerusalem and I get into the I have to tell you we get into these places and have they've been very good to me even if they get rather loud we'll talk I've lectured at many many campuses of a different worldview and this guy looked at me and he said let me tell you something we were first take care of Saturday then we will take care of Sunday and I knew exactly what he was saying that was his law that was his commitment and do I come to him and say you know biochemically I don't think you're responding with any sense of nobility here maybe in my last statement and I say to you these counter perspectives are not answering the question so I close with that and move quickly to my answers here Viktor Frankl who is an Auschwitz said this if we present man as an automaton of reflexes as a mind machine as a bundle of instincts as a pawn of drives and reactions as a mere product of heredity and environment we then feed the nihilism to which modern man is in any case prone I became acquainted with the last stage of corruption in my second concentration camp Auschwitz the gas chambers of the chambers of Auschwitz were the at consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment or as the Nazis like to say of blood and soil I'm absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz Treblinka and my Zdenek were ultimately not prepared in some ministry or other in Berlin but rather the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers Franco and I bring to you that that is where one ultimately gets off when you lose the essential value of human life in the transcendent moral order Bertrand Russell paid the Christian worldview the ultimate compliment without even thinking about it his quotation stands outside Mahatma Gandhi's home and by the way Gandhi traveled with the New Testament in his pocket all of his life quoted from the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly and Gandhi as he fought for the freedom of his own people Bertrand Russell says this incredibly that's an a banner outside Gandhiji's home here's what it says it is doubtful that the Mahatma would have succeeded except that he was appealing to the conscience of a Christianized people he is an atheist complementing the success of a pantheist because the moral values of a theist fascinating so where do we go from the Christian point of view I give you six thoughts one or two I'll elaborate on some alkie brief number one God is the author of life God is the author of life we can spend all of our time on the method used and the manner use and the time and all of that my point to you right now is however you move directionally and I've known Christians on many sides of this our colleague at Oxford John Lennox has written a powerful book here's a man with a triple doctorate in science was written the book called seven days that divided the world what I say to you is the source of my value is given to me by God I had that intrinsic value for life you know as I talked to you I've become a grandfather three times in the last couple of years I youngest one's about two months old now strong to Vince as we are driving in here my daughter's terribly concerned because of a serial respiratory viral infection that she has contracted in the last 48 hours and my daughter spent the last two nights the last night in the hospital and today all day with a doctor and here's my daughter we little thing herself she and her husband with this little baby that came home at five pounds and 10 ounces tiny little one and all of a sudden here now if the two-month age gets this viral infection probably and beginning to lose weight but she can hardly afford to lose and I watched the love of a mother and hear the voice on the phone of how dearly she cares for this little one that please pray for me please pray with me this is very hard for me to watch my little one going through this every life has intrinsic value and Worth and it behooves us to reach out to the weakest and the littlest ones among us there is that mystery of life there is an author if there is an author there is a script and there is a story that's the second thing I give to you that there is a storyline and once you understand the storyline it explains the contingencies I remember when I was first unaware of this story of the Phantom of the Opera I'd be driving around and listening to the music and I'd say wow this is this guy's screaming it's not music you know go god what music is this now I know operas you can grovel and all of that I know that but this was really not musical you watch the play and it's some of the most magnificent music that Andrew Lloyd Webber has put together both the screams and the beautiful tones are understandable in the light of the story once you get the script once you understand the story you begin to understand what it is that God brings together here now I want you to follow me time's running out so I have to give this to you as as briefly as I can where there is freedom there is a possibility of love where there is love there's a possibility of pain where there is pain there's a possibility of a savior where there is a savior there's a possibility of redemption where there is redemption there is the possibility of restoration freedom makes love possible love makes pain possible pain makes the Savior possible and the Savior brings Redemption and the redemption brings restoration I have seen this again and again and again demonstrated in life my colleague Matt who travels with me will tell you just a few months ago May of DC I was in Manila and the Philippines and unknown to me a very prominent person in the country stood up at the end of my talk and walked up to the microphone standing about six three so handsome looking guy and his tears running down his face he said you talk about meaning purpose he said I don't have it he said I'm living with three things pain shame and guilt pain shame and guilt how can you yell help me I didn't even know he was an actor but I said Tim you know you're made for the movies kind of guy and I said he drunk what meaninglessness what are you driving back that night I saw his face all over the billboards everywhere he told me his story he was a Playboy in private living a totally debauched life and a drug addict to the core well-known film actor if I named him anybody here comes from the Philippines although exactly him I'm talking about a project or even dude named it he was living this duplicitous horrid life videoed himself in all of his exploits somebody broke into his apartment took all of those videos put it on YouTube he was branded the most hated man in the Philippines so he comes to me opens up Bowser's head and gives his life to Christ he says I have a request to ask you he said Ravi please can I travel with you as much as possible over the next several months I just want to learn so he's been covering all of the globe with us came to Indonesia and the Singapore came to Los Angeles a couple weeks ago and Malaysia India so on a week ago he writes to me I could read his letter to you I wept when I read it and I sent it to my colleagues and the team he said I want to tell you when I came back to the Philippines I wasn't expecting to see the TEVAR terrible devastation he said I've taken my valuables and I have auctioned them off I'm raising money and we've raised quite a bit I'm personally going to fly out to help the suffering and the wounded and try to bring some meaning and help and hope into their lives a few months ago he was plundering people now he writes a letter and I say to myself my goodness what a story what a script the story is this what is it number three that life is