Justness of the Judgment of God

The question of how God judges those who do not know Christ has been on my mind for quiet a while as it has been repeatedly requested of me to provide just reason for the basis of His judgment.

I realize that not knowing Christ is not the same as rejecting Him, because if a person does not know there is a real Jesus to know, they cannot be justly judged for not knowing Him. However, the judgment that comes from God is based on our own moral standard that we hold others to, which we ourselves have failed to uphold. While His standard is higher than our own, He judges the one who does not know Him based on the laws that person holds to be the moral standard.

So let’s say a person’s value system says that intolerance is wrong and makes judgments against people who are intolerant. Then that same person is intolerant in some way, they will be held accountable to God for breaking their own moral standard.

Romans 2: 1-6 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done."

Thus God’s judgment is not based on holding someone accountable to some standard they didn’t know existed, but by holding them accountable to their own standard that they practice as true. This is affirmed in Revelation when it is talking about that ultimate Day of Judgment.

Revelation 20:12 “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

The judgment then justly comes based on what is justly deserved according to what is known. The wording of “the dead” refers to those who are not in the life of Christ. The good news though, is that none of us have to pay that debt to sin. None of us have to come under judgment. We can instead be justified—having Christ death be substituted for our death—joining with Him in His Resurrection, being fully made whole without any debt to sin. We do not have to earn that redemption; we simply take hold of His hand that is extended out towards us. It’s like reaching up with an empty hand, knowing you have nothing to offer, but receiving Him forevermore.

Justice & Mercy: Philosophical & Practical

God's attributes are not parts of Him, they are each the whole of Him. He is all His attributes at all times. He is one, thus His attributes are one. We speak of them individually, but we err when we extract one without reference to the others. For instance, God is just and He is merciful. He does not choose to be merciful in one situation and just in another, He is equally just and merciful in every situation. To us we might see His response as more of an action of justice rather than mercy, but in reality it is just as merciful as it is just. This is why King David, when given a choice between being punished by being given to His enemies or being punished by God, he chose God for he knew that God's punishment would be exactly right, good, and merciful.

In the same way, our actions ought to be that which lines up with His goodness. Therefore, when our mercy does not include justice or our justice is not constrained by mercy then we are not in line with what is good. God is also love. Love is not unrestrained mercy. In fact, justice and mercy are not at odds with each other or with love. Perfect love is perfectly just and merciful at the same time for God is all of these attributes eternally. They all are anchored together in Him as one.

Any of these attributes lived out apart from the rest would be harmful and not a true representation of the attribute. Love without justice is not real love. Justice without mercy is not really just. Mercy without justice is not really being merciful. True love is not just a balance of justice and mercy, but is a full composite of both for the two cannot be rightly separated.

People who are recipients of constant mercy devoid of justice are not helped, but hindered from attaining personal responsibility. They cannot mature into the people they ought to be if they are saved from every just consequence of their choices.

People ought to be allowed the freedom to be irresponsible, but at the same time it is good to not remove the consequences of the actions. In Danny Silk's book, Loving Your Kids on Purpose, he explains that we all have choices. He encourages parents to give their children the freedom to make those choices while they are in the safety of the parent's home so that their lessons are learned early in life and do not become perpetual problems into adulthood. A child forgets her lunch at home, and Mom does not drive it to her, for she would now experience a lesson in consequences as she decides how to acquire lunch for herself due to her forgetfulness. The action was both one of mercy and one of justice. It was just for the child to not have the lunch she forgot, and merciful for the mom to provide her the opportunity to learn this lesson.

Today's society has elevated tolerance as a virtue and personal irresponsibility as a public problem rather than a private one. This nation was founded to be a place where people are free to make their way in the world with their property and life protected by the enforcement of laws enacted for this purpose. However, it was never intended to be a place where the poor and unhealthy are enjoined from being thus. It was never to be a place where the those who are responsible are forced to surrender their hard earned goods to those who are not. Today freedom has been encroached upon to aid the whole by requiring the few to not only be responsible for themselves, but for those who are irresponsible as well.

