Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Mark Clark podcast. Glad you are with us this week. We are dealing with one of the most important questions humankind has ever asked. And it is on the Anything Goes series that we're doing. It's a five week series, this is week three. And we basically asked the Internet, what are the things that you want to know about? And then we let everybody vote and we got thousands and thousands of votes. And this was number three of that list. And it has to do with evil and suffering.
Mark Clark [00:00:23]:
And how could that be true in the world and in our life if God is fully in control? So heavy waters, hopefully helpful waters to you. We delve into this question. Remember, we are part of the Thrive Podcast network and remember to subscribe to this podcast on Apple or Spotify. Subscribe to it so that automatically you get the episodes when they drop every single week. We dropped them on Thursday and they come right into your iPhone or whatever you got and then go on and review it. The reviews actually help the message get out. And one of the other things that I will say about this too is this topic, if it is something that you want to explore more. I talk about it in both the Problem of God and the Problem of Law, which just came out in February.
Mark Clark [00:01:05]:
Both those books contain more information, more thinking on this very important topic of evil and suffering and pain, how it enters our life, how we go through life dealing with pain and evil and the difficulties of the world. So maybe everything that I talk about in this podcast, if it's helpful to you, share it with someone and then go to the problem of God or the problem of life to delve deeper into it. Okay. Hopefully you enjoy it. This deep question of evil, suffering and a controlling God. Week three of Anything Goes. Today we are answering this question about evil, evil and suffering. And it was asked like this.
Mark Clark [00:01:43]:
Why does God allow evil if he is fully in control? So really important question, really deep question. Of course, this whole series is pretty deep. And so hopefully when you come to this series, you're coming and you're receiving, you're listening, you're trying to learn, you're trying to be equipped if you already know Jesus, to be able to answer these questions. And if you're exploring, if you're a skeptic and you're wondering, hopefully you're listening, willing to receive that these are the Christian answers, the best that we can do, the best we can understand. And this one, of course, today is very difficult question and, and, and you know, to some degree there's not a great answer for regard to Christianity. But I'm going to do my best to provide some hints, some ideas, some evidences, some thinking around some things and, and I'll have 11 points. Okay, so if you're a note taker, 11 points. And we'll be here till probably four or five tonight, depending on what site you're at.
Mark Clark [00:02:33]:
Welcome to all the sites. By the way, Coquitlam, glad that you're part of our church, North Langley, South Langley, here in Surrey, Calgary, you're all amazing. And we're gonna be launching Abbotsford in the new year. So if you're a part of our church and you live out in Abbotsford or anywhere near it, you gotta go to that church. Gonna be amazing. We're starting that church off with some great leaders and there's already 100 or 200 people that have said gonna sign up and serve and be part of this congregation. So gonna be awesome reaching Abbotsford and so really excited about it. Okay, listen to the background of my answer.
Mark Clark [00:03:06]:
This is a story that comes from the book of Job. Let me read, I'm gonna read a bunch of paragraphs for you from the Bible. It's the book of Job. It's one of the oldest, if not the oldest story in the Bible. And even in ancient near eastern literature, people say that the book of Job might have been written before the book of Genesis. Certainly the story was being told. And it's fascinating because this theodi question, theodicy question, it's the question of evil and suffering. It's the question of how do two things together that God is good and powerful and yet there's so much evil.
Mark Clark [00:03:33]:
And awfulness in the world.
Mark Clark [00:03:34]:
And so let me just read you from Job, chapter one, There was a man. And it's going to play kind of the backdrop of some of the points I want to make. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright who feared God and turned away from evil. That's really important. He was a good guy. Right? Because moralism and religion is going to tell you if you're a good guy, then you shouldn't have to suffer. And that's what karma philosophy says.
Mark Clark [00:04:02]:
That's what mysticism talks about. And so the point right off the bat in verse one of Job, it tells us he was a good guy. He was great, he was upstanding, he was righteous, he feared God, meaning he had a reverence and a worship of God and he turned away from evil. That's right. In verse One there were born to him seven sons and three daughters. So those of you have kids, imagine you got seven sons, you got three daughters, you love them, they all have names, all right? And you raise them and you change their diapers and you taught them about it. And just your heart, your soul just wants to see them do well. You give your life for them.
Mark Clark [00:04:35]:
You love them like nothing else in the world. And it says in verse six, now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down it. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there's none like him on the earth, and blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord and said this. Does God. Does Job fear God for no reason, though? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You've blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. He's rich and his family's healthy and he's healthy and he has a bunch of stuff.
Mark Clark [00:05:23]:
He's got square footage, drives a Mercedes, has. He's good looking, he's successful, his kids are healthy. It's fantastic. Everything's going good for him. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, meaning take it from him and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, behold.
Mark Clark [00:05:44]:
All that he has is your hand.
Mark Clark [00:05:46]:
Meaning you can go take it only against him.
Mark Clark [00:05:50]:
Do not stretch out your hand yet.
Mark Clark [00:05:51]:
Don't make him on. Don't take his health yet. That's later.
Mark Clark [00:05:54]:
Job's going to get that later.
Mark Clark [00:05:56]:
Now you can go and take the stuff you just cited to me from him. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And there came a messenger to Job and said, the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them. And the Sabians fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants. The Sabians were this group of people with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And when he was speaking, another one came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them.
Mark Clark [00:06:28]:
And I have alone have escaped. And while he was Speaking. Another one came and said, you sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people.
Mark Clark [00:06:43]:
And they are dead. And I alone have escaped to tell you. Think about the pain of that. You lost your kids all in one one moment. Your whole family's gone.
Mark Clark [00:06:56]:
Then Job arose and tore his robe.
