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VOLUME 22.4 I WWW.RZIM.ORG

JUSTTHINKINGTHE MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

The Lamb andthe Führer

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+CLAY VESSELSPAGE 14

IF GOD, WHYSUFFERING?PAGE 18

DEEP QUESTIONSPAGE 29

Just Thinking is a teaching

resource of Ravi Zacharias

International Ministries and

exists to engender thoughtful

engagement with apologetics,

Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRant

Editor

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

4725 Peachtree Corners Circle

Suite 250

Norcross, Georgia 30092

770.449.6766

WWW.RZIM.ORG

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TABLE of CONTENTSVOLUME 22.4

The Lamb and the Führer

Ravi Zacharias listens in on animaginative post-suicide conversa-tion as Adolf Hitler meets JesusChrist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer inthe afterlife. An excerpt from RaviZacharias’s new graphic novel.

Clay Vessels

Jill Carattini describes how what began as a church’s simple art workshop transformed not only its communion sets but thehearts and minds of their creatorsand recipients.

If God, Why Suffering?

Vince Vitale shares an article adaptedfrom the book he co-authored withRavi Zacharias, Why Suffering?:Finding Meaning and ComfortWhen Life Doesn’t Make Sense(FaithWords: October 2014).

Deep Questions

“We are living in an era when apologetics is indispensable,” writesRavi Zacharias, “but at the sametime, we need a Christian apologeticthat is not merely heard—it mustalso be seen.”

[2] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

The Lamb andthe FührerBy Ravi Zacharias

“I want to raise a generation of young people, imperious,relentless and cruel.” With thesewords, Adolf Hitler spilled theblood of millions of people, hisown as well as others, when heset himself as a god in the mindsof his people. But nearly twothousand years before him,another walked this earth whosename is symbolic of love, peace,and life.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 22.4 [3]

[ A l i f e a n d d e a t h c o n v e r s a t i o n ]


The following is an excerpt from the graphic novel of The Lamb and the Führer by RaviZacharias (Kingstone Media: June 2014). Artwork by Jeff Slemons. Used by permission.

individual worth, supreme goodness,power, truth, peace, and life in JesusChrist. In the face of Bonhoeffer we see anguish, helplessness, and a will tochange evil for good.

It was not difficult to find Hitler’sown words of self-justification for hisactions. It was not that difficult either tofind Bonhoeffer’s words that describedthe soul struggle he faced. But whatwould Jesus have said when ethics comesinto conflict with an ethic that chose tokill to stop the killing? That part washarder, and it is in those words alonethat the huge reality of those issues canbe grasped.

So enter with me into Hitler’s bunkerand listen in as the Führer, gun in hand, isabout to end his life (synonymous in hismind with Germany itself), knowing thathis Third Reich did not last a thousandyears or bring a Final Solution, but in factresulted in the destruction of his owncountry and much of Europe. How couldgood people have followed such an evilman? What is the origin of such violence?How does blood recompense for blood?Listen as Jesus, Hitler, and Bonhoefferengage in a life-and-death discussion.

It is my earnest hope that, in aworld now full of violence, the voice ofJesus will be heard again calling men andwomen to submit to His sacrifice so thatwe will not continue to sacrifice our ownsons and daughters on the battlefields ofhuman ego and ideological conflict.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and presidentof Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries in Atlanta, GA.

s I traveled through the sites of the carnage of the Second World War, I was reminded afresh of the horror and the extent of human pain and

suffering inflicted on so many byone man and those willing to follow him.The concentration camps, the Gestapooffices, and the gas ovens still speaktoday of the incalculable price that was paid. Any words that try to describeit become dwarfed because the story is so monstrous.

There is no name today more synonymous with power, wickedness, and unprecedented violence than his. But nearly two thousand years beforehim, another walked this earth whosename is symbolic of love, peace, and life.His was a name also associated with thespilling of blood—His own, shed for thesake of the world. He endured hell toopen the way to heaven. What would aconversation between these two be like?There were voices in Hitler’s day thattried to stop him. One was DietrichBonhoeffer, a German pastor, who wentso far as to be part of a plot to assassinateHitler. Bonhoeffer believed that for thesake of the world, Hitler had to beremoved, and he paid for that convictionwith his life.