In a world where personal irresponsibility is protected by a removal of due consequences, people are apt to become more irresponsible rather than less. It is human nature not to take care of oneself when someone is willing and able to do it for you. Why would a child learn to tie his shoe if mom and dad never stop doing it for him? Why would a child learn to feed herself, if mom never expects them to do it and does it for her? Why would someone who knows how to fish, choose to fish when fish are abundantly handed to him?

I once had a professor who said, if he had enough money in his estate to enable his children to never have to work again, he would bequeath it all to charity rather than to his children. He said he did not want to create lazy children by giving them what it ought to take hard work to acquire.

I used to struggle to understand why the Bible says that if someone in a community is not working they ought not to be able to eat the food. The same Bible says to give to the poor. Then I realized that the “poor” being spoken of are not those who choose not to work or who squander their earnings, but those who are physically incapable of providing for themselves. The “poor” were not those who didn't have money because they were not working, but those who couldn't work and thus justly needed provision. Still this was a voluntary giving out of love and compassion and not a giving out of compulsion of a national law. One is giving, the other is legalized stealing.

While it is good to be a cheerful giver, it is not good to produce ravenous takers. Giving when there is genuine need will produce the fruit of a grateful receiver. Becoming a provider of a person who is able to provide for themselves creates an unhealthy dependency the sucks the life out of the relationship making one the master and the other the slave regardless of the best of intentions. This steals the integrity of the person receiving such aid and makes them feel lousy and unable to be productive keeping them in bondage. The way of freedom is the way of responsibility and the way of irresponsible people experiencing their consequences. This way the consequences act as a motivator to correct ones course.

If we are to live according to justice and mercy there must be a justice and mercy by which we conform. If there is no supreme Justice then there is no injustice. In closing, consider the following popular quote by C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless -I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.

A.W. Tozer on the Justness and Goodness of God

“Knowledge of the Holy” By A.W. Tozer (excerpt page 61).

It is sometimes said, “Justice requires God to do this,” referring to some act we know He will perform. This is an error of thinking as well as of speaking, for it postulates a principle of justice outside of God which compels Him to act in a certain way. Of course there is no such principle. If there were it would be superior to God, for only a superior power can compel obedience.

The truth is that there is not and can never be anything outside of f the nature of God which can move Him in the least degree. All God’s reasons come from within His uncreated being. Nothing has entered the being of God from eternity, nothing has been removed, and nothing has been changed.

Justice, when used of God, is a name we give to the way God is, nothing more; and when God acts justly He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation. As gold is an element in itself and can never change nor compromise but is gold wherever it is found, so God is God, always, only, fully God, and can never be other than He is. Everything in the universe is good to the degree it conforms to the nature of God and evil as it fails to do so. God is His own self-existent principle of moral equity, and when He sentences evil men or rewards the righteous, He simply acts like Himself from within, uninfluenced by anything that is not Himself.

All this seems, but only seems, to destroy the hope of justification for the returning sinner. The Christian philosopher and saint, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, sought a solution to the apparent contradiction between the justice and the mercy of God. “How dost Thou spare the wicked,” he inquired of God, “if Thou art all just and supremely just?” Then he looked straight at God for the answer, for he knew that it lies in what God is.

Anselm’s findings may be paraphrased this way: God’s being is unitary; it is not composed of a number of parts working harmoniously, but simply one. There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of His mercy. To think of God as we sometimes think of a court where a kindly judge, compelled by law sentences a man to death with tears and apologies, is to think in a manner wholly unworthy of the true God.

God is never at cross-purposes with Himself. No attribute of God is in conflict with another. God’s compassion flows out of His goodness, and goodness without justice is not goodness. God spares us because He is good, but He could not be good if He were not just. When God punishes the wicked, Anselm concludes, it is just because it is consistent with their deserts; and when He spares the wicked it is just because it is compatible with His goodness; so God does what becomes Him as the supremely good God. This is reason seeking to understand, not that it may believe but because it already believes.

