Powerfull Voices

06/19/02
Four Possible Worlds
Ravi Zacharias

“Would you create a world with such pain,” the skeptic charges, “and if you
did, could you at the same time still be called good?“.

Plainly speaking, there are only four possible worlds. The first is that
there be no creation at all. Would it not have been better for God to have
not created a world than to have created ours—where good and evil are both
possibilities? The second is a world where only good is permitted, a kind
of robotically beneficent universe. The third option is a world where
there is no such thing as good or evil, an amoral world. There, right and
wrong would not even be legitimate categories for consideration. The
fourth is the world that we live in, where good and evil exist with the
possibility of choosing either.

In the final analysis, our world is the only one where love is genuinely
possible because freedom is a precondition for authentic love. We
intuitively recognize that love is the supreme ethic and where love is
possible, freedom is necessary. Where freedom is real, so is the
possibility of suffering.
Perhaps you picture God observing our world like an astronaut viewing the
earth while in orbit—abstract and distant. But this is not God of the
Scriptures! He has not removed himself from the dimensions of our
experience, nor has He left us to our own devices. Rather He has powerfully
broken into our reality.

How? Through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Outside of
a Christian worldview, this may seem odd, and even the apostle Paul said
this reality appears “foolish” to the unbeliever. Yet when you perceive the
infinite holiness of God and His boundless love, we see God’s twin desires
fulfilled in the Cross: His holiness satisfied through suffering, and
motivated by love strong enough to endure pain.

In the Cross love, holiness and suffering are brought together. God cannot
be at the same time both holy and unloving, or both loving and unholy. Who
of us cannot understand that love cannot exist without goodness? Our
hearts hunger for a love that is pure. If we turn our backs upon God, we
lose not only the source of defining love, but even our suffering remains
an enigma—leaving our finite minds crying for an answer.

Even Mahatma Gandhi concluded that the display of grace in the crucifixion
is without comparison. Have you made the extraordinary discovery that in
love Jesus bore the cost of our freedom gone wrong?

Copyright (p)(c) 2001 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM)

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ishalon

Very good essay, up to there, before the preaching starts. I never liked the God-of-suffering-can't-be-good-argument but there are other arguments...

Steven Carr

Wouldn't it be terrible if there was a person, who when asked the question 'Do you love me?' would always say 'yes'? That person would have no freedom. He would have to say 'yes'.

Wait a moment. Christians think Jesus was such a person. Wouldn't it be awful to be Jesus, and have no freedom to choose whether or not to love somebody?

Steven Carr

And, of course, God can always create beings with free will who always choose good.

Christians insist that God has done exactly that. He has created the Angels Michael and Gabriel , who have free will and have always chosen good.

If God can so easily create beings with free will who always choose good, why did he *also* create beings with free will that he knew in advance would choose evil?

phaedrus

YAWN

excreationist

Maybe God was just getting bored... and he didn't want to hurt those who loved him... so he gave people a chance to not love him... then he could rightfully punish them.

excreationist

...assuming that God exists and worlds need a God to be able to exist.

there would be no such thing as objective-type (as defined by God) morality - where good is defined as doing what the Supreme Being wants and evil is defined as defying the Supreme Being. Right and wrong wouldn't be defined in terms of what the Supreme Being wants, although it might be defined on a person-to-person basis in terms of what is practical for the maintenance of societies, etc.

So Jesus was crucified with nails and a crown of thorns, which lasted a couple *hours* and spent a few days in hell...? People throughout history would have endured tortures that lasted much longer - during interrogations or forced confessions, etc... and many of those people would suffer eternally in hell, according to many Christians. Since Gandhi wasn't a Christian he would be in hell too. I think those who endure weeks or months of interrogations and refuse to betray their loved ones - and don't believe in an afterlife - are better than Jesus.
Jesus knew (as he said in the Gospels) that he would come again, and in Revelations he (the lamb) is served worshipped eternally... as it was written, "every knee *will* bow". So there was a little period of humbleness, but not for long...

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

philechat

Again. Theodicy.

So evil is required for the world to have genuine meaning. I guess by definition heaven is meaningless, since it contains no evil.

Otherwise, we would have to conclude that we could still choose evil and disobedience to God in heaven in order genuine freedom and love be possible in heaven.

Apologetics, apologetics. If heaven is some sort of "Brave New World" then why striving for it our whole life? <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

WWSD

Wow, two cut and paste posts already.
How creative.

Kinda looks like SPAM to me.

How many more cut and paste posts have to occure before someone gets banned?

tronvillain

Oh please. There are countless potential variations on the world, not four. Consider a world where no one is inclined towards rape - a world where the aberrant individuals who commit such acts in this world are instead like the rest of us. Do the rest of us complain that we are not free to rape because we are not so inclined? No. So no freedom would be lost in creating such a world, but God has not done so, and if he exists I for one would like an explanation from the bastard.