Mark Clark [00:06:58]:
And shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, this is going to be very important. Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Okay, Listen, I have 11 points to get through. So let me stick to my notes the best I can and try to get through these questions with Job as the backdrop.
Mark Clark [00:07:28]:
First.
Mark Clark [00:07:30]:
First of 11 things to say about this question.
Mark Clark [00:07:33]:
The question is, again, why does God allow evil if he is fully in control? First question. The first thing to comment on is, this is not a philosophical question.
Mark Clark [00:07:42]:
It's an experiential question. It's not just a philosophical question.
Mark Clark [00:07:45]:
We're going to talk a lot about.
Mark Clark [00:07:46]:
Philosophy today, and it's in that way.
Mark Clark [00:07:48]:
Some of you will love that. If you've ever taken a philosophy class.
Mark Clark [00:07:51]:
You know how philosophers talk. It's very strange, it's very weird. It's very hypothetical, theoretical, whatever at times. And some of you hate that because you dropped out of philosophy and you don't care about it. So that's great. We'll pray for you. So.
Mark Clark [00:08:04]:
But the reality is, it's more than.
Mark Clark [00:08:06]:
A philosophical question, it's an experiential question.
Mark Clark [00:08:08]:
Because all of you experience evil in your life.
Mark Clark [00:08:11]:
All of you see, you're touched by evil, you're touched by suffering. You see the terrorism, you see rape, you see murder, you see cancer, you see terrible things take place in the.
Mark Clark [00:08:19]:
World, and we've all been touched by that. And that right there is the first flag that you have to be careful of. And here's why. Because it's so experiential. I mean, I go back in my life and my father and you who are in the church, you know the story, so I don't need to read it for you. But for people who don't, my father divorced my mom when I was 8 or 9 years old, at which point I got Tourette Syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder from the mental strain of what my parents dealt with, which is why I have all these weird tics and habits and make noises and twitch my body around all those things and these things that I went through. My father died when I was 15 years old. Hadn't seen him in three or four years.
Mark Clark [00:08:58]:
He was 47.
Mark Clark [00:08:59]:
He died of lung cancer.
Mark Clark [00:09:00]:
Never called us, never told us that he was dying, which I resented for many years. Left me and my brother behind. My aunt committed suicide. Dealt with a lot of stress and strain and seen a lot of things in my life that I would not have chosen to see. And the reality is, that's for all of us. Growing up in high school with Tourette syndrome is not the coolest thing to do. All right? It's not the funnest thing to do when you're around, because kids can be mean. And so you're making noises and doing weird habits.
Mark Clark [00:09:34]:
And you've gotta somehow get through that and figure that out. And so this question is an experiential question. Evil or suffering or pain has touched all of us in some way, but that's why we have to be careful how we answer it, because it's experiential. What you begin to do is you begin to put emotion into the answer to the question, and you struggle to think logically or rationally about the question purely because you're invested with your gut and you're invested with your emotions. And I've told you this before, one of the reasons why I struggle sometimes doing marriages is because you see these beautiful two kids and they're standing up in front of everybody and they wanna do these vows, and they say, the reason I'm getting married to you is because I love you. And we all know that they've only known each other for years, so what could it possibly mean that they love them? It means I love how you look. I love how you make my stomach feel inside with the butterflies. I love how you look at me.
Mark Clark [00:10:36]:
I love how you touch me. I love how you're dressed right now. I love your beautiful makeup. I love your. But, you know, all of that, that's what they mean. And all that we want to do, who are sitting in the audience is roll our eyes and fast forward 20 years, and they haven't had sex in two months. And he's, I love you. I love you.
Mark Clark [00:10:57]:
And she's like, yeah, you haven't cleaned the house. You know, I know I used to, you know, you touch me, I'd be like, oh, that went away 21 years ago or 19 years ago after year one, all right? And I just want you to make more money, and I want you to dress better and. Yeah, but I want you to talk to me better. And there's all the fights, and all of a sudden he goes out with his friends, and there's a girl there, and she's young, like the girl he married. And she looks at him and gives him that same feeling of the butterflies in the stomach. And the problem is, is a lot of guys chase that shiny ball down the road, and it kills their life and derails their life. Why? Because they followed in that moment how they feel. And we all have to be very careful to not simply follow our feelings in life.
Mark Clark [00:11:49]:
We have to, as marriage illustrates. As Kierkegaard, the philosopher. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, you have to covenant yourself to something that transcends how you feel in life, or you will derail your life. That's what marriage is. It's covenanting yourself to say, I don't care how I feel. I shall love you till I die. And some of you are like, you're praying for early death at this point, but you're just like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna covenant myself to this.
Mark Clark [00:12:17]:
That transcends how I feel. So that's important, because when you come at the question of evil and you come at the question of pain and suffering, if you're too. If you answer it emotionally, you won't be able to think about it logically, and you will answer emotionally because you're so invested in the thing. And it can derail your life at times because it can skew reality. Okay, the second point is that there are no easy answers to this question. If there were an easy answer in some way philosophically, it would mean it would admit that God wanted it this way. If I just quickly get up here and say, well, you know, evil and suffering, that's thing. Let me give you a quick pat answer.
Mark Clark [00:12:53]:
Boom. Two minutes. Okay, great. Wash our hands, move on. It would kind of mean that evil is logical. And as many philosophers have pointed out, it's not. And that's okay, because that's biblical for it not to be logical. This isn't the way God wanted it.
