Atheists observe that God does a few things in the Old Testament that they feel are not morally good or right. From this, they conclude that God does not exist. For example, they might look at how God instructed the Israelites to annihilate other nations, or how God dealt with David’s sin in allowing his son to die. They consider this to be evil and then conclude that God does not exist.
It’s a strange argument. It’s also not a sound argument. The summary of the argument is as follows:
Premise 1: If God exists, then He cannot do evil deeds
Premise 2: The God of the Bible does evil deeds
Conclusion: The God of the Bible does not exist
An Unsound Argument
This argument is unsound for a couple of reasons. We cannot accept the first premise. It’s not logical to demand the absence of evil deeds as a condition of existence. Let’s look at it differently. We expect mothers to be kind and caring. If someone tells us that their mother is not kind and caring, can we conclude that their mother does not exist? Of course not. This is the argument, essentially.
The second part of the first premise and the second premise in its entirety are also problematic. How do we judge between what is good and what is evil? This is generally simple when it comes to the way finite humans behave. But how do we judge the moral goodness of an infinite being’s deeds?
Parents, when disciplining their children or when establishing order in the home, often do things that their children would consider unfair, mean, and perhaps even evil. Firstly, do the children conclude that their parents do not exist? No. Secondly, is the child correct in judging their parents’ actions as unfair, mean, and evil? They might be. However, since parents are generally more experienced, wiser, and have their child’s best interest at heart, the child is most likely incorrect in their assessment.
How much more is a finite human’s judgment of an infinite being’s deeds likely to be incorrect? I would say infinitely. We cannot be sure that God’s deeds are evil. We would need to be God to come to that conclusion, which then defeats the argument altogether. Since we cannot be sure that God’s deeds are evil, even if we accept the first premise (which I’ve already demonstrated cannot be accepted), the conclusion does not follow.
Evidence for Existence
If we want to determine whether or not God exists we have to look for evidence of God’s existence. There is plenty.
We can start with philosophical evidence. Simple cause and effect. If everything that exists has a cause, we can go back further and further and understand the cause of each cause in turn. This leads us to understand that at some point we need a cause that itself has no cause. An uncaused cause. This would necessitate the existence of an entity with the features of the God of the Bible, though not necessarily the God of the Bible.
Next, we can look, for example, at the fine-tuning of the universe and conclude that it is intelligently designed. This might lead us to conclude that an intelligent designer exists, even though, again, it does not necessarily lead us to the God of the Bible. But, since the Bible provides us with a potential fit for the entity that the previous two arguments have necessitated, we can then start to look at some of the claims that the Bible makes and determine whether or not the Bible can be trusted.
A Book We Can Trust
The Bible is essentially a history book. Is the history true? The Bible speaks of Jews. They exist today and they agree that the Bible gives an accurate account of their history. So, there’s some evidence that the Old Testament is true. The Bible speaks of a man named Jesus who had followers that established the Christian church. Christians exist today and they agree that the Bible gives an accurate account of their history. This is evidence that the New Testament is true.
We could further look at some of the prophecies of the Bible and check to see if those were fulfilled. For example, Jesus prophesied that the Jerusalem temple would be destroyed. It was, in 70 AD. The Bible predicted, in Daniel 7 and 8, that Greece would overthrow Medo-Persia and that the kingdom of Greece would be divided into four parts. This was fulfilled by Alexander the Great. Alexander died young and suddenly. At his death, he had no heir. His generals fought each other in what is known as the Wars of the Diadochi (Wars of the Successors) which left his kingdom divided among four of his generals: Ptolemy, Antigonus, Cassander, and Seleucus.
We can trust that the Bible is true. We, therefore, can trust that the God of the Bible is the uncaused Cause and the Intelligent Designer that the philosophical and scientific evidence necessitates.
God Exists and He is Good
If we look at the evidence for God’s existence and then conclude, based on the evidence that He exists, we need to ask ourselves why we think that what He did was evil. As many Christians all over the world and throughout the centuries have found, what the atheist considers an evil act of God is often a demonstration of His infinite love and wisdom.
The Psalmist writes, “Taste and see, that the Lord is good” Psalm 34:8.