sacred life is sacred and may I say this to you the problem in the Christian life and the gospel is not that we are not moral the problem really is that we are dead we are dead to God and Christ didn't come into this world to make bad people good he came to make dead people live the grace of Christ brings you to worship now I want to point out two things my reflection a few comments will be very brief it's this when we talk of the purpose of life as worship and intrinsically sacred follow me now please the greatest question the big-three raised of Socrates Plato and Aristotle was this how do we find unity in diversity how do we find univer unity diversity that's why we be created universities define unity in diversity that's the whole meaning as a whole meaning and by the way I commend you for your motto do you know what precedes what your motto is if you abide in my word you are my disciples then you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free truths not standing again with his feet in midair and so the whole idea of the sacred and the big three looking for unity and diversity where do you find you that's why we came up with the word quintessence because they gave us four oh what a fire somebody said that's not unity we need a fifth essence that unites these for essences that's the fifth essence America was founded a pluribus unum define unity and diversity boy it doesn't look like it very much right now but here it is how do we find unity in diversity that question haunts all of us Archbishop William temple said worship is the submission of all of our nature to God it's a quickening of conscience by His Holiness nourishment of mind by his truth purifying of imagination by his beauty opening of the heart to his love and submission of will to his purpose all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest expression of which we are capable quickening of conscience by His Holiness mind by truth imagination by beauty heart to his love will to his purpose you will never find unity and diversity on the outside until we have found unity and diversity in diversity on the inside you see the reason we honor our vows is the same reason we pay our taxes you do not violate a sacred trust God has given to you and to me just think of what a different world we would be living in if you and I treated the sacred respect the right of another person that's the greatest gift God has given to you and me and think of all the battles we have in violating each other's sacred rights and ultimately we stand before God with the right that he gave to us to come to him to worship him and to serve Him if worship is at the core then one of the fingers and the fist of worship is love let me quote jean-paul Sartre CS Lewis moved to my final thought here Sartre in being a nothingness the man who wants to be loved does not desire the enslavement of the beloved he's not bent on becoming the object of passion which flows forth mechanically he does not want to possess an automaton and if we want to humiliate him we need try to only persuade him that the beloved's passion is the result of a psychological determinism this is Sartre the lover will then feel that both his love and his being are cheapened if the beloved is transformed into an auto atone the lover finds himself alone in other words love has to have the freedom of the will let me read this for you from CS Lewis it's a powerful quote CS Lewis says this to love it all is to be vulnerable love anything in your heart will certainly be wrong and possibly be broken if you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give you a heart to nobody not even to an animal wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries avoid all entanglements lock it up safe in the casket of coffin of your selfishness but in that casket safe dark motionless airless it will change it will not be broken it will become unbearable impenetrable irredeemable the alternative to tragedy or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation the only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell fyodor dostoyevsky said when he was asked to define hell he said I can only think of one statement the inability to love and so that leads me to the Christian answer in the cross of Christ you know I find it amazing that those two pieces of timber you see all over the world and as the suffering ensued and he says for this very purpose did I come into the world I say to you that the answer given in the cross his father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing and the transformation of the heart I have just one illustration in one application to make if you go to Baton Rouge Louisiana where I was some months ago and visiting a prison the Angola prison 5300 prisoners there 85% of them on life without parole 45 on death row it was called the bloodiest prison in America when a prisoner was checked in he was given a knife to protect himself blood on the carpets blood on the walls ceilings hard core criminals I spoke to them two or three times last Mia meeting 700 live and piped into every cell the chaplain comes in and he says I'll take charge of this president shovel in the warden he said let me do it my way he puts the Bible in every cell and he holds Bible studies and brings them out when they can get there some of them are now cooking the meals some of them are hosting us I spoke and the entire band in the worship leaders were hardcore criminals are not going to get out of there and as I watched them and what so many of them and their lives dramatically transformed the amazing thing to me was to wonder what really brought them in there 85% of them are not going to see the light of day outside that prison it has become the safest prison maximum-security prison in the country scripture verses all over the walls and I looked at one man and I said to him can I ask you a question I said sir are you one of those on life without parole he said yes I said you're very young said yes sir I said how do you feel about that I said I really want to hear I hope it's not an offensive question do you he called me by my name he said you know Ravi because I just spoken to them if you knew the man I was and the chains that bound bind me were binding me inside if it took prison for me to come define true freedom then I'm just happy to be here I have found life in here in my soul that I never had out there if you want to pray pray for my parents who think they are free but they're actually in bondage what do you say to that what do you say to that which leads me to my final conclusion why do we never get an answer when we're knocking at the door with a thousand question they're missing million questions about hate and death and war because when we stop and look around us there's nothing that we need in a world of persecution that is whirling in his greed why do we never get an answer in my knock at the door you know how the song ends I'm looking for a miracle in my life I'm looking for someone to change my life that is the Christian answer the transformation of the heart and the change that God brings to you and to me and so I leave with you this marvelous story God is the author there is a script that purpose is a response to the sacred when evil seems so intrusive the cross 3 defines the reality and shows God right in the middle of our need the problem of suffering and evil is internal before it is external death to self sprouts life in uniqueness and here's a last link I want you to hear me very carefully you see if pain were the only problem that keeps me from meaning the problem would become very complex even more than we think it is but meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain meaninglessness ultimately comes from being weary of pleasure Chesterton said that the loneliest people in the world are those who have exhausted pleasure and come away empty I wrote a book on an imaginary conversation between Oscar Wilde and Jesus I called it sense and sensuality it's part of a series the first one was Jesus rocks Buddha the Lourdes on the cross second one was sense and sensuality Jesus talks too while the third one was the lamb in the Furious takata there were harder half-dozen others Oscar Wilde lying in bed in Paris I visited that Hotel died in his 40s he turns to his lover Robby Ross and he says this listen Robby did you ever loved any one of those young boys for their own sake Wow a hedonist on his deathbed wanting a definition of love did you ever love one of them for their own sake he said no I didn't Oscar he said neither did I bring me a priest and in his poem The Ballad of reading jail he said only the blood of Christ now is able to cleanse the stain and this heart of mine interesting that a hedonist for the verse to be put on his grave in Paris and a massive Phoenix beside the verse that he chose was the verse from book of Job on suffering he had exhausted pleasure and found no meaning so the problem is not just pain the problem is pleasure which means sacredness is at the core and worship is the ultimate glue that puts life back together that's our mission that's what we talk about and I want you to know if you're sincerely searched that I think you'll find why it is that the world view comes together with the mystery and ultimately the script that God gives to you and me you've been a very patient audience and I want to thank you very much joining dr. Zacharias on stage for our time of question answer are his colleagues dr. Vincent allez and dr. Nabil kareshi dr. Vince Vitale is a faculty member at Oxford University where he wrote his PhD thesis on evil and suffering before that he taught at Princeton University where he received his bachelor's degree dr. Vitale is a member of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and is passionate about the intersection of faith and athletics dr. Nabeel Qureshi has lecture universities all across America he holds an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School and a master's in religion from Duke University dr. kress she comes from a Muslim background and is especially interested in the early history of Islam as it relates to the foundations of Christianity and leading us in this time of question and answer will be Matt Daum a junior mechanical engineering student here at Hopkins thank you everyone first off for being so patient and willing to move around everyone in the overflow rooms scattered across campus we really appreciate everybody's willingness to cooperate as we have so many people and praise God for that we're going to get into a time of QA and so right now I would like to ask the people who fall under the category of students and faculty and if your name does not associate with student or faculty hold on tight but students and faculty have any questions there's a microphone here we'd ask you to line up now did dr. Zechariah actually answer all your questions all right fair warning yeah come on so anyone okay all right all right this gentleman gets to go first take your time sir okay anybody else that would like to ask questions for dr. Zacharias may may line up now for our friends up in the balcony if you're feeling like it's hard to get down here if you want to write your question on a $20 bill fold it into a paper airplane to throw it down here the chances of your being asked are very high one more announcement as we ask questions I would ask everyone to please limit their question to the number of one so we can get through as many people as possible and as soon as you're ready sir we'll begin well I just want to say uh-oh yeah I just want to say that I really appreciated everything dr. Zacharias and I'm very much appreciated Bali ministry so thank God for you in every way and um I guess my question is not so much inquisitive but more for practical application to my own life and being ministers and ambassadors of the gospel of Christ and being apologists as well and covering so many um like a broad spectrum of topics where do you find the balance and um really I guess centering everything around the cross because your arm your lecture was very powerful and I think it really hit to the core of a lot of subjects but I don't know sometimes I just feel like you know uh the cross maybe and I know for the sake of time you know you really rush to about I guess like where do you find that balance and really emphasizing the power of the cross and still being able to target those various on issues that that poke at the heart I guess it's a great question and of course my colleagues will probably be happy to answer that to their of more recent vintage and the dinosaur and the team now I've been around for a long time you know truth comes from so many disciplines and truth will ultimately be unified if you have believed the truth as it can be measured in that discipline and so we are readers or we travel we spend a lot of time in the air you know when you go from here to Thailand or something you feel like you're celebrating a couple of birthdays on your journey going over there we just have to read we have to study we have to understand and at the same time we have families we have commitments we have values by which we must live you are at one of the most prestigious universities in the world you're researching what a privilege it is for you students to be here and enjoy what probably millions of other students would love to have study work hard do your best and understanding your discipline to be the best that you can be in what it is so you have to have balance in reading you can't just read in one discipline you have to reread in philosophy in history and science in the epistemology truth issues and psychology and social theory and of course biblical subjects theology New Testament studies Old Testament studies languages and all of that it's very hard work and if it's properly done it has to be kept in balance it's the same way with life itself you cannot live at the extreme of work you have to have the balance of respite and rest and quietness and all of that so just distribute your reading and make notes as you read so that you can recall when you need to recall what it is that you actually read it's important to keep that so keep a balanced life microphone so we all get a chance to hear your the question all right coming in good all right for Robbie Vince and I'm sorry action I feel excuse me question being if we are to accept if one is to accept individual ethics social ethics and also what do we would we require a Piston illogical ethics the ethics of a general general type if we look at something which we would consider be like a dant illogical imperative when we're dealing with atrocities being committed by proxy such as our tax monies going towards warfare going towards espionage and other things which are more alone another all the assassin - yeah isn't isn't that saying something that's the innocent might die on me I believe the mic died I hate it I hate to tell you this I killed the mic I hate to tell you this fact that was the NSA listening on to what you're going to say go ahead if I may continue so if these things are truly present in our society what is the obligation on an individual who has accepted universal ethics of that type and where there is inaction is it not a consequence thereof that the