A simpler and more familiar solution for the problem of how God can be just and still justify the unjust is found in the Christian doctrine of redemption. It is that, through the work of Christ in atonement, justice is not violated but satisfied when God spares a sinner. Redemptive theology teaches that mercy does not become effective toward a man until justice has done its work. The just penalty for sin was exacted when Christ our Substitute died for us on the cross. However unpleasant this may sound to the ear of the natural man, it has ever been sweet to the ear of faith. Millions have been morally and spiritually transformed by this message, have lived lives of great moral power, and died at last peacefully trusting in it.

The Character of God

It seems that one of the prevailing arguments against the goodness of the God of the Bible is the actions of God cited in that very book. To use these actions as evidence against God's nature, one is accepting the testimony of Scripture as a valid source in supporting this argument. Presumably if the Christian God exists then the Bible tells about whom this God is, and as such the testimony of this book is used to invalidate the claim of God's goodness.

In all fairness, one should look at the whole testimony concerning the nature of this God and consider the following.

King David, after sinning against God, was faced with the choice of being punished by the hands of his enemies or by God himself. To which David responded, "let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men" (2 Samuel 24:14). David, a contemporary of the Old Testament, fully knowledgeable about the events of his day and the actions of God said wholeheartedly that he would rather face God's judgment than man's. He believed God to be more merciful than man.


Moses who saw God's actions time and again cried out to God, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" (Exodus 33:15). He did not want to lead the people anywhere without the Presence of God going with them.


Both David and Moses are contemporaries of the days when God unleashed judgment in the earth by way of calamity or war, and yet both saw the Lord's mercy is great and that His Presence is greatly desirable.


These are only two of the many examples of the men and women who trusted in the Lord and spoke of His goodness and mercy. While Christians often do an injustice by depicting God as a Being who is tolerant of sin and who would never exact judgment upon people due to their sin, it is just as inaccurate for atheists to champion God as a vindictive genocidal maniac. If we are looking at the same Bible we ought to be able to see a God who is holy, good, and just.


C.S. Lewis gives the imagery in The Chronicles of Narnia of a good, but not a tame Lion. God is good and merciful while at the same good and just. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. It also says that Jesus came to give life to those trapped in this sin; to provide mercy and righteousness to the sinner by offering to become united with us thereby making us clean as He is clean. Jesus took on the wages of sin for us. What greater mercy and love can there be?

Point of Reference for Value

What is real value? Can value be real if it can be given and taken away at will by humanity? History shows a world full of people who think their race is better than another’s. Prejudice, racism, and slavery still abound in the world and yet we all have this idea that this is wrong. How is that? Are we just evolved from the animals and we have our own form of the survival of the fittest? What keeps that mentality from prevailing over the value of every man, woman, and child?

In the popular film I Robot, Will Smith’s character wrestles with the knowledge that a robot calculated the odds of his own survival over that of a small child and pulled him to safety instead of the child. Smith wanted the child, whom he had never met, saved before his own life. He was willing to chance both of their deaths to save the weaker one first.

In an airplane if there becomes a need to put on the oxygen masks the stewards tell the passengers to put it on themselves before putting it on the children and others who need help. This is because it is our natural inclination to protect the weaker not the stronger. The stewards know that if you don’t put the oxygen on yourself first you may not have time to help the weaker ones and they won’t be able to help you. The point though is that we will risk ourselves to help those with less chance of survival. This is not in line with the Darwinian evolutionary progress.

Regardless we hold to the value of life. If life has value regardless of who believes it does, then someone else external to us is giving life value. Time plus matter plus chance is not producing value. If all there is the natural universe which exists as a result of random chance then there is no value to our lives other than what we choose to give it. If we have the power to choose to give life value, we have the same power to take it away for we are not perfectly good people and we will use people for our own needs and thereby rob their value at the will of the stronger.

However, if we have been lovingly fashioned and created by a good God who makes good things then we have inestimable intrinsic value. Each and every human no matter how small or weak or handicapped has priceless value. This is why abuse, murder, discrimination, racism, hatred, unkindness, etc is wrong.

I’m certain some of you are ready to argue that since I said above that humans who give value can just as easily take it away that God could do likewise. In fact, you will further claim that he has reduced the value of life by taking it Himself. So how in the world do I have any grounds to claim God gives us value?