Mark Clark [00:13:08]:
God didn't design creation to exist with all kinds of human death and tragedy and awfulness and terrorism and murder and rape. That was not his original vision. And you go back to his original vision of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and people living in the garden, walking with God in the cool of the day, and they're naked and there's no shame and there's no guilt and there's no sin and there's no human death. And it's beautiful. It's just beautiful picture of perfection and what God wants. And to say quickly, well, let me just explain. Evil would mean it's logical and in some sense it's not supposed to be logical. I remember when Osama bin Laden got found and killed by the US and they had him on a ship on the way back and they dumped his boat, dumped his body over the side of a boat.
Mark Clark [00:13:52]:
I remember a theologian that I follow tweeted out that day when everyone was celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. And. And he tweeted out this tweet, which was a quote from the book of Ezekiel. And the book of Ezekiel says this. I don't delight in the death even of the wicked. It's fascinating. God did not intend death to be a part of his story where he this is what he wanted, this is what he desired, this is what he relished. And so in a sense, there's no explanation of where evil came from in the Bible.
Mark Clark [00:14:29]:
It's very interesting. The minute we start to delve into being able to explain evil, you begin to realize there actually is no explanation of the origin of evil in the Bible. If you go to Genesis chapter three, the serpent already exists. And the story never says, here's where he came from. So Adam and Eve, they're naked, everything's great, they're walking in the cool of the day. God's put that tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. He says, don't eat of it. And they're walking and everything's great.
Mark Clark [00:14:58]:
And then all of a sudden, she turns and there's a snake. And the snake starts to talk and tempt her. It doesn't say where the snake came from. And this part of the echo of the Bible which we're going to talk about, the mystery of all of this, is there is a mystery to evil that in some way can never be wrestled to the ground. And the Bible admits it. If you read the book of Habakkuk and the prophets, like, why do the evil people flourish? And why do the righteous people suffer? I don't get it. And God says, listen, Habakkuk, you don't even know what's going on. You have this little view of the universe and you don't know what I'm doing on my worst day.
Mark Clark [00:15:31]:
I'm smarter than you, so be very. And he does the Same thing with Job. All the way through the Book of Job, you go chapter and chapter and chapter, and his friends come up with theories about why there's evil. Well, maybe it's because you did wrong or maybe because of this. Maybe. And the whole book is one big, beautiful poem of trying to wrestle the question of evil to the ground. Because of. Of course, they don't know what's happened in the first chapter, right? They're not.
Mark Clark [00:15:51]:
They don't know that Satan went and asked God if he could go at Job. They don't get the opening chapter. And so the whole book is them exploring philosophically why. And then by the end, God shows up to Job and he says, you don't understand. You're a man who can't barely get his pants on in the morning. And I created snowflakes and atoms and cells, and I tell lightning where to go. I created giraffes and hippos. You have to.
Mark Clark [00:16:18]:
In some sense, even though the mystery is there, you have to trust me, because I'm bigger than you and I'm smarter than you. And so this begins. And actually, Charles Taylor, who's a philosopher, wrote a book called the Secular Age. And in it, he talks about the idea that over the last two or three hundred years past the Enlightenment period, the philosophical Enlightenment period, where we began to trust reason and science as the main hermeneutic or filter for all of thought in life. It is only since then that the question of evil has been such a big deal in modern civilization. If you go back to the ancient philosophers, he points out, they saw far more evil and suffering than you and I see right now. We have to understand that we cannot get a glimpse of history where we think we're living in the worst era of all time. Listen, guys, we're living in one of the greatest eras of all time.
Mark Clark [00:17:13]:
You guys live past 35 right there. Praise God. You women. When you have a baby, you walk out of the hospital alive. Do you know in the scope of history how lucky you are in the. The percentage was you would die in there. You would die at 30. Go back if you ever doubt how good it is right now.
Mark Clark [00:17:32]:
All right. Even warfare. If you're like, oh, my gosh, warfare. Listen, I'll take. I'll take a bullet in the face versus go watch Braveheart. You seen Braveheart? They're smashing each other with hammers like this in the head. That's gonna hurt for, like, half an hour. Like, that sucked.
Mark Clark [00:17:55]:
Like today, just done right today. There's less poverty in the world than ever has been. There's more healthcare, there's more education, there's all these beautiful things about today. And yet the ancient philosophers, seeing all the tragedy, all the pain, the babies thrown out on the street, dying people, dying of the plagues, losing spouses and kids, go read Abraham Lincoln's story. Go read anybody who lived 2, 300 years ago. Their whole family would just die. They'd be alone and depressed, all of that. And yet the philosophers back then never said, well, you know what all this pain and suffering means?
Mark Clark [00:18:36]:
There's no God.
Mark Clark [00:18:37]:
What they said was, we're not smart.
Mark Clark [00:18:40]:
Enough to understand what the gods are up to.
Mark Clark [00:18:42]:
Until the Enlightenment came around, and we trusted reason and rationale so much so that we became the gods.
Mark Clark [00:18:49]:
And that's where this question arises.
Mark Clark [00:18:51]:
There was a mystery that they bumped up against that they were humble enough to accept all through history.
Mark Clark [00:18:56]:
And then the Enlightenment came along.
Mark Clark [00:18:57]:
We began to trust to ourselves and our own minds and our own worldviews and our own and our technology, and we became the gods. And then we began to say, you know what, we gotta figure this one out. We gotta wrestle this one to the ground. We have to figure out what evil is. And so Charles Taylor says we have to be humble, both theists in the.
Mark Clark [00:19:16]:
Room and atheists when it comes to this question.