In this conversation that we imag-ine between Jesus and Hitler, Bonhoefferjoins in because he brings into focus thereality of the struggle that good men andwomen faced under national socialism.Violence, racism, power, lies, death, philosophy, evil are all given a face here. But then there is the face of love,

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 22.4 [13]The Lamb and the FührerJesus Talks with Hitler

Available at www.rzim.org

Clay VesselsBy Jill Carattini

There are some churches thathave a way of getting under yourskin. For me, it also happened tobe a church that got clay undermy fingernails.


[ T h e G i f t o f t h e A r t s ]


to life at the communion table. The eld-ers held the lopsided plates and leakingcups, inviting the church community tocome to the table of one who also fash-ioned clay and dirtied his hands with amaterial world, one by whose love wecontinue to be shaped. The children hada physical reminder of their place in thechurch and in the vast fellowship ofFather, Son, and Holy Spirit. And all of uswere reminded that we are reconciledchildren the Father sees fit to feed, boldlyenabled by the Spirit to share in the consuming mystery of the incarnate lifeof the Son of God. Our bodies and ouraffections were tuned to Christ in theSupper in a way that my mind has neverquite been able to forget.

MEANING UNIMAGINEDFrequent social emphasis on “high” or“fine” art tends to make us see the arts as something put away or set apart, something extravagant or even wastefulin the ordinary world of untied shoelaces,racial tensions, and dying neighbors. We have learned to see a work of art assomething to contemplate in and of itself,something fashioned for its own sake orat the artist’s personal whim, somethingto admire and then to go home.

Classically trained pianist and pro-fessor of theology Jeremy Begbie pushesus to see something more, both for thesake of own our humanity and the goodof our theology: “Although ‘perceptualcontemplation’ is one of the uses towhich some art can legitimately be put,to insist on it as the sine qua non of art is unhelpfully restrictive. Art plays anenormous variety of roles in human life—evoking emotion, expressing grief, praising, celebrating, etc.” 2

The moments we seem most toknow this is true are often as “set apart”as the art in a museum, but in a very different, deeply experiential sense of thatphrase—as when the minor key of the

There are some churches that have away of getting under your skin. For

me, it also happened to be a church thatgot clay under my fingernails.

In the late 70s, a diminishing, elderlycongregation in Holland, Michigan, beganthe painful process of looking around thepews and admitting to themselves thatthey were a dying church within a neigh-borhood that had dramatically changedin the years since the church was estab-lished.1

Deciding that they wanted to dosomething about the intensifying dividebetween church and city, these men andwomen started a recreation ministry withthe hopes of meeting their neighbors,learning who they were, and invitingthem to a church that was ready to sacri-fice everything it knew to make room.

From week to week as the recre-ation lot grew with kids and activities, weinvited local artists and amateur hobbyiststo come and teach something of theircraft to whoever was interested. One ofthese artists was a potter who broughtclay and glazes, so someone had the mindto commission the kids to create somenew communion plates and chalices forthe church to celebrate the Lord’sSupper. Having had their communion setvandalized in a series of burglaries inyears prior, the act was as much Christ’sgift of reconciliation as the meal thatwould be served in it for years following.

Many of these kids had never takencommunion before; many had neverheard of the Lord’s Supper or been toldthe story of Jesus and his disciples in theupper room before he was crucified. Sowith muddied hands we told the story,and together that summer several sets ofcommunion plates and cups were fash-ioned by kids eager to see them in use.

I have never seen more colorful,misshapen objects grace the altar of achurch. Nor have I ever seen so manywide-eyed children—and adults—come


piano is able to say something at a child’sfuneral that words have just not been ableto articulate, or in the wrenching juxtapo-sition of words in a George Herbertpoem long held in memory: Love is thatliquor sweet and most divine, Which my Godfeels as blood; but I, as wine.Art, in thisdeeper, un-abstracted sense, holds thecapacity to open up and encounter amaterial world; it invites reintegration ofaspects of our humanity often severed andhints at meaning we had not imagined.

It is this sense of the arts that makesit invaluable for evangelism, for it takesseriously a God who chose not merely tocreate but to interact with that creation,to engage with humanity in nothing lessthan the beauty and mess of human-formhimself. While art and theology haveoften held a tenuous relationship (andthere is much that can be said about itshistory)3, many churches and ministriesare now recognizing that our neglect ofthe arts has been to our own detriment.For those with artistic sympathies or asense of theological protectiveness, thisnew interest in communication can feelmuch like playing host at a party wherecertain guests are best kept from min-gling too much—a no-nonsense mother-in-law, for instance, and one’s eccentricaunt. Too much interaction seems onlyto spoil both parties. Far rarer are conversations that are at once both

theologically sound and respectfully intune with the integrity of the arts.