I don’t think anyone can argue though that humans have a birds eye view on life nor are we perfectly good in our thinking and actions. We could and have convicted innocent men. We are not perfectly just in what we do.

However, a perfectly good and holy God would be perfectly just and perfectly good in all of His words and actions. A perfect God would not need to change to be something other than what He has always been for if He is perfect then there isn’t something else better to be and perfection isn’t ever being less than that. So if God created us with value then we really have it and that doesn’t ever change. But God also is just because He is good and perfect and He can perfectly exact justice and when He does so our tainted fallen minds may see it has unjust and we may try and claim He is doing something wrong. But if goodness is that which lines up with Him, we have no grounds in our created selves to declare the only source of real goodness as doing something not good. For we have no other point of reference for the good. He created all, He is the only uncreated Being; thus His goodness is uncreated.

All other references to good only gain meaning in light of His goodness. He has to give it to us from His own goodness in order for it to be so. That is why that which is evil is that which is contrary to Him, for what is in accordance with Him is good. When we alter the point of reference of good to something that is not perfect we create an ambiguous ever changing point of reference which is no real point at all.

Our understanding of what is good will be limited and tainted by our current state of imperfection, but when we join in God’s life by His invitation which He has extended freely He works in us to bring a full restoration of who we were really designed to be. And while He instantly makes us righteous when we accept His invitation, the transformation of the inner reality is a process walked out in time that culminates in a future day where we will fully be restored.

The World: Reconcilling What Is And What Ought To Be

I think it is safe to say that just about anyone can look at the world and know it ought to be different. It ought to be in harmony. It ought not to have suffering. We look at the impoverished and say this shouldn’t be this way. We look at a starving child with flies buzzing around him and our hearts cry for justice. We look at an abused animal and we have disgust against the one responsible. Our minds cannot even comprehend the massive numbers of casualties of war over the centuries.

Recently China published the overwhelming numbers of deaths incurred by earthquake last year. We all remember the massive devastation and loss of life of the tsunami. The world over mourned the loss of life that occurred on September 11th.

We see an unjust world and yet even though we are in this world we seem to know there is a justice from which it falls short. We struggle between what we experience and what we can imagine. Why can we imagine a world with no crime, war, famine, pestilence, hate, discrimination, and poverty? Why can we imagine a utopia when we obviously don’t have one?

Whether it be expeditions for a fountain of youth, or political revolution to create a classless society, or attempts to purge evil and embrace good, or find harmony in the balance of the two, many have sought to find paradise. Many have sought the ideal life, but none have succeeded to create a utopian community.

It seems we can apprehend a reality we have not experienced that tells us that things ought to be good. That people ought to get along and love one another. That war ought not to be waged. That poverty, hunger, and thirst, ought not to exist. That crime should not prevail in this world. I will be so bold as to say we know this as true while at the same time we are very much aware that we see a world that is not in align with our ideal.

Now I do have a reason to suggest of why we can imagine a better world and yet see historically that the world is full of pain, suffering, crime, war, and overall injustice. Of course, we also see a world that does have joy, peace, love, kindness, goodness. We see generosity, we see people who exhibit the good in many ways. We see great achievements. There is good in this world and we know that too.

Every great movie or novel pits good against evil depicting the very real battle between the two in a struggle for the good to win. Some stories bring about the triumph of good over evil whereas some leave off with the continual struggle between the two. Still others conclude with a sobering evil being played out without being averted. I recently watched such a film where the main character died in the end, an accidental victim of the concentration camps. I was dismayed for we do really think movies, as well as life should end well, but it doesn’t always. We live in the real world no matter how much we want it to be different.

Just the same, to get back to the reason for the cosmic tension between good and evil with the ideal of the perfect actualization of the good in the world harkens back to the Judeo-Christian story of creation. God created a good world that became corrupted by the experiential actualization of evil by man and is now topsy-turvy yet on a course to have paradise regained. This gives explanation for the good we idolize in the world with the corruption still mixed in while having the knowledge that it ought to be otherwise. We were created good for a good world and yet we live in a corrupted world with knowledge of the incorruptible.