Mark Clark [00:19:19]:
The third point, third thought. Is the problem of good what philosophers call the problem of good? Yes, the problem of evil is a massive problem, but there's also the problem of good, which we often don't. Why are things so good? How do we know that 99% of the evil that could be happening in the universe isn't being held back by God? That things could be far worse, that yes, cancer is terrible and, and, and terrorism's terrible and murder, and all these things are awful, terrible things. And we know that and, and we have something in us that fights for it. But we also understand that most people sitting in our congregation right now, things aren't as bad as they could be. You know, yes, I have, for instance, if I just keep using myself as an example through this message. Yes, I have Tourette's syndrome, and yes, I have obsessive compulsive disorder. And yes, my life isn't perfect, but I have beautiful kids and a beautiful wife and a job I love and my health for now, and all of these wonderful things about.
Mark Clark [00:20:18]:
I love music and art and you get beauty and sexuality and beautiful views of why. Why are things so good? Is the question Augustine raised, maybe not just why things are so Awful. But how did we get it this good? It's a question we must answer. Fourthly, the question of evil is not necessarily a question just for Christians. Every worldview has to answer this question. If you're a New Age philosopher, for instance, and you're here and you're exploring Christianity, we're glad that you're here. One of the worldview things that Christianity will push back on you is if you believe in New Age philosophy or Eastern mysticism, you have to answer the question of evil. And the way that you tend to answer it and the popular theorists tend to answer for thousands of years has been that evil itself is what Hinduism calls Maya.
Mark Clark [00:21:07]:
It's an illusion. Evil's not real. And so what you need to do is mentally, and this is New Age philosophy as well, you need to. To deny the reality of evil and pretend that it doesn't exist. Because if you acknowledge its existence, you let it into your life and it affects you. Of course, this is where karmic philosophy comes in. And of course you have to choose a worldview that answers coherently the questions.
Mark Clark [00:21:31]:
Of origins and meaning and morality and.
Mark Clark [00:21:33]:
Destiny, but also the question of evil and suffering. And if you choose more of that Eastern one. When I was in India, when I saw mass amounts of suffering, they told me not to relieve the suffering because karma had to repay the people for the evil they'd done in a past life. And so if you relieve the suffering in that moment, then they need to relive it in the next life. So don't relieve suffering. Now imagine you want to take on a philosophy that says evil's an illusion and you shouldn't actually absolve it or take it away in anybody's life. And yet in the person and the work of Jesus. We see Jesus confronted with the question of karma in John chapter nine.
Mark Clark [00:22:08]:
And they say, here's a blind man who sinned, him or his parents, and he says, neither of them sinned. That's not what this is about. I'm going to heal him now. And then it's going to be for the, for the glory of God to shine through. But this isn't about the sin of him that caused something in his life. This is not about the sin of his parents that caused something in his life. And so Jesus outright rejects karma, which, as the Saint Bono of U2 said, it's a good thing that karma doesn't exist, or else I'd be in a lot of trouble. But.
Mark Clark [00:22:37]:
But the good thing about the gospel, he said, is that in Jesus Christ, Jesus got what I deserve and I get something I don't deserve. But if I lived in karma, I'd be messed because I just get what I deserved. And what I deserve is nothing good because I know how bad of an apple I am. But beautiful reality is Jesus took what I deserve and I get what I don't deserve because of grace. And so he said, I'll stand on grace rather than karma every day of my life. Fifthly, now let me direct the, to the atheist for the next little bit here because obviously atheism is kind of where I grew up and it's the predominant philosophy when it comes to this.
Mark Clark [00:23:20]:
Question of evil and where it arises.
Mark Clark [00:23:22]:
Because of course the atheist says that you can't have God existing and be good and all powerful and evil exists at the same time. The argument is those two things can't coexist or it's very difficult to make them exist. And it's a powerful argument because it's an emotional argument and we feel it because we see the death and the.
Mark Clark [00:23:40]:
Rape and so on.
Mark Clark [00:23:41]:
But as David Bentley Hart, the philosopher, said, this is an effective philosophy and challenge, but it's not a strictly logical position to hold. And here's why. Few things. First, raising the question of evil from an atheistic standpoint, only ask the question where you got the category to begin with. You cannot put God on trial for the evil in the world if God doesn't exist. And what I mean by that is you don't have an absolute category called evil by which you can say this is wrong. Because for an atheist, there are no objective moral values. There's nothing that is absolutely objective.
Mark Clark [00:24:22]:
There is only cultural differences. There's only preferences. There's only ideas that evolved through time through animalistic instinct that got wired into your cognitive faculties after hundreds of thousands of years of decisions you made for survival and for the sake of getting your seed into the next generation. That is literally what drives your life. And so nature is nature to an atheist. So there is, it's really actually a flawed, contradictory question because there's no such thing as evil. So, so when, so when my atheist friends, they tend to be atheists and they tend to confront, they fight for climate change, for instance. Okay, so these are a bunch of friends I have.
Mark Clark [00:25:06]:
They hold these two things at once. They, they want to fight for climate change and they, or, and they say, look, we, we, we want to defend the, the, the planet from, from global warming and, and cutting off fins of sharks for shark fin soup and killing whales and all of that. And yet I'm an atheist at the same time. Now, here's. That would be fine if your argument was cutting sharks up and killing whales and burning the earth up is bad strategy. All right, that'd be fine. But that's not what they argue. They argue that it's.
Mark Clark [00:25:39]:
Now, hear me now, Wrong. Wrong. What do you mean? But what do you mean by wrong? So you're not just saying it's. It's strategically bad, it's absolutely morally wrong to cut fins off sharks just for soup by the thousands, by the million. I can't believe we do this. And my. My friends and family get all jacked up about these kind of things. But the problem is, at the same time, they want to be atheists.