individual bears a certain responsibility and where does that where does that down tala g more or less give the the cause you know for response sure nothing to that I think it's a decision that everyone needs to make in terms of specifically where our consciences are telling us things that were a part of that that are wrong the the example in my mind that comes back to me most recently was actually an atheist that challenged me on this sort of point in this sort of environment where he he stood up in the back and he said after a talk he said I know I'm a sinner because I had a beer last week and I looked at him like that's an odd thing that's an odd thing to say and he's and everyone laughed and then he said no I'm serious he said I I every week indiscriminately spend my money on things simply from my own luxury when there are people who are starving in the world and I had had never had someone put that to me so directly and it just made me think about what are the things that I'm complicit in what are the things that my money goes to it was largely the way that the early church in the first two or three centuries used the money that God had entrusted to it that it grew is largely because during the plagues of the second century in the third century you were statistically more likely to survive if you knew a Christian and that's one of the major reasons that the church grew initially so I think your point is well-taken and I think it's precisely when the church is really being the church really being what God has called it to be by saying how do we use what we have been entrusted with and how do we take responsibility for what we're complicit in that we actually love our neighbors in such a way that people will want to join that community so continue to think about those things but it hopefully that's a starting point you want to say something to be yes two years ago I figured with God giving his heart you hear me can you say again please few years ago I pleaded with God to give me his heart since then my husband and I have experienced a series of heartbreaks today I had a CT scan performed at Hopkins because of a suspicious nodule on a chest x-ray my breathing has worsened considerably I am still suffering with presumptive MS of over 30 years why has our suffering escalated and in a state of perpetuity since praying this prayer Wow there's a no easy answer to that question that's for sure I remember speaking with my aunt Regina once this was a number of years ago and she began to tell me some of the things that she was going through and she spoke with me specifically about how difficult it was for her to see her son Charles my cousin struggled with a severe mental illness and at that time I I turned to her and I I started to give some of my more abstract philosophical responses for why God might allow suffering of Charles's sort and she listened to me really generously really graciously and then she turned to me and she said Vince that doesn't speak to me as a mother and I thought it was a really a really fair response I think Jesus realized this as well when his good friend Lazarus dies he's late getting there they had sent for him he waits a couple days before he gets there by the time he gets there Lazarus has died and Lazarus his sister Mary and Martha are not too impressed reading between the lines it seems like they're saying Jesus what were you thinking if you had been here on time my brother would still be alive what do you have to say for yourself and with my convictions as a Christian I believe that Jesus could have given an answer there he could have defended himself given an explanation but we're not told that he did any of that instead he just wept he just wept with Mary and Martha at the death of their brother his good friend you know the really interesting thing about what you said is is you prayed that God would give you his heart I think what actually has happened is is he's taken on your heart you've gone through a lot and I don't have an easy answer for why you specifically have gone through those things what I can tell you is that the night before Jesus died as he struggled with what he knew the next day would bring he said my heart is sorrowful even to death the god of the universe the creator of everything saying that he's sorrowful even to death whatever each one of us has experienced whether it's deep depression whether it's thoughts about suicide Jesus has been there there's no depth of agony and helplessness that we can go through in this life that he doesn't understand so don't have any simple answers about why specifically but sometimes it's really difficult for as Robbie was saying us to understand God's ways when we see such a small slice of the script or of the story I'm thinking of the book of Job in the Old Testament at the beginning of that book there's a man named job and he loses everything and it says he was an upright man he was seeking after God's heart and he loses everything he lose his family he loses his wealth he loses his animals at the end of the book it says that God gave back to him a double portion of everything that he had lost he's given back twice as many animals he's given back twice as much wealth the interesting thing is he's only given back the same number of children he loses ten children at the end he doesn't get twenty children at the beginning he only gets he doesn't get twenty children at the end he only gets ten back and I had never known why that was the case I read a commentary recently and they suggested maybe this is one way to read the passage maybe that's because Jobe didn't lose the ten children at the beginning maybe he's just not with them for a time and maybe just giving ten back at the end of job's life was to give him that double portion of 20 children what if it's the case that what we see is literally just the first few moments of our lives what if it's really the case that one day there's going to be a place where the Bible says God Himself will wipe every tear from our eyes there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain what if one day job will be reunited with all of his children what if one a so much of what appears lost in this life is actually only lost for a time so I don't have a simple answer for you but I do believe that I have a God who gives hope and that will be my prayer for you ma'am I I wanted to add to that I never really thought about the 20 children from Joe that's very interesting I think if he did get 20 children that might have been more punishment so we're going to be one important I haven't studied philosophy the quite the way Vince has and so that's why I was hoping he would go first my experience has been more in the medical field in the sciences and as a student of medicine one of the things that absolutely blew my mind one of the things that we took for granted quite regularly was just how finally hinged life is on the precipice of death it it's just we've so taken for granted that we wake up every morning what say do we have in waking up in the morning we go to sleep and we wake up and it happens regularly and so we take it for granted but there's nothing we do to make that happen cognitively and we think about momentarily the the melody that you mentioned that you have the multiple sclerosis we we just act so immediately we act we see things we can point to it and it's so natural to us we don't even think about what's happening here that your brain and your nerves function as electrical systems and you have capacitors that allow a signal to go from your brain to your finger and for your muscles to work at the very fast rate at which they do and those