Our knowledge even of what would be the best good is also corrupted, but we know enough to know it ought to be better. We may disagree on what that better is, but we all agree it ought to be better. That idea of there being a better gives credence to the proposition that there is an objective good by which to judge something as not measuring up or as accurately reflecting the good. Just because our mental apprehending of that objective good is often subjective does not mean that the objective isn’t there behind the veil and that we see glimpses of what could be made manifest in this world.

Personally, I think that the Christian worldview does a good job of explaining why there is a struggle between the evil we see and the good we know is possible. I know not everyone will agree with me and that’s okay. I’m just offering an explanation to consider, not an exhaustive one, but a partial one for we only know in part as we see those glimmers of truth and realize their reality. We are all learning how to take those glimmers and bring them into fruition in this world. I think the more we work together, knowing that no one sees fully, but that we all see in part and together can see in a greater part we can make manifest that which we behold.

The Christian explanation also provides the substance of hope that all of creation will enter into paradise regained. We are not doomed to always struggle with the existence of evil for it will one day be purged and that which walks in the good which is God, Himself will remain and be reborn incorruptible.

The Power of Reconcilliation

This past week I observed a poignant reconciliation between a Native American Chief and a leader of an international ministry representing the Church. The minister invited the Chief to come and receive a much deserved apology from the Church for the injustices incurred against his people in the past. The Chief was honored with gifts and blessings for his people. An offering was taken up and given to him in full for the needs of his people. I saw the Chief wiping tears from his eyes as the two leaders embraced. The Chief said he held no bitterness towards anyone for the crimes committed, but he accepted this apology on behalf of his tribe. Another Native American Chief by the name of Bigpond was there and he spoke about his efforts to bring reconciliation, forgiveness, and restoration to his people. Senator Brownback is working tirelessly to put through legislation which will have the government officially issue and apology to the Native American people for the injustice done to them. Such a mending of relations with the Native Americans will be good for our nation and will help the native people immensely.

I have been to several other reconciliatory exchanges; one in my city and one in Nashville. All have been deeply poignant and meaningful. The Lord says that if my people humble themselves and repent I will hear them and heal their land. Our land is in the middle of a huge economic crisis among other problems. We most certainly need the Lord’s healing of our nation. Notwithstanding, reconciliation is the right thing to do even if it was our ancestors that brought about the injustice.

One of the things discussed at the conference I attended was about how awesome it was that our nation would go from a place of degrading slavery to a place of electing a President from the same race that was once treated thus. This shows a new day has dawned for Americans. Many of us, myself included, may not support the policies of the President elect, but we must treat him with utmost respect in all we say. We must learn how to respect people with great kindness even when we hold political or religious differences.

I also just finished reading an historical fiction book written by Robert Cornuke. It brought to the forefront the mistreatment of the Chinese people in our land that continued well after the Civil War. They were still treated like slaves after slavery was outlawed. They came over in search of good honorable work to send money home to their starving families only to be abused and treated like scum to build our railroad.

I recall the story of the missionary who went to share the gospel with a violent tribe and through a misunderstanding was murdered along with his team by the tribe. The story is recounted in the film The End of the Spear. Years later the wives of the murdered missionaries went back to the tribe to communicate their forgiveness and they were received and the whole tribe became believers of Jesus. The children of the missionaries and the children of the tribe are now good friends.

As Christians we need to be the first to stand for justice and be the first to repent for the sins of our fathers. It doesn’t matter if it was our fault, it was injustice done in our land. The only way for healing is through continual forgiveness and reconciliation. We, as believers, should always have an attitude of reconciliation, restoration, and forgiveness no matter if we were personally responsible or not. I Corinthians 13 tells us that love keeps no records of wrongs. It always trusts, always perseveres, always hopes and never fails.

Justice & Love of God

“God’s justice demands that sin be punished, but his love compels him to save sinners. So by Christ’s death for us his justice is satisfied and his love released. Thus, there is no contradiction between absolute justice and unconditional love. To illustrate, God is like the judge who after passing out the punishment to the guilty defendant, laid aside his robe, stood alongside the convicted, and paid the fine for him. Jesus did the same for us on Calvary. Surely justice and mercy kissed at the cross.”

"Love cannot work coercively but only persuasively. Forced love is a contradiction in terms."