As with a God who chose thelabored hope of human birth and theexcruciation of a cross, the ministry ofreconciliation is both beautiful andmessy, mentally and physically demand-ing. Inviting artists back into a churchthat has kept them at bay, we mightexpect no less. But our theology will bethe better for it. “[T]heology,” writesBegbie, “is the disciplined thinking andre-thinking of that good news or gospelfrom which Christian faith arises: thereconciling self-communication of thetriune God, climaxing in Jesus Christ,crucified and risen. The phrase ‘thinkingand re-thinking’ here could easily be mis-understood as narrowly intellectualist—as if theology were ideally performed bypure minds, disembodied and detachedfrom all practical interests, passions andcommitments…. [But] theology as thepursuit of this wisdom, though undoubt-edly intellectual, is integrally related toaction, and indeed to every aspect of ourhumanity.”4This means that the best the-ology is no more abstract than the crossitself; it is about getting one’s hands dirtyand becoming truly human in Christ,stained by the blood of the one we followwith heart, mind, soul, and body.

This also means that art, in such aventure, is not simply a means of putting

I have never seen more colorful, misshapen objects grace the altarof a church. Nor have I ever seen so many wide-eyed children—and adults—come to life at the communion table. The elders heldthe lopsided plates and leaking cups, inviting the church communityto come to the table of one who also fashioned clay and dirtied his hands with a material world, one by whose love we continueto be shaped.


a beautiful gloss on our already-settledtheology. The image of the lopsided, artful chalices was no mere analgesic propfor a theological lesson more purely artic-ulated elsewhere. The entire experienceof molding, painting, communing, andpartaking of the sacred meal within acommunity that desperately needed thereconciling gift of the human and risenChrist was itself theology. All of it was theground and grammar of Christ’s nourishingpresence in the Lord’s Supper; all of itwas the Spirit’s transforming movementof neighbors into reconciliation. Everyhand-dirtying part of it was the goodnews of a triune God in clay and paint,bread and wine, spirit and truth.

For me, the sacramental mealstaken and tasted from those childlikecommunion sets—including communionserved from the borrowed chalices at myown wedding—continue to offer promisesof Christ I had not suspected, long afterthe juice has left my tongue. Severalchurches later, in fact, the palpable gift of Christ within these misshapen, vulnerable clay vessels became all themore compelling as we approached thealtar of a congregation that chose toswitch to white grape juice, having tiredof red stains on their carpets. Artists—indeed, like children and unpredictableneighbors —will add a messy, earth-bound dimension to a congregation. But I believe, as my former church discovered of all of the red stains ofChrist’s blood spilled over the carpetsthat year, we will be thankful for it.

A POWERFUL APOLOGETICAlong with the university and the marketplace, the arts have been named as one of RZIM’s areas of focus since thebeginning. For those of us writing, speak-ing, or standing alongside the churchworldwide, we are grateful for this fore-sight on the part of Ravi Zacharias. Oneof the most frequent requests from the

scores of letters that come in each dayinvolves the arts in some form: artistswriting with stories of rejection or isola-tion, churches curious or fearful of art’srole, philosophical questions of beauty’spresence in a hostile world. The artsindeed offer a language in venues wheremore “traditional” theological languagehas been tuned out. Beauty is a powerfulapologetic. And, where but in the historyof Jesus Christ can we find beauty in brokenness, beauty in the transformationof the disorder of creation, in the handsof a God of self-giving love?

With a growing number ofChristians worldwide, RZIM is deeplyaware that the arts have a unique role inpresenting the promises of God to aworld in dire need of a promise thatmoves beyond abstraction. Thankfully,mercifully, the ways in which God’s self-giving love approach us—mind, soul,body, senses—are as multivalent as thegood news God has given us to profess.Theology through the arts has a remark-able ability to remind us that being human—which the Son took so very seriously he forever joined himself to us in flesh—is a sacred reality. We have the incrediblegift of a God who shows us preciselywhat that means in a beautiful, clay vessel broken and spilled for all.

Jill Carattini is Managing Editor of “A Slice of Infinity” at RZIM.