capacitors if they stop working these myelin sheaths you get multiple sclerosis just one small part a very complex system can cause such devastating effects and as as painful as it is I think one thing that you have probably learned is just how beautiful it is and how much people take it for granted when this amazingly complex system works the way it ought to something we take for granted every single day and I know when I pray early on when I began to pray as a Christian you know I was a Muslim formerly and part of my prayer was the five daily prayers it was very scripted everything was scripted the only thing I got to choose in my five daily prayers was which portion of the Quran to recite so when I began to learn how to pray as a Christian these improvisational prayers I said what am I supposed to pray and I'd look at my hands as I'm praying I'm saying I got ten things to pray about right here every single thing if I didn't have these I mean and whole my whole life would be absolutely different and so you have learned that message unlike many of the rest of us will ever be able to learn it but the other thing that I learned in the process of transitioning from Islam to Christianity the other thing that I learned was that God according to according to Islam we don't know we don't learn this God did not stand apart from your suffering he didn't watch you suffer and say I want to see what she ultimately does I want to see what way she finds for herself God takes a look at our suffering and says I cannot remain aloof from that suffering I will enter into it you know Jesus could have come as a prince in a human sense he could have come with power he could have come at any time in human history he chose to come at a very specific time when people had invented how to execute people the most painful way ever devised the most humiliating way ever devised God said that type of suffering which goes beyond all other suffering that's what I will choose to take on for myself he entered into it and why did he do that out of love for you he didn't watch you suffer and stand aloof he took that suffering upon himself so that he could show us what true love was all about and he were learning this in a way none of the rest of us will and so I praise the Lord for who he is and I praise the Lord for who you are you were designed before the creation of the world this is also a Christian truth you were to sign before the creation of the world with every single aspect of you in mind you are not incidental you are not random you are not an accident you are a loved creation of God and that is absolutely amazing so if I can encourage you with anything it's who he is and who he's made you to be and through allows suffering getting here today I've been through a lot of suffering just getting here today and now my question is regarding the grace of God the Bible says the grace of God knows no end my question is is it possible for God to have a plan to redeem the condemned those who have passed away and not have not accepted him because the bago says the grace of God goes so far is it possible to have a place where he just doesn't look anymore hell is a absence of gyrate but God is omnipresent so does that kind of contradict itself basements Claussen is it possible for for God to have a plan to redeem these people that hasn't just been recruited yes knowing how deep is graces there is nothing in the Bible that intimates the chance after death there's a passage in Peter to which people sometimes refer in one particular sect believes that what I have found is that wherever I have gone I am amazed at how God has been able to reach people in places that I never even thought his voice would have been heard or the gospel would ever have been preached I don't know if you have ever read the story of Sammy Morris from Africa it's called a march of faith how he came out of that tiny little village and somehow was a stow away on a ship arrived in New York and went looking for somebody who could open up life for him and when Samuel Merritt gave him the gospel he said that's the one I've been looking for that's the name I never had but that's the Savior I have always wanted and in fact tailor University where he went and attended has the chapel named after Samuel Morris I think you and I need to bear in mind that God who is omniscient and omnipotent has a way of reaching people way beyond what you and I may actually imagine let me give you my own personal illustration I had never cracked open a Bible on my own in my life and when I lay on a hospital bed there the last thing I really expected was a Bible to be brought to me and yet this individual comes in to my hospital room gives me that Bible I couldn't hold it because my body was totally dehydrated with a poison that I'd taken and all the moisture that I'd thrown out of my system I couldn't hold it so he gives it to my mother my mother reading in the King James language didn't do very well but she was reading through it in John chapter 14 and I had to ask myself how did this happen that I as a total destitute and lying in a hospital bed and this man comes into the Bible to give me the scriptures to read this man ended up he's an Indian man ended up living in California and he passed away in February of this year and I spoke to him a few weeks before he died I phoned him he was living in a lot of pain and he said this to me on the phone I quoted it at Princeton that night and I didn't know his daughter was listening in on the phone and she asked if she could put it as one of his eulogies on the website because he just passed away the week before he said Robbie I sometimes wonder if I came into this world just in order to be able to come and bring this Bible to you in the situation in which you were you know I started crying on the phone and I said to him I said you know Fred God had a lot more for you in life than just that he found it totally fulfilling that whatever prompting he had in his heart to bring the scriptures to a desperate young man at 17 and give him the word the verse from John chapter 14 where Jesus said because I live you also shall live God has amazing ways of reaching people in places that you and I would never ever dream about let me give you one more illustration of this and I'll be seated and after that my brother-in-law sundar Krishnan came from an Orthodox Brahmin Hindu family we grew up together I've always said I taught for a lot of time that he liked me found out he liked my sister he's my brother-in-law now he was a nuclear physicist for the atomic energy of Canada he gave that up in the peak of his career as a chief safety expert went into Christian ministry his father and mother quite Orthodox and their beliefs and they would talk to them I would talk to them they would sit listening and the father was a very very sophisticated thinker and a very moral man he never said much you read CS Lewis you take me into a side room and ask me some questions sometimes didn't want to do it openly the age of 85 he died it was on Thanksgiving weekend thanks kid and he was lying in bed there and my sister told me we walked into the hospital and my children and all of the relatives and he's lying there in bed and he said I want to say something to all of you you know the kind of life I've led you know the manner of truth I have pursued you know who I am I have done my best never to cheat anybody never to defraud anybody but he said I'm dying now and I know my end is near so I want to answer the question I have pursued all my life what is the way to God and my sister said Rob we were standing around the bed there and I wondered what he was