-- Norman Geisler Quotation from “Who Made God?”

A.W. Tozer Quotes: God's Justice & Holiness

Justice of God

“Justice, when used of God, is a name we give to the way God is, nothing more; and when God acts justly He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation. As gold is an element in itself and can never change nor compromise but is gold wherever it is found, so God is God, always, only, fully God, and can never be other than He is. Everything in the universe is good to the degree it conforms to the nature of God and evil as it fails to do so. God is His own self-existent principle of moral equity, and when He sentences evil men or rewards the righteous, He simply acts like Himself from within, uninfluenced by anything that is not Himself.”

Holiness of God

“Since God’s first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure. To preserve His creation God must destroy whatever would destroy it. When He arises to put down iniquity and save the world from irreparable moral collapse, He is said to be angry. Every wrathful judgment in the history of the world has been a holy act of preservation. The holiness of God, the wrath of God, and the health of the creation are inseparably united. God’s wrath is His utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys. He hates iniquity as a mother hates the polio that take the life of her child.”

Quoted from Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer

Justice of God

I have posited that there can be no justice without the existence of a Just God. To provide argument to support this claim let us look at what “justice” means. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Justice (n.)

1. The quality of being just; fairness
1. The principle of moral rightness; equity.
2. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
3. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
4. Law The administration and procedure of law.
5. A judge.
6. A justice of the peace.
1. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
2. Law The administration and procedure of law.
3. A judge.
4. A justice of the peace.
3. Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.
4. Abbr. J. Law
1. A judge. A justice of the peace.

The very employment of justice presumes a standard of rightness to which governs the actions of humanity. If justice is a “conformity to moral rightness” or “righteousness” there must be a standard by which conformity is judged.

If there is no objective righteousness there is no justice. There is no judgment of actions to a standard of righteousness. There is no upholding of a law any higher than man’s subjective laws of society. There is nothing concrete to justice. A victim is no longer a victim because there is no standard to determine violation of personal value or rights. The victimizer is off the hook for there is no standard. The only way that both the victim and the victimizer are brought justice is for there to be an objective moral standard.

The only way there can be an objective moral standard, is if there is an objective moral law giver who is in His character by His nature the self-existing standard of righteousness. Righteousness equates to goodness. If this righteous good God meets out justice according to the holy righteous standard of His character which results in punishment for some and mercy for others. God has decreed that He provided the sacrifice to enable Justice to justify us in Christ. If we are not under the grace of the gift of Christ blood, we are under Justice with no grace. This does not make God less good. We only find goodness in Him; apart from Him we are not good. His character is the standard of goodness and no one gains righteousness apart from His deeming us righteous through Christ.

We cannot judge Him as not good for we have no standard of goodness outside of Him by which to cast judgment upon Him. He gives meaning to the victim that would be lost without Him. He became a victim for us, experiencing our life on earth, experiencing human suffering first hand, and giving His own blood for our sins. What greater goodness could there be than Jesus sacrificing Himself for finite immoral man who rejected Him and rejects Him still? Christ didn’t die for good people; He died for unworthy sinners to make us worthy. He doesn’t ask for us to be good to earn salvation. He asks us to receive salvation from the only one who can give us eternal life.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Existence of Evil

If God did not create then there would be no evil. But He is a Creator by nature and His plan for all creation is greater than the existence of evil that comes from His creation rejecting Him and being separated from Him. He did not create evil. He said all He created was good. Sin entered into all creation by Adam’s sin. But even before that happened in our time, God had already purposed Jesus’ redemption in time for all mankind. He already saw the beginning from the end. It wasn’t a huge “oh, no, what have I done.” He knew all that would happen before He spoke a single thing into existence. And He sees the glory of all creation that comes through Christ and is being revealed in time. The glory of creation and of the Church being made ready as heir with Christ for all eternity far exceeds anything evil that can be brought about in this earth before evil is banished from creation.