1The story of Maple Avenue Church has recentlybeen told by John D. Cox in The City in Its Heart:The First 100 Years of Maple Avenue Ministries(Holland, Michigan: Van Raalte, 2014).2 Jeremy Begbie, Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (London: T&T Clark, 1991), 207-208.3For a thorough overview of the arts and itsreception in church history as well as a helpfulway forward, see again Voicing Creation’s Praise. 4 Jeremy Begbie, Sounding the Depths: TheologyThrough the Arts (London: SCM Press, 2002), 2-3.


If God, Why Suffering?By Vince Vitale

According to Christianity, what God valuesabove all is relationship. But for relationshipto be meaningful, it must be freely chosen;for relationship to be freely chosen, theremust be the possibility of it being rejected;and wherever there is the possibility ofrejecting relationship, there is also the possibility of pain and suffering.


[ t h e r e a l i t yo f e v i l ]


In one of the first significant conver-sations I had on the topic of suffer-ing, my Aunt Regina expressed tome how difficult it was to see her

son Charles, my cousin, struggle with aserious mental illness. Being more con-cerned at the time with the question thanthe questioner, I started spouting someof my abstract, philosophical ideas aboutwhy God might allow suffering. But afterlistening very graciously, my aunt turnedto me and said, “But Vince, that doesn’tspeak to me as a mother.”

Suffering is very real and very per-sonal, and since that conversation withmy aunt I am always hesitant to address it briefly. In what follows, I will try toprovide some starting points for furtherthought and prayer, but please forgive meif anything I say comes across as if I amnot taking seriously any real-life sufferingyou may be experiencing. My hope is thatwill not be the case, and that amid thesuffering of this world each of us will findstrength, comfort, and meaning in thecommunity of those who have put theirtrust in Jesus Christ.

Let me begin to sketch sevenapproaches to thinking about the chal-lenge of suffering.

1. THE OBJECTIVE REALITY OF EVIL

The challenge is often framed in this way:if a loving and powerful God exists, Hewould not allow evil to exist. Evil doesexist; therefore, there must be no God.

For evil to pose this problem forbelief in God, evil itself must be real. Butthere is a serious question about whetheratheism can account for the objectivereality of the evil that motivates the

problem of evil in the first place. If youneed a good God to account for evil, thenyou can’t disprove that good God with evil.

I recently came across an interviewwith Richard Dawkins in which the inter-viewer was challenging him about theimplications of his naturalistic worldview.The interviewer said, “Ultimately, yourbelief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary asthe fact that we’ve evolved five fingersrather than six.” Dawkins responded,“You could say that, yeah.” 1

I guess you could. I certainly don’twant to, and I don’t think it’s rational to,and having an objective, unchanging standard for morality in the existence of a loving God can help explain why wedon’t need to reach Dawkins’s disturbing conclusion. If a good and loving Godexists, then there is something we canappeal to beyond shifting cultural trendsand arbitrary genetic programming as thebasis of morality—as the basis for sayingthat some things really are objectivelygood and right, and some things really are objectively evil and wrong.

Alternatively, if what we call morali-ty is just a byproduct of naturalistic evolution, then to say that something is moral or good is just to say that it isconducive for the survival of the humanspecies. But that is not the morality weactually believe in. People are not morallyvaluable only insofar as they can be put touse for the survival of the species. No.Each and every individual has an intrinsicand inalienable moral worth. And thisworth is no less when old age or disabilityor disease or any number of other thingsthreatens to make us less useful for theevolutionary goal of survival.

The following article is adapted from Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort WhenLife Doesn’t Make Sense by Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale (FaithWords: October 2014).


Naturalistic evolution cannot explainthe intrinsic dignity and worth of everysingle person. What can explain this isthat each person is created in the imageof a good God, and is fully known andunconditionally loved by Him.

2.THE LIMITS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

One of the assumptions smuggled intothe thought that suffering disproves theexistence of God is this:

If God has good reasons for allowingsuffering, we should know what thosereasons are.

But why think that? When parents decide to move their

family from one city to another, this cangenuinely be very difficult on a youngchild. It may be experienced by the childas the absolute worst suffering that couldever occur. In the moment, the childmight be certain that all happiness isbehind him, that his parents hate him,and that for all practical purposes his lifeis over.