going to say the grandkids and all of his friends standing he said I have come to the conclusion lying on my hospital bed here all alone and seeking for answers that the answer is in Jesus Christ he said that's my Savior that's my Lord and I leave him with all of you before I depart nobody talking to him in that hospital room nobody sharing anything with him so you know what the Bible says shall not the judge of all the earth do that which is right you can be absolutely confident that God will do what is right what is pure what is loving and what is just Nabil said this and I think it was Jurgen Moltmann who quoted Elie Wiesel standing in concentration cap Elie Wiesel saw a young man struggling as he was being hanged struggling for life and he said I kept asking where are you God where are you and he said out of nowhere the voice came into my mind and I can't figure out why the voice came saying hanging there on the gallows where else this Christ who gave himself for you and for me will go to the trouble of revealing himself to all the ends of the earth and the Bible makes that very clear even in the book of Romans worry about what you know and what you must share to the other part of God will do that which is right as he's given us hi hi well yes okay hi this is for Ravi so like in here so in your first in the very beginning of your argument you said that humans have a very impressive understanding of reality and as you said we are when we are not asking the question from the outside because we are actually within the question so my question is what makes you so sure that there exists in absolute reality for which there is a moral system to define you know what is to stop the existentialist from senators of plural realities and reality is actually subjective which makes more subjective as well morality subjective as well just repeat the last line what is to get the existentialist from like what's the top two existentialist from saying there in fact exists of plural realities and because reality is subjective morality is objective as well sure yeah I don't see a point of tension there but let me see if I can clarify that and if any one of your men one of pitchin is this I've always said I have a 1 2 3 4 5 grid in which I come to the knowledge of God in reality what is the claim that Jesus made I'm the way the truth and the life no one comes in to the Father except through me so when he made that claim he's making a truth claim he's making an exclusive claim now that does not necessarily mean it's a truth but that's what he's claiming he's claiming to be the unique and exclusive truth and one of the properties of truth is that it does exclude truth by definition makes a / makes an assertion that excludes the contrary position now how do I know what he claim is to do it is to be true you have two tests for the truth you have the correspondence theory and you have the coherence theory correspondence means particular claims when tested against reality correspond to reality as it actually is so when the prophetic schema from the Old Testament all the way from the of the five books of Moses down to the prophets and the laws and so on you see the hundreds of prophecies that we didn't there did they correspond to reality if you go to the Book of Daniel and go from 9 through 12 it's incredible the prophecies Daniel made in the late 500s before Christ he talked about how there would be the four kingdoms and how four would be reduced to two and two ultimately to one and you see after Alexander the Great the four generals that took over and then you did they see the Ptolemaic and the Salukis empires and you see the emergence of the Roman Empire and then it says a stone that no man could cut from nowhere would come and shatter this single Empire as well referring to Rome late 500s when Babylon was in power to see all the prophetic schema so corresponding to reality one other test if Jesus wanted to fake who he was he has a very simple thing he would have said this worked away in my mind is a brand new Christian because I know how we think coming from the East Jesus could have said I will demonstrate to you who I am so that after you have crucified me in three days I will rise from the day you know he could have made it a very safe prophecy by saying I will spiritually rise from the dead how do you falsify that if he were just going to spiritually rise there's nothing you could bring not even the body to falsify it because the protagonist would have said yeah he never said he'd bodily rise again he just said he'd spiritually rise again so in presenting his body if done not proved him wrong at all that's the kind of claim you remain but instead he said he would physically rise something at bodily rise from the dead even after that that's what prompted Thomas who went to India with its 330 million deities and came to India to proclaim Jesus and paid with his own life he said unless I see feel and touch I'm not going to believe and when the Christ the risen Christ came to him and he reached out and touched his hand and bowed and worshiped the greek word saeho kurios moo-ha that was me my Lord and my god and Jesus said to em you know you've seen and believed blessed are those not having seen plea correspondence theory and then coherence the questions that we asked and the confluence of answers given have to cohere so it's not just a case of multiple choices the correspondence theory and the coherent theories have to come together so if you talk about the existentialist because there's a wide array of them all the way from Nietzsche to Sartre to Heidegger to Camus and so on wide variety of existentialist thought but they themselves Sartre on his deathbed says I find my existential view of the way I've defined it incoherent and unlivable I footnoted that in my book at the real face of atheism so you've got one question two tests correspondence coherence how do you narrow the tests logical consistency empirical adequacy exponential relevance one two three four questions origin meaning morality and destiny origin meaning morality in destiny five subjects God reality knowledge ethics anthropology you bring these five subjects to be studied the four questions to be answered the three tests for truth the two categories and the one question and you will find that there cannot be a multiplicity of answers but the only one who really meets the test from 1 to 5 is the one who claimed to be the way the truth and the life so it's not just a whim it's very well put together in the answers that Jesus has put for you only here thank you I'll just follow up on that briefly by just sharing a bit of my own story because this was one of the big things for me I showed up as a freshman in college at Princeton and I wasn't a Christian and I just I didn't think there could be objective evidence for something like faith there was just this assumption on my part that faith was blind someone challenged me to read the Bible for the first time I accepted that challenge and as I started to read through it I would cross things out and I would add things and I'd actually write BS and the margins when I weren't I disagree to things people would sort of look over my shoulder and say why do you the BS and the margin of your Bible and I'd say oh that verse makes her great Bible study I had that Bible for a while and a month later I needed to go back and start crossing them out I saw a God like that but just to say that one of the things that was so encouraging to me as I started to read through the New Testament if you get you get through the gospel then you get into the book of Acts where it's talking about the early church and you just over and over come across words like reasoned and convinced and debated and argued and persuaded which is actually the word that's most used for when someone comes to be a Christian they were persuaded to the way and this just sort of blew my mind and comes the way of understanding faith and that started a kind of intellectual search which ultimately led to me making a commitment of faith I had thought that I was too smart for Christianity that it was my mind that kept me from faith what I was forced to see ultimately was that it wasn't my mind it wasn't that the evidence didn't add up actually had a lot more to do with my heart there's a colleague of mine an Oxford professor he's probably the most significant British philosopher of religion of the last half century or so and in 2003 he wrote a book called the resurrection of God incarnate and in that book he argues that on the available evidence today it's 97 percent probable that Jesus is who he claimed to be the God that he claimed to be and that he rose from the dead now he says in the book you can't take the numbers too seriously he likes to work with probability theory so he gives an estimate in actual calculations and numbers but still the fact that someone of his intellectual caliber and reputation can make that claim make it in print have it be published by Oxford University Press and then Abele defend it at academic conferences all around the world I think one of the things it shows is that there is a strong intellectual case for the Christian faith if you're in this room tonight and you just assume that that hasn't been the case that's where I was and I just want to encourage you seek that out that's not the case and when you see that that's not the case and maybe like me that will cause you to ask question is it really my mind that keeps me from Christian faith is it really a lack of objective evidence or does it have more to do with my heart what I concluded was in my case and had a lot more to do with my heart it wasn't that the evidence didn't add up it was that I liked being my own God you know Nietzsche put it really well when he said if there is a God how can I bear not being him okay that really resonated with where I was hopefully that'll be helpful to someone I I see the MCS getting up and I see that they're trying to close it so this is the perfect time for me to interject I want to follow what Vince just said he made a very great point there really applied to my life as well he's saying that we can look into this intellectually with rigor and test and see that the claims are strong I want to point out to you that I did not come to Christianity willingly far from it I was raised in an Islamic family my family was devout I loved Islam I loved praying five times a day I loved waking up for for fasting during the month of Ramadan I love hearing the Adhan I love giving via thon my heart was with the faith of my father's and I knew that if I were to accept Christ I mean there was very little worse that I could do with my life as far as my families were concerned than me accepting Christ as a family that had built its reputation its honor on the fact that we had followed Islam from generations past my grandfather was a Muslim missionary my great-grandfather was a Muslim missionary the two of them spent their lives in Uganda and in Indonesia spreading Islam our reputation our honor in this honor shame culture came from the fact that we were devout adherents of Islam and so for me if I were going to accept Christianity I was going to have to give up my parents who loved me from childhood I was going to have to give up my friends in my community that I had been accepted in and in fact that I was a Muslim leader of I was I was leading the youth I was teaching them the Aki though I was teaching them the way to live the Islamic life I would have to give all this up and I didn't know any Christian friends were going to accept me into their arms I had one Christian friend and he was about to move I was going to be alone and I was going to do the most damage that anyone ever did to my parents I was going to have to live with that and I knew as as the decision was coming and I knew I had to choose between God and my entire life do I take my family do I take my friends or do I pick god and when I could no longer run away from the fact that I had to pick my creator I bowed the knee and accepted him and what came next was the most painful year of my life my parents I my father was a 24 year veteran of the US Navy retired Lieutenant Commander I never saw him shed a tear until the day he found out I was a Christian he said to me Nabil this day I feel as if my backbone has been ripped out from inside me and I tell you he has never stood as tall since that day and my mother I've not quite gotten over the fact that she has never been filled with joy as she had been and every single day as I had to call my parents and I had to see them and I had to see what I had done with them I was asking God why did you leave me here why couldn't you have killed me between the moment I became a Christian and between the moment I told my parents because I would solve everything that would have been great everyone be happy right now why am I still here what is this suffering about and it was in that moment of anguish where I'm trying to figure out what this life was about that I realized the reason God didn't kill me the reason God didn't take me away was because this life is not about me there are people around the world today not the least in the medical school where I was attending where they had no idea how life was meant to be lived every single day they sleep they don't know why they're working they're jaded they're upset they're disillusioned with the world around them they came to learn how to help people that's why they were learning medicine and yet what they saw every single day in the ER was an abuse of the medical system or someone who's who shot their wife or someone who beat up on their children and they're seeing these things in their jaded and they don't know why they're there anymore because they don't care about people anymore and you see other people coming into the hospital who's who are trying to figure out what they're doing with life all they know that to do is to work a job so they can have enough money to pay the bills to work the job and keep going and they have no understanding of what life is about and I have now encountered the Living God I have drank from that draft of a well that gives peace and joy and purpose and hope you know when you know that you've been created for a reason when you know that that thing you do that passion you have was crafted by God then you realize that you are made with a purpose that you were made to change this world every single one of you out there I don't care how meaningless so you think this life is being lived by you I don't care if you think you have no purpose you can change the world because God has created you in a specific way knowing you and loving you and equipping you and this truth if we all heard it if we all shared it if those of us who at least believed it I'm not talking to all Christians here and I know that but if there are those of us who are here who knew that what they believed was real and that they ought to live it out with their life then this world would not be the same that is what I realized to sum it up to follow up on what Vince was saying if you have to give up a lot and I know there are people in this room right now who have to give up a lot if they want to follow Christ if you have to give up everything I'm swearing to you having walked down that path it is absolutely worth it our time right now the doctor Zacharias would like to closing remark for everybody before they leave let me just say first of all want to thank you for being here I know there are people of different worldviews I know those of them who've watched the livestream you may come from a different perspective I want you to know we have to learn to live and to let live with all of our differences the most beautiful thing that happens in an occasion like this is that this worldview is given a chance to defend itself and I think in an institution of this caliber where you have the openness to hear different world views here defenses then you have the intelligence to study and to come to terms with what is truth and what is not true so I just know that as we travel many pop many places India's the land of my birth now 80 percent Hindu and yet I've spoken at many of the universities some of the largest audiences I've spoken to our in the Islamic world in Kola lumpur the oldest Islamic University where they had me come and present a defense of the Christian faith we do it we try to present you the answers that Jesus Christ has given to the deepest questions of life even if you disagree we want to honor your right to disbelieve and your honor your right and what you choose to believe the most important thing is that you believe what you do because it's the truth and because it is truly the truth that can be proclaimed across this globe and we presented the person of Christ here in many of our writings we've done that I want to close with this quotation and then with a simple illustration and by the way one of the great graduates from here who taught for many many years was a PhD I think I have this quotation right here I'd like to get that for you because I think it would be important to see if we can get that robot mower chorus PhD from Johns Hopkins he committed suicide at the age of 75 in 1982 and here's what he said was a skeptic had the honors of getting his PhD from here than taught at Yale taught at Harvard for several decades we psychologists have looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability has a great Incubus and acclaimed our liberation from sin as epoch-making but at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense that is to have the experience of being sick rather than being sinful is to also quote the danger of becoming lost this danger is I believe betokened by the widespread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing in becoming a moral ethically neutral and free we have cut the very roots of our being lost our deeper sense of selfhood and identity and with neurotics themselves now find ourselves asking who am i what is my deepest destiny what does living really mean and then he quotes the Anna Russell folk song at 3 I had a feeling of ambivalence towards my brothers and so it followed and followed naturally I poisoned all my lovers but now I'm happy I have learned the lesson this is thought that everything I do that's wrong is someone else's fault evil can be talked about for hours my question to you is this have you seen the evil in your own heart forget the externality of evil have you seen the evil in your own heart James Stewart of Scotland said it is a glorious phrase that he led captivity captive the very triumph service for his foes it means he used for their defeat he compelled their dark achievements us observe his ends not theirs they nailed him to the tree not knowing about that very act they were bringing the world to his feet they gave him a cross not guessing that he would make it a throne they flung him outside the gates to die not knowing in that very moment they were lifting up all the gates of the universe to let the King of glory come in they taught to root out his doctrines not understanding that they were implanting impartially in the hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy they thought they had God with his back to the wall pinned and helped us and defeated they did not know it was God himself word tracked them down to that point here's the closing statement he makes Jesus did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil he conquered through it he did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil he conquered through it I've lived with two metal rods in my back from L 3 to s 1 & 8 screws bolting me down after an injury for 27 years I lived with unbearable pain and something incredible happened last year I won't go into that but when you wake up in the morning and not know if you're going to be able to even bend down to tie a shoelace when you can't pick up your bag that's more than three pounds I travel with an assistant because of my broken back pain is a horrible thing in life but I have learned through that pain how precious God is in his presence and helps you to conquer through it I just want you to know that pain is not easy for us when we bear it I lost both of my parents my 20s and you never look at the world the same way but as Muggeridge said I believe with all of it that some of the greatest experiences in life have come not through pleasure but through what I have learned in pain and maybe that's what the cross of Jesus Christ signifies in the 1960s I heard a song by the Kingston Trio it's a desert traveler going through with all the bottles of water and he is getting thirsty as the water finishes he doesn't know what he's going to do he sees a pump in the middle of the desert he doesn't know if it's a mirage he lunges towards it and feels it it's real but when he lifts the handle and brings it down metal upon metal there's no water till he sees a tin can around the nozzle and in the tin can is a message that says this traveler don't despair there's plenty of water here just follow the directions directly under the faucet in the sand under that you'll have a bottle of water it should be full don't drink it don't drink it uncork it pour it into the cylinder and prime it with the other hand the suction system will begin to work what will come gushing out you can drink all the water you've got you want refill all the bottles you've got don't forget to fill up that one bottle and put it back for the next person passing by warning you're going to be tempted to disbelieve this note and consume that one bottle because it's in your hand don't you will soon be thirsty again and so will only why everyone else who passes by empty out as instructed and you'll have all the water you want let me write the songs of a nation I don't care who writes its laws life's like that you can choose to consume it on yourself and you'll soon be empty empty it out in the hands who gave himself for you and gives you the answers both in proposition and in presence and in his presence you find that peace that passes all understanding and the hope that lies beyond the grave he wept knowing pain is real but he raised him from the dead knowing that he is the author of life as well may you find that author I want to thank Johns Hopkins for making it possible for us to be here and all of the organising committee what a tribute to the great halls of learning I hope you can have more forums like this thank you for giving us a warm welcome for more information about the veritas forum including additional recordings and a calendar of upcoming events please visit our website at Veritas org

Channel: The Veritas Forum

Views: 1,056,222

Rating: 4.6070428 out of 5

Keywords: veritas forum, ravi zacharias, vince vitale, johns hopkins, suffering

Id: t7-gP1gC8gM

Length: 118min 57sec (7137 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 21 2013