Now is it evil for God who created a life to take a life? Life belongs to Him. He’s the author and giver of life. Life does not belong to us. It is wrong for us to take a life. It is not the same thing for God to do it. God sees the beginning from the end. He is God. Do we have cause to judge God as doing something wrong in bringing the Flood to wipe out a perverse generation and saving Noah and His family who serve Him? God’s justice was brought forth with the Flood. God’s justice was also brought forth by saving Noah.

If God does not exist, the whole discussion about good and evil and if God is good is a moot point. But if He does then the only way we know what good and evil are is because He revealed that knowledge to us and the self-sustaining self-evident God is the only standard of all holiness and righteousness.

Good and evil exist and we know the difference between them because there exists a Good God.

Also regarding suffering: see Peter Kreeft's essay.

Who is God?

Who is God? How would you introduce Him to someone who has never met Him? You need to know. There are many who say they don’t believe in God or in the Christian God, but the God they don’t believe in isn’t God at all. It’s this idea of God they think Christians believe in that they are wholeheartedly against, and for good reason. Some Christians even have an idea of God that is less than God. First of all our very lives should be a living testimony of who God is. We should be expressing the heart of the Father to our fellow Christians and to unbelievers with how we live our lives and how we love people.

However, we must also be prepared to tell people who God really is for we claim to know Him, thus making it our responsibility to illustrate Him to the world as best as our finiteness can permit. Alister McGrath a renowned Oxford theologian was once an atheist. He says that in his atheism he was against this idea of God that wasn’t truly God at all. It wasn’t until he met some real Christians and he listened to their caricature of the living God that he saw that his worldview didn’t work like he thought it did. He saw that the Christian worldview had merit and through that understanding his heart was opened to accept Christ as his Savior.

Jesus asked his disciples who do you say that I am? His disciples said some say you are a prophet and some say . . . Jesus inquired further, “but who do YOU say I am?” What a loaded question using the words “I am.” When Moses was sent forth to Pharaoh, God told him to say he was being sent by “I AM”. Jesus wanted to know that they knew in their heart who He was for it is out of that knowing that they can share the truth of the kingdom of God.

God is. He is infinite, boundless, and limitless. He is immeasurable. All things are in Him. There is no reality outside of Him. That is why a skeptic or an atheist has to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to substantiate their questions for there is no other reality.

God never changes. A.W. Tozer writes, “What God was, God is. What God is and was, God will be. There will never be any change in God.” Moreover, “what God is, He is perfectly.” He can never be any less than what He is. Nor can He be any more than what He is because He is immeasurable. I love it when Tozer writes, “God acts justly from within, not in obedience to some imaginary law; He is the Author of all laws, and acts like Himself all of the time.”

God is Just and He is Merciful. His Mercy does not battle His Justice.

To quote Tozer again because he says it so beautifully, “When God looks at a sinner who still loves his sin and rejects the mystery of the atonement, justice condemns him to die. When God looks at a sinner who has accepted the blood of the everlasting covenant, justice sentences him to live. And God is just in doing both things.”

He goes on to say, “It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary that gave us mercy.”

God is so amazing. When you think on the awesomeness of God we have no other option but to rejoice. It just wells up within us to know God is awesome. God is good. God is love. He is merciful. He is just. He is Holy. And He is infinitely, equally, and perfectly all of these attributes.

We must not only think on these things, but we must discover them in our relationship with Him. We must know them in our hearts to be so because we know God. It’s like you can see all the actions of your spouse’s love, but there is more than knowing those actions equate to love. You know your spouse’s love because you know it within your heart and it is sure, steadfast and known despite any actions or lack of action. We need to know God’s love in such a way as this and from that knowing we must share it to the watching world.

God's Justice & Love

God’s justice does not conflict with his love or his goodness. He does not love less because He is just. He is perfectly just and loving at the same time. It is the human view of love that is distorted. We think of acts of love as always being blissful when in reality the same love employed by a parent that bestows a child with good gifts is also employed when spanking the child when he misbehaves. The parents love is not diminished by spanking the child, but affirmed by the discipline. The Bible says that if you spare a child from a spanking you do not love the child. So if God put forth this standard for parents and if He is the ultimate Father, why then do we judge God as being unloving when His justice brings about unpleasant consequences?