And yet even such outrage on thepart of a child does not mean that thechild’s parents are wrong to make themove, and it does not mean that they don’tlove him. In fact, it’s very likely that it wasprecisely the good of their children thatweighed heavily in the parents’ decision.

You can see the analogy: if parents’reasons are sometimes beyond what achild can fully grasp, why then should webe surprised when some of God’s reasonsare beyond what we can fully grasp?

This general approach is referred to asSkeptical Theism in academic philosophy.But it’s not a new idea:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

(Isaiah 55:8-9)

If God is as great as Christians claimHe is, then sometimes not fully graspingthe fullness of his reasons is exactly whatwe should expect. And if it’s exactly whatwe should expect to find if God does exist,then our finding it can’t be strong evidencethat God does not exist.

3. A RESPONSE OF FREEDOM What kind of world God would havemade depends on what God values.According to Christianity, what God values above all is relationship. But forrelationship to be meaningful, it must befreely chosen; for relationship to be freelychosen, there must be the possibility of itbeing rejected; and wherever there is thepossibility of rejecting relationship, thereis also the possibility of pain and suffering.

The Bible affirms this truth fromits very first pages. We find a story ofpeople who are in intimate relationshipwith God, and who know what He hasasked of them. But then they hear thisvoice in their ears, “Did God really say,‘You must not eat from any tree in the

For evil to pose this problem for belief in God, evil itself must bereal. But there is a serious question about whether atheism canaccount for the objective reality of the evil that motivates theproblem of evil in the first place. If you need a good God toaccount for evil, then you can’t disprove that good God with evil.


garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). And they begin todoubt God. They begin to doubt that Heknows what’s best for them. They beginto doubt that He is for them. Ultimately,they begin to doubt what He has actuallysaid—his word.

And then they sin. They do what they know deep

down they should not do. Not a big sin,just eating a piece of fruit that they weretold not to eat. No big deal, right? But it starts them down a path. First we’retold that they felt shame. They were convinced that God wouldn’t wantanything to do with them any-more, and so they hid them-selves from God. Thenthey began accusing eachother. Adam pointed atEve and said, “She didit!” (in essence pointinghis finger at God aswell by referring to Eve as “the woman youput here with me”). Evepointed at the serpent andsaid, “He did it!”

From temptation to doubtto disobedience to shame to hiding tofinger-pointing to suffering—is therereally a question about whether this storyspeaks the truth about the human heart?When I read it, I have to admit that itresounds with the truth about me.

But here’s the most amazing part ofthe Fall story. The first persons haverejected God. They’ve decided they’drather be their own gods. And how doesGod respond? He goes looking for them.He pursues them; He calls out to them:“Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

Then, after their first interactionwith God after they had sinned, Adamnames his wife “Eve.” It’s a name ofgreat honor. It is often understood tomean “breath” or “life” and it is given toher “because she would become themother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20).

Symbolically, it connects her with God’sbreathing of life into Adam. And eventhe spellings of the names Eve andYahweh show similarities in the originalHebrew.2 They have the same ending. InEnglish, it would be something like adaughter Hanna having a mother namedJoanna.

This is probably not the name Eveexpected to be called after helping tocause the Fall of all humanity! But eventhen, in her moment of great sin, she getsthe honor of a name that symbolically

connects her with God Himself.Even amidst the consequences

of the Fall, how generousand loving must God’sinteraction with themhave been for Adam tochoose that name forhis wife?

Next we’re told thatGod “made garmentsof skin for Adam and

[Eve].” In an ancientNear Eastern culture, this

is the exact opposite of whatshould have happened. Their

clothes should have been torn to symbol-ize their disgrace. Instead, God makesgarments for them. And not only that,but the text gives this beautiful detail:“and [He] clothed them.” Imagine theintimacy of God pulling a shirt over yourhead and carefully guiding your armsthrough the sleeves, before kneelingdown to tie your shoelaces.

God dressed Adam and Eve himselfso that they would not be ashamed, fore-shadowing that one day He would clotheus in Christ (Galatians 3:27), with the bestrobe (Luke 15:22), with power from onhigh (Luke 24:49). Right from the verybeginning, it is in God’s response to suf-fering that we see the love of God mostclearly, a love that refuses to give up on useven when we use our free will to causegreat suffering.


4. WHAT IT TAKES TO BE YOUIt’s typical to think of the problem of evillike this: we picture ourselves in thisworld of suffering, then we picture our-selves in a world with far less suffering.And then we wonder, “Shouldn’t Godhave created us in the other world—theworld with far less suffering?” That’s areasonable thought.