Mark Clark [00:26:04]:
And the reality is you kind of can't say that. What you can say is you don't prefer it. But now we're just talking about. You like red, I like purple. I like the Taylor Swift album. All right? I think it's a great new album. I've been listening to anything since. But you don't like it.
Mark Clark [00:26:19]:
But that's all we're talking about. All right? All we're talking about is me liking T. Swift and you not. We're not talking about what's right and what's wrong in the universe. We're only talking about preference at that point. Because, of course, if you are a pure naturalistic, atheistic thinker, then all of our morals came from animalistic instincts, and that would be the pushback. No, it is wrong. And the reason it's wrong is because we got moral from it.
Mark Clark [00:26:45]:
But that doesn't make any sense because so many things that we believe as human beings come from not animal. Our morals transcend the animal kingdom. And you know that because you can watch all kinds of stuff, as I've shared with you many times. There's a thousand examples of the animal kingdom doing crazy stuff. But you're like, I can't believe this. From the praying mantis females ripping the heads off the males after the. They have sex with them. And some of the ladies are like, boom, wish we could do that.
Mark Clark [00:27:07]:
Wish that was moral. Wish that was in the constitution, right? And then there's. There's giraffe. You know how a giraffe male figures out whether he's allowed to mate with the female, whether she's ready because he doesn't want to do it. If she's not ready, he gets his whole head bitten off. Or if he. If he tries to approach her. But here, just like the Praying mantis.
Mark Clark [00:27:27]:
But here's what happens. He tastes her urine, and once he tastes her urine, he knows whether she's ready to go. Now, I don't know how many dudes in the room function like this, but probably not many because the way we function transcends animalistic instinct at every turn. And because of that, you have to ask the philosophical question, where did a moral compass in your mind come? That transcendence transcends nature. It can't come from the encoding of what you had to do as an animal to survive. It has to transcend because sometimes it's the opposite to what would an animal would do. It's dying for your enemy. Well, that's not very good according to a pure naturalistic evolutionary thinking.
Mark Clark [00:28:14]:
You've got to kill your enemy off. You got to be tribal. You got to make sure you can get. So all of these kind of things begs the question. And so C.S. lewis, he said, when I was an atheist, I wanted to say that the universe was a messed up place. But every time I did would push back at me because where had I got the idea? What was I comparing this universe with? If this is the universe, all I know, then what was I comparing it with? What was I saying was the standard by which this universe is broken. I didn't have one because I was an atheist.
Mark Clark [00:28:49]:
And so the question kept pushing back at me and I began to realize that I had this moral standard built in me, which is what Paul talks about in Romans chapter 2. Built into your mind, built into your soul to tell you that shooting people in a movie theater is wrong, that crashing planes into buildings is wrong. It's not part of nature. And so the reality is we transcend.
Mark Clark [00:29:13]:
Animalistic instincts at every turn.
Mark Clark [00:29:15]:
Now the next thing I'll say about the atheistic reality is this. Alvin Plantica, who's one of the greatest philosophers, they say he's the greatest living philosopher in the world, he's a Christian. He says that here's the basic problem that exists. Christians believe five things all at the same time. What they believe is that God exists, that God is omnipotent, which means he's all powerful, that God is omniscient, meaning he's all knowing that God is good and that evil exists. And so how does one deal with that issue? So here's what Planticus says. You have all five of these things. And I'm reading now from the profound best selling book, the Problem of God.
Mark Clark [00:29:56]:
By Mark Andrew Clark.
Mark Clark [00:30:01]:
Because I couldn't say it better than this to be Honest atheists argue that these five assertions can't all be true at the same time. Yet as Plantagus suggests, atheists must provide some proofs of why. So it's not good enough for me to sit around with my family and friends and they say they're atheists and God can't be all powerful and all good and evil exists all at the same time.
Mark Clark [00:30:23]:
It's all contradictory, which is what they argue.
Mark Clark [00:30:26]:
You have to push back when people say that and say why? Why can't that be true? Let's not assume it's true. Provide some proofs for your argument. And Plantagus says that's actually quite difficult. He says, in other words, it's not sufficient to simply say they can't all be true. Additional proofs are required. And Plantica says certainly none of them atheists have succeeded at providing those proofs. Some have at least attempted to provide these additional proof. Atheist philosopher J.L.
Mark Clark [00:30:59]:
mackey, for instance, argued, now just stay with me for a second. You can go back and listen to the podcast to understand this argument. J.L. mackey said this a good thing, meaning God always eliminates evil as far as it can. This is the underlying assumption.
Mark Clark [00:31:15]:
Of course, as you're talking to people.
Mark Clark [00:31:16]:
And as if you're here and you're an atheist and you're wondering how these.
Mark Clark [00:31:19]:
Two things can be true, your underlying.
Mark Clark [00:31:21]:
Assumption is if there's something good, it by default and necessity will eliminate an evil thing as far as it can. That's your assumption, but of course you haven't proven that and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent all.
Mark Clark [00:31:35]:
Powerful thing can do.
Mark Clark [00:31:35]:
Ergo, God should eliminate all evil because.
Mark Clark [00:31:38]:
He'S all good and all powerful. That's the assumption.
Mark Clark [00:31:40]:
It's a valid attempt.
Mark Clark [00:31:42]:
This is back to me now.
Mark Clark [00:31:45]:
But it is not apparent why either of Mackie's points are necessarily true. A good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can. Why must we assume that every case of evil is one that God could eliminate without at the same time, listen to this. Eliminating a greater good, for instance. Or what if in order to stop said evil, God had to violate human free will? Or what if stopping an evil act today would set in motion a butterfly effect that would cause a great artist or scientist not to be born in the future creating a greater evil or at least a lesser good in the world? So we are reduced from the initial charge down to God is all good only if he eliminates every state of affairs which is not a logical, necessary condition of a good state of affairs that outweighs it. In other words, God is still good if he allows evil in order to retain free will in the universe, or if it allows a greater good in the future. With this in mind, we must admit that an all powerful being could permit as much evil as he pleased, so long as for every evil state of affairs he permits, there is a greater good. Mackie's first premise then, that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, is shown to be a false assumption.