From the time of Adam our very nature has been fallen and separated from God because of our unrighteousness. A chasm of division separates man from God. Yet God sent His own begotten son to live as one of us surrendering his divine rights to even die a tortuous death on a cross for the payment of the sins of all mankind. Christ who never sinned substituted himself to pay our price for reconciliation back to God. He sits with God, one with God, being God himself, as our mediator. Due to His redemptive sacrifice, man kind can be restored to relationship with God. Now if man refuses this restoration which only comes by the finished work of the cross, he remains separated from God and life on earth and after is completely severed from relationship with God. Not because God cast him out, but because man refused life with God. So why now does modern man sit in the judgment seat and judge God for being unloving because of the existence of eternal separation from God which is a very real place called hell? Man would judge God all the more if God forced himself upon man and effectuated a relationship that man did not want or if man had no choice in the matter.

Could it be that man has misplaced his blame and only shakes a finger at God to avoid facing his own need for God?

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge; and God is in the dock.” C.S. Lewis – God in the Dock

“. . . as the real meaning of the Christian claim becomes apparent, its demand for total surrender, the sheer chasm between Nature and Supernature, men are increasingly ‘offended.’ Dislike, terror, and finally hatred succeed: none who will not give it what it asks (and it asks all) can endure it: all who are not with it are against it.” C. S. Lewis – God in the Dock

Foundation for Justice

James Sire writes in Naming the Elephant, that “ the close connection between ontology [being] and epistemology [knowing] is easy to see: one can know only what is. But there is an equally close connection between ontology and ethics. Ethics deals with the good. But the good must exist in order to be dealt with.” He goes on to explain that one cannot come to a moral ought from a natural is. Therefore to say that something is good or that it is evil presupposes the existence of good and evil. We have to assume their existence. If they exist and are distinguishable then something beyond nature exist by which they are measured.


Atheists Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris often postulate that religion is the cause of the evil in the world, yet they have no standard by which to judge anything as evil for their world consist of pure naturalism as derived through the sciences. However, naturalism is a poor foundation for ethics and morality. How can science tell us what is good? It can tell us the molecular composition of water, but it cannot tell us if someone drowning in that water is good or bad. Science cannot give value to life. Social Darwinianism would presuppose an innate desire for self-preservation, but that also does not lead one to value another’s life.


Still no one doubts that there is injustice in this world. Why? C.S. Lewis argued rightly that for us to be aware of an injustice presupposes that the world ought to be different than it is. So if all there is before us is as it appears and there is nothing that cannot be known scientifically then we would have no awareness of a problem. Conversely, this awareness persists and even the atheists are demanding justice. The only sure foundation for their cry for justice comes from the God they deny.


C.S. Lewis wrote, “The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock.”

World of Truth

Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is even important to learn? Why do we spend twenty plus years in school learning? Why do we spend thousands of dollars on a college education? Is it all just to land the best job? Or could it be to better our understanding of the world around us and how best to take our place in that world? Yet for many it is both and for some it may be neither. I would wager that most believe that what they are learning is true and factual and deserving of their time and money in acquiring an education. That would be a fair assumption if learning is truly valued by students. Here is where the difficulty comes. Many professors advocate that Truth and Facts do not exist. That it is impossible for something to be absolutely true. Never mind that the statement is then itself false, we are still asked to accept this philosophy. However the statement begs the question of why value education at all if we really cannot discover facts and truths? Why become a professor and teach when you have no truth to share? The word professor comes from the Latin word meaning “one who professes truth.” How then can a professor with such a belief system actually live up the meaning of the title he or she carries?


Stop and think for a minute of a world where no one believes in a standard of truth and where no facts can be purported. This world would have to be absent of a system of justice, of laws, of courts, of law enforcement for there would be no law to enforce if nothing is true and no evidence to convict if no facts exist. The passions of mankind would be free from any bonds of truth standards and all behaviors would be equally acceptable. The horrors of such a society would be unimaginable to us who take the existence of truth for granted. The person who advocates such a belief would not be able to live in the world that belief would create if carried out to its end.


So I ask, are we truly prepared to accept a philosophy of no truth? Have we really counted the cost? If you value education it follows to value truth and facts or else you are wasting your time.