But it’s a thought that relies on aphilosophical mistake. It relies on theassumption that it would still be youand me who would exist in that otherworld. And that is highly controversial.Let me explain.

There was a pivotal moment earlyon in my parents’ relationship. They wereon their second date. They were standingon the Brooklyn Bridge, overlooking thepicturesque New York City skyline, andmy dad noticed a ring on my mom’s fin-ger. So he asked about it, and she said,“Oh, that’s just some ring one of my oldboyfriends gave me. I just wear it ’cause Ithink it looks nice.”

“Oh, yeah, it is nice,” my dadresponded. “Let me see it.”

So my mom took it off and handedit to him, and my dad hurled it off thebridge and watched it sink to the bottomof the East River! “You’re with me now,”he declared. “You won’t be needing thatanymore.”

And my mom loved it!Now it was a pretty risky move my

dad made hurling my mom’s ring off theBrooklyn Bridge. She loved it, but what if she hadn’t? What if she had concludedthat my dad had lost it and then run offwith her old boyfriend instead? Whatwould that have meant for me? (If you

can believe it, fifty years on, my dad isstill trying to get my mom to reveal who gave her that ring. Mom flatlyrefuses to say!)

I might be tempted to think that ifMom had wound up with her old boyfriendI could have been better off. I might havebeen taller. I might have been betterlooking. Maybe the other guy was royalty.That would have been cool! I could’velived in a castle!

But actually, that’s not right. There’sa problem with wishing my mom woundup with the other guy, and the problem isthis: “I” never would have existed.

Maybe some other child would haveexisted. And maybe he would have beentaller and better looking and lived in acastle. But part of what makes me who Iam—the individual that I am—is mybeginning: the parents I have, the spermand egg I came from, the combination ofgenes that’s true of me.

Asking “Why didn’t God create mein a world with less suffering?” is similarto saying, “I wish my mom had marriedthe other guy.” I’m sure my mom and herold boyfriend would have had some verynice kids, but “I” would not have beenone of them.

We often wish we could take somepiece of suffering out of our world whilekeeping everything else the same. But itdoesn’t work that way. Changing anythingchanges everything—and everyone.

Why didn’t God create a differentworld? Well, it depends on what God wasafter. It depends on what God values.And what if one of the things He values,values greatly, is you, the people you love,and each person who will ever live?

I might be tempted to think that if Mom had wound up withher old boyfriend I could have been better off. I might have beentaller. I might have been better looking. But actually, that’s notright. “I” never would have existed.

Imagine the intimacy of God pulling a shirt over your head andcarefully guiding your arms through the sleeves, before kneelingdown to tie your shoelaces.


Sometimes we wish God had madea very different sort of world, but indoing so we unwittingly wish ourselvesout of existence. And so the problem ofsuffering is reframed in the form of aquestion:

Could God have wronged you bycreating a world in which you cameto exist and are offered eternal life,rather than creating a differentworld in which you never wouldhave lived?

5. “THE BEST LIVES” THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

For a fifth response, think of what is, inyour opinion, one of the greatest livesever lived.

Consider it in detail. Think of theperson’s character and how it was formed.Think of the person’s relationships. Thinkof his or her great triumphs, their sacri-fices, their steadfastness for what is goodand true.

Now, try in your imagination tosubtract from that person’s life all possi-bility of suffering. Subtract the sufferingthat shaped the culture and family theywere born into, the suffering that formedtheir character, the suffering they foughtagainst, the suffering that they carriedothers through.

What happened to the life you werepicturing? All of a sudden it doesn’t lookanything like the great life that you wereinitially so inclined to celebrate.

Without the possibility of signifi-cant suffering, practically every great truestory in history would be false. No onewould ever have made a significant sacri-

fice for anyone else. No great momentsof forgiveness and reconciliation. Noopportunities to stand for justice againstinjustice. No compassion (because nothingto be compassionate about), no courage(because no dangerous situations requir-ing courage), no heroes, no such thing as laying down one’s life for another. Is itso obvious that God would create thatworld rather than our own?

Criticism without alternative isempty. It’s easy to get mad at the worldGod has made. It’s much harder to saythe world God should have made instead.

6. THE GOD WHO SUFFERS WITH US

A sixth response to the objection fromsuffering I take, somewhat ironically,from Friedrich Nietzsche. He wrote:

“The gods justified human life by living it themselves—the onlysatisfactory [response to the prob-lem of suffering] ever invented.”3

Nietzsche is actually writing of theancient Greeks here, and in his bias he doesnot make the connection to Christianity.But as a Christian, I am very pleased toagree with him and then point emphati-cally to the cross where Jesus died.

The night before his death, as Jesuswrestled with what He knew the next daywould bring, Jesus said to his friends, “Mysoul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to thepoint of death” (Matthew 26:38). Thinkabout it. The God of the Universe, theCreator of all things, saying He is over-whelmed with sorrow, even to death….

At the Cross, we see the absolute uniqueness of the Christianresponse to suffering. In Islam, the idea of God suffering is nonsense—it is thought to make God weak. In Buddhism, toreach divinity is precisely to move beyond the possibility of suffering. Only in Christ do we have a God who is lovingenough to suffer with us.


If you’ve ever experienced deepdepression or thought about dying, Jesus is right there with you. There is nodepth of agony and helplessness we canexperience in this life that He doesn’tunderstand.

At the Cross, we see the absoluteuniqueness of the Christian response tosuffering. In Islam, the idea of God suf-fering is nonsense—it is thought to makeGod weak. In Buddhism, to reach divinityis precisely to move beyond the possibilityof suffering. Only in Christ do we have aGod who is loving enough to suffer with us.

The loving parent is not the onewho never allows suffering in a child’s life.The loving parent is the one who is willingto suffer alongside their children. And inChristianity this is exactly what we find.

7. A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVEFinally, the challenge of suffering is inpart a challenge of perspective, and it’simportant to remember that our currentperspective is not the full perspective.

The Bible says that the eternal lifethat God offers to every person will beone where “God will wipe every tearfrom our eyes,” where there will be “nomore death or mourning or crying orpain” (Revelation 21:4).

Imagine aliens who somehow man-aged to tap into a video feed from earth,but all they could see was the hospitaldelivery room when I was being born.They watched as the doctors forcefully

told my mom to do things that made herscream in pain. And then when she couldtake no more, the doctors got out a knifeand cut right into my mom’s stomach.They took me out—blood everywhere—and even though my mom was reachingout for me and screaming for me, thedoctors immediately rushed me awayfrom her. What would the aliens think ofthe doctors?

If all the aliens saw were the firstfew moments of my life, they might thinkthat the doctors were utterly evil. Onlyfrom a fuller perspective would they beable to see that the doctors actually caredfor my mother extremely well, and in factsaved my life.

On the Christian understanding ofreality, what we currently see is only thefirst few moments of life—literally justthe birthing process of human history! Wewill always come up short if we attemptto find the full explanation for sufferingin this life alone. This life is only thesmallest fraction of our lives. We aregoing to live forever. And even thoughright now we live in a harsh, broken world,Jesus promises that one day “everyonewho calls on [Him]” will live in a worldthat will be good to us (see e.g., Romans10:13, Acts 2:21, Joel 2:32).

“DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?”When things get worse before they getbetter, God is with us. And as we look tothe future, we can trust in the words of


Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life.The one who believes in me will live,even though they die; and whoever livesby believing in me will never die. Do youbelieve this?” (John 11:25-26).

Recently I shared these words withthe father of my oldest friend, Chris. Igrew up right next door to them. As Iwrite this, his father, Joe, is sufferingfrom a brain tumor, and the doctors havegiven him two days to a week left to live.

When I walked in to see him, I didn’t know if he would want to talkabout his approaching death. Joe hadalways been strong and capable. He had a voice so deep that no matter what hewas speaking about, it resounded withconfidence and authority, leaving littleroom for vulnerability.

But as soon as Joe saw me, he said,“Hey, Vince. Good, I’m glad you’re here. I told Chris I wanted to talk to you.” Joewent on to tell me that although he hadalways been confident that God exists insome way, he was finding himself increas-ingly scared about what comes next.

As we spoke, what became clear tome was that Joe’s understanding of thecentral message of Christianity, of whatit takes to be right with God, was thatyou should try to do more good than badin your life, and then just hope that in theend your good deeds will outweigh yourbad deeds. If they do, something wonder-ful awaits. But if they don’t, you’re introuble. And as Joe reflected back overhis life, he recognized that if that was the case, