Three Views on Evil

Most people in our culture aren’t concerned with the reality of sin in our world. It is denied, downplayed, or only recognized in the lives of a handful of others. I hope and pray the evil, cowardly, sinful bombings in Boston will cause people to reevaluate their worldview.

How does one’s assumptions about good and evil, God or no God, sin or no sin, help them explain what happened in Boston? Below are three such explanations or worldviews. Two of them are warped, wicked, wrong. One of them is truthful.

1. The Evolutionary Worldview

The evolutionary worldview is built not only on the hypothesis that everything evolved from some lesser form, all the way back to some “big bang” where it all started, but also on what Charles Darwin called “natural selection,” what Herbert Spencer called “survival of the fittest,” and countless other theories, ideas, and guesses throughout the ensuing decades.

This worldview has no place for sin, evil, wickedness. It doesn’t even have a basis for establishing such a definition. In a worldview where everything happens by chance, there can be no objective standard for right and wrong.

Thus, the best honest explanation this worldview can come up for the bombings in Boston is that it happened by chance. It was a random act of a random creature. It was the strong preying on the weak.

2. The Secular Humanist Worldview

The secular humanist worldview is built on the “creed” that there is no god, that no individual or group can impose its beliefs on another, that each individual establishes his own standard of right and wrong. In this worldview, each individual is at the center of his own little world and no outside standard can be imposed on him by another.

Contrary to its own creed, this worldview does have a place for sin, evil, wickedness. While there is no objective truth, there is a collective truth imposed by proponents of this worldview onto everyone else. Evil is what the secular humanist wants it to be.

Thus, the best honest explanation this worldview can come up for the bombings in Boston is that it was wrong simply because we collectively think it is wrong (what ever happened to “who are you to impose your beliefs on anyone else”?).

3. The Christian Worldview

In opposition to both of the preceding worldviews, Christianity has the truth, believes the truth, and confesses the truth. It calls things what they really are. God is holy. God is just. God is merciful. His Word is truth. His Word is revealed. His Word delivers Christ. Sin is sin. Sin warrants hell. Sin’s wages have been paid in full by Jesus Christ on the cross.

The Christian does not deny, downplay, or explain away sin. He confesses it. He sees it in the world around him. He sees it in the bombings at the Boston marathon. But most importantly, he sees it at work in himself—in his very nature, as well as in his own thoughts, words, and deeds. So he confesses it. He looks to Jesus Christ, who paid sin’s penalty and redeemed the entire world by His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. And he believes Christ’s word of absolution.

For the Christian, the bombings in Boston were not only horrific, evil, deadly. They were also sinful. Regardless of the motivation, this was a sinful act carried out by sinners in a sinful world. And sinners always stand in need of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Downplaying or denying God, just like downplaying or denying sin, is never the answer. It satisfies no one. It leaves us with nothing more than a random act of a random creature (chance at work) or an act that we can only collectively label as wrong (a subjective definition that can change at any moment).

Christianity not only addresses the real issue at hand (the problem of evil), it also offers the only solution. Evil is a result of sin, which originated in Adam’s disobedience in the garden. The solution is Jesus Christ. Every sinner needs repentance, forgiveness, Christ crucified for the sin of the world. And that is exactly what Christianity delivers. No excuses. No mere chance. No subjective definitions. Just objective truth. Sin and grace. Confession and absolution. Jesus Christ as Savior of sinners.

I pray the world around us will, by God’s grace, come to know and believe this. “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace,” says Jesus. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).