Mark Clark [00:33:03]:
Thus, while the idea of God and evil existing together may be difficult for us to accept, the two are not actually incompatible. Atheism assumes they are, but fails to prove the contradiction. And it's very important you have to prove the contradiction. Now, of course, the assumption with Mackie and other atheists is that no good can come, or no greater good or lesser evil can come by God permitting.
Mark Clark [00:33:29]:
And allowing the evil that does happen in the universe. And what we've got to understand is all that that is not proven, in fact, all the evidence points in the opposite direction. You know, and I know we would never choose suffering and pain in our life, but you know that it builds character.
Mark Clark [00:33:46]:
Malcolm Muggeridge, the great journalist, great British.
Mark Clark [00:33:49]:
Journalist and philosopher back in the day, said, you know, if there was a pill that I could take that would eliminate all suffering in my life, I would never take it because it would make life banal and trivial. And every great thing I've ever done in my life, every piece of character I've ever learned in my life has come through pain and not through pleasure. You know that about you. I know that about me. Listen, as a kid with Tourette's, I remember I would get into. I was smoking drugs with all my buddies one night and I. I don't.
Mark Clark [00:34:19]:
Know if I smoked a joint that.
Mark Clark [00:34:20]:
Was laced with something, but one night went really bad and I started freaking.
Mark Clark [00:34:26]:
Out and laying on the ground and sparklies in my eyes. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, is he dying? I don't know, let's leave him alone. And I was all crazy, more than normal crazy. And I remember that moment was the.
Mark Clark [00:34:41]:
Moment that I said, I can't do this anymore, I can't do drugs anymore because I'm gonna end up dead at some point because I just know my addictive personality and where it could go. And so I stopped doing drugs.
Mark Clark [00:34:51]:
And when I stopped doing drugs, what I realized is I had to step away from all my friends who did.
Mark Clark [00:34:56]:
Drugs because I would do it if I was hanging out with them. But the problem with that was that was all my friends.
Mark Clark [00:35:00]:
And so for a year of my life, I was left pretty well alone. And what I would do is I'd pour myself into art.
Mark Clark [00:35:09]:
I'd pour myself.
Mark Clark [00:35:10]:
I would sit in my bedroom and I would memorize movie scripts and I would hone acting and I would write music and songs. I rewrote all. You know that eight minute song, American Pie by Don McLean? I rewrote that song explaining the whole plot of King Lear.
Mark Clark [00:35:27]:
All right, it was for a project.
Mark Clark [00:35:28]:
In school, but I put way too.
Mark Clark [00:35:29]:
Much time into it, all right?
Mark Clark [00:35:30]:
An unhealthy amount. Now, this is all that I ended up doing in my life. All right? I did music, I did art, I memorized entire films. I acted in front of a mirror for hours and hours and hours alone. Abandoned for a year of my life in high school. Pain, isolation. But here's the thing. It made me who I am today.
Mark Clark [00:35:55]:
It is why I'm standing up here. And you ask me, would you, in your life, take back? If you could redo your life, would you make it so your dad didn't divorce your mom and that you didn't get Tourette's and you didn't get obsessive compulsive disorder and you didn't sit in a room by yourself for a year crafting nonsense, lone, isolated, in pain? Would you take it back?
Mark Clark [00:36:22]:
And the answer is absolutely not. I will take it.
Mark Clark [00:36:28]:
Now, the beautiful part about the job.
Mark Clark [00:36:30]:
Story, it's not necessarily that God caused it in my life, but he wisely allowed it because he knew. See, here's one of the great points about evil and suffering. God exists in the thing. God has an asymmetrical relationship with evil.
Mark Clark [00:36:47]:
He doesn't.
Mark Clark [00:36:48]:
He didn't cause it in the story. Satan causes it, but he allows it. But the amazing thing is, is what's.
Mark Clark [00:36:54]:
Allowed is only the amount that doesn't.
Mark Clark [00:36:58]:
Accomplish what Satan's trying to accomplish. He tries to take Job's faith away, but all it does is strengthen Job's faith.
Mark Clark [00:37:04]:
That's beautiful.
Mark Clark [00:37:06]:
God oversees it and he's sovereign over it. But the pain creates character in your life.
Mark Clark [00:37:11]:
And so this assumption that no good can come of pain, we know that. We know that masters of anything only.
Mark Clark [00:37:18]:
Become masters after 10,000 hours of painful over and over, practice and practice and practice.
Mark Clark [00:37:24]:
So I'm not saying that's why God did all this. I'm saying that's what all this stuff.
Mark Clark [00:37:27]:
Did in my life. And if I could restart My life, I wouldn't. Now, number six, sixth point I want to make. We have a couple hints at what the Christian answer may be. The first one is God's asymmetrical relationship with evil, that he wants to destroy Job's faith. And it doesn't destroy Job's faith. That makes him stronger.
Mark Clark [00:37:49]:
And that's true about Joseph.
Mark Clark [00:37:50]:
What you meant for evil, God meant for good. That's what the end of Joseph's story is, right? It's true about Jesus. Evil tries to do its worst to him, worse to him, and he actually creates salvation out of it. So what Satan intends to do with evil in the world doesn't actually get accomplished. Oftentimes what happens is the opposite. Get accomplished. People get more faith, people go deeper into God.
Mark Clark [00:38:14]:
Number seven. It allows for a couple greater goods. It allows for free will to exist. If he stopped every gunman when he.
Mark Clark [00:38:22]:
Was going to shoot someone, you would complain that God's just playing chess and he's created robots and he's not allowed to do that. But the Bible says, no, you're actually.
Mark Clark [00:38:29]:
You have free will. You have responsibility, and it's beautiful. You have responsibility in the world. This is a message that needs to go out. The world is not mechanistic like evolutionary naturalism would say. If, by the way, if naturalistic evolution is true, the world's just a machine. There is no free will. You, you dance to your DNA.
Mark Clark [00:38:45]:
That's the ultimate machine. It's the ultimate mechanistic worldview. But Christianity comes along and says, you know what? God's gonna allow you to make choices. Israel. God's like, hey, I'm your king. Don't choose a human king. Israel goes, we want a human king. We want a human king.
Mark Clark [00:38:59]:
We want a human king. Finally, God goes, okay, do it. And it destroys them, but he lets them do it, and it's beautiful. You know, Jordan Peterson talks a lot about this in his book 12 Rules for Life, where he talks about the idea of we as a culture love to rant on about our rights, but what we should be doing is stop ranting about the rights that we have and start realizing we have responsibility. Right? Right to do this, right to do that. No, you have responsibility to take in your life. And the Bible comes along and goes, take some responsibility for your life. Take responsibility for your city, your church, your life.
Mark Clark [00:39:36]:
You're not just dancing to DNA. You're not just doing something that the machine set up for you, some machinistic idea of your life and yourselves and the way things you have Responsibility that God is gonna hold you accountable for what you did. So stop complaining about the rights that you have and that you're a victim. Listen, my generation, we're brutal, man. We're like, I'm a victim. I can't believe society. Shut up. You ever seen my grandfather's generation? I just went and visited him.
Mark Clark [00:40:04]:
He's 97 years old. I visited him in Toronto two days.
Mark Clark [00:40:08]:
Ago, and I sat with him. This guy was in the war. You know what would happen if my generation had to go to war?
Mark Clark [00:40:15]:
My gosh, we'd lose.
Mark Clark [00:40:17]:
Quick.
Mark Clark [00:40:21]:
Where'S my Instagram?
Mark Clark [00:40:22]:
I gotta take a shot. So God honors free will, which actually creates greater goods, but there's risk with it.
Mark Clark [00:40:34]:
The other thing that happens through suffering.
Mark Clark [00:40:36]:
And evil is salvation actually happens. Listen, there's this passage in Second Peter, chapter three. It says, knowing this first of all.
Mark Clark [00:40:49]:
That scoffers will come with scoffing, following.
Mark Clark [00:40:52]:
Their own sinful desires in the last days.
Mark Clark [00:40:54]:
And they will say, where is the.
Mark Clark [00:40:55]:
Promise of his coming?
Mark Clark [00:40:57]:
Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning. There's suffering, there's pain. Where's God? Where is God? If God exists, where is he? There's all this pain. There's all this suffering. This is Second Peter, chapter three.
Mark Clark [00:41:09]:
And listen to his answer, verse nine. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness. So why isn't he coming? Why isn't he wrapping it all up? But he's patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Do you know why God hasn't wrapped up the evil yet that we all think he should be wrapping up? Because he's waiting for you to repent. Every time the sun rises, it's God saying, I'm giving you one more day before I wipe all of this and I destroy evil. But when I destroy evil, that's it. It's all over.
Mark Clark [00:41:47]:
The days are done.
Mark Clark [00:41:48]:
You don't get a second chance.
Mark Clark [00:41:49]:
Listen, I'm glad people, you know, Christians are like, come, Lord Jesus, every time they read the news, and there's pain and suffering in it. And I get it, and I feel that. And the fact that you feel that again is evidence for the existence of God. The fact that you want justice, even if you're an atheist, and you're like, I can't believe that child got hit by a car. I can't believe the awfulness and the pain. And every time you feel that sense of justice, whether it's for kids or sharks or the environment, whatever. It's a pointer toward the existence of God, not away from him. And every time you do it, it's God trying to draw you to himself and say, can you please, please repent? I'm giving you one more day.
Mark Clark [00:42:24]:
I'm giving you one more feeling of justice. I raised the sun up one more day. Listen, I. And people say, come, Lord Jesus. I want the world to wrap up. Listen, if he had come in 1996, I wouldn't be a Christian.
Mark Clark [00:42:39]:
So he waited one more year. 1997, and I meet Chris in a woodworking class, and I give my life to Jesus. Peter's going, he gives you days and days and days. Not because he loves evil, but because he wants as many people to repent as possible. That's how loving he is. So, yeah, I know we're scoffing and we're saying, come. And the world's got such a mess. I can't believe you're not coming.
Mark Clark [00:43:04]:
What's wrong with you? Do you not exist?
Mark Clark [00:43:06]:
See, that's the underlying assumption. Do you not exist? Because the world's such a mess? And he's going, no, I exist. I exist and I'm coming. And nobody wants to destroy evil more than me.
Mark Clark [00:43:15]:
But I'm so patient because I want as many people to know me as possible. Last two things to say. I've been watching this on Instagram, breaking my heart. This guy's daughter, little. Little Eva fell out of a golf cart. A pastor and author down in the States, and she hit her head. She's eight years old, I think seven. Eight years old.
Mark Clark [00:43:43]:
And I've just been watching on Instagram for the last three weeks as this pastor sits in the hospital bed with her. And the doctors keep coming in and saying she's. She's brain dead. And pictures of her and her beautiful face and dressed up and videos of her laughing. And he's sitting at the bedside every day. How does a Christian deal with that? How do you deal with that in your life? There's two or three things. The first is there's a sense where you have to embrace the mystery of the evil and the pain. Job never finds out that God is going to use his life to inspire millions of people.
Mark Clark [00:44:28]:
He never finds out that everybody who goes through suffering is going to go to Job and go, my gosh, at least Job. Look at Job. He got his family killed. He got his health taken. But, man, he stayed faithful to the end. Job never knew that you and I will not know the kinds of people that the evil and suffering that hits us, what it's going to do to mil, possibly millions of people. You don't know. You have to embrace the mystery that there is no pat answer to this question.
Mark Clark [00:44:55]:
And yet you've got to understand that mystery. The reason you think it's a mystery is because we're a generation of entitlement who thinks that God needs to answer every single question we have. And so what I see this father and mother doing is sitting by that bedside and two things are true. They're watching the most horrific thing you could ever wanna ever see as a parent. And at the same time, they're believing that God still exists and is good. And what's underlying that is one, an embracing of the mystery that they're not probably ever gonna know the why. But the second thing they're going to do and they are doing, and I watch them and I message him and I pray and fast for little Eva that she would be healed fully. The second thing that I see this father doing is he embraces.
Mark Clark [00:45:46]:
This is very important, a theology, just like Job does, of grace. And here's what I mean. Some of you need to hear this right now because you're going through suffering or it's going to come real soon. Here's what Job says. He says, they say this, you lost your kids. All your kids are dead. All seven of them, all 10 of them are dead, gone. And then later he loses all his money, loses all his sheep, loses his health later.
Mark Clark [00:46:07]:
And he still says, listen to what he said. Remember in the story, naked I came into the world, and naked I'm going to leave it. He gives and he takes away. Blessed is the name of the Lord. And here's what Job just said. All the stuff in your life, all the stuff, the money, the possessions, the family, the health, it's a gift from him to you. It didn't come from you. You steward it when you get it, but at any point he can take it from you.
Mark Clark [00:46:42]:
That's a theology of grace, that everything you've got is a gift anyway.
Mark Clark [00:46:47]:
You didn't create the beautiful life and your health. You can't create your health and the good of your family. At some point, you got to let all this go, open up your hands and go, all of them are gifts from God that I got.
Mark Clark [00:47:00]:
And because they're gifts, I steward them to the best of my ability. But if they disappear, they were gifts. They were never mine to begin with. So you embrace the theology of grace. Thirdly, you be in a Relationship. This is very important with God himself, not the stuff he gives. You see, Satan goes to God and says, if you take all of his stuff, he won't love you anymore. And unfortunately, that's how many of us humans live.
Mark Clark [00:47:34]:
As long as we have health and we have money and everything's going well, we love God. You know, in that moment, then it goes away and we're like, where's God? I don't understand what was in that moment happening. You were relating to God and you.
Mark Clark [00:47:45]:
Were elevating gift above giver. You were relating to God from what.
Mark Clark [00:47:48]:
You can get from him. This is what people do to you, right?
Mark Clark [00:47:51]:
People relate to you.
Mark Clark [00:47:52]:
And the minute they know they can't get sex from you, then they're out.
Mark Clark [00:47:55]:
The minute they know they can't get a business deal from you, they're out. People do it with me all the time. It's a weird job for me to.
Mark Clark [00:48:00]:
Be a pastor because people relate to.
Mark Clark [00:48:02]:
Me and they're nice to me. And then I realize I'm like, okay, are you being my friend because you like me and my great person personality.
Mark Clark [00:48:10]:
Or you want something from me? I get emails from people who used to work here.
Mark Clark [00:48:16]:
Mark, I'm really sorry about that thing I said in your office that time. And you know, you know what? It was right to fire me and.
Mark Clark [00:48:23]:
I can, blah, blah, blah.
Mark Clark [00:48:24]:
You know, you're a great guy and you know, in the end everything's great and you're right.
Mark Clark [00:48:28]:
And I'm reading the email and I'm waiting for it.
Mark Clark [00:48:32]:
By the way, can you give me a reference for a new job? Boom.
Mark Clark [00:48:37]:
You just wanted something from me. It's painful. That is how many of us relate to God. You relate to him to get stuff from him and the minute that stuff dries up, you're gone. That was the lie of Satan. Now, let me end this way. The last thing is you embrace theology of the grace. You also need to embrace the theology of the cross, which is Satan goes into the throne and lies to God and says if you take his stuff, they won't love you anymore.
Mark Clark [00:49:11]:
In. And God doesn't believe his lie. In the garden, Satan comes to you and me, comes to Adam and Eve, our parents, and says, you should eat of the tree. The reason you can't eat of the tree and are restricted is because God doesn't love you. And we believed his lie when God did not believe his lie. So how do you and I know in real life that that's a lie.
Mark Clark [00:49:36]:
That the reason these things exist it.
Mark Clark [00:49:39]:
Has nothing to do with how much God loves us, because we see it in the person and the work of Jesus. Jesus came historically, took evil on himself and absorbed it, took suffering on himself and absorbed it, because that's the tangible answer to the question of evil. We don't know why evil exists all the time, and we don't know why suffering exists all the time in our life. But we know what it can't be. It can't be that God doesn't care, because in the person of Jesus, we see him suffer for no reason. For Himself, only for us. He had everything. He had all glory and power, and he suffered for us.
Mark Clark [00:50:16]:
Father, I just pray that that reality would change us on the spot, and that some of these things may help us as we wrestle with the deepest question our souls would ever wrestle with. In Jesus great name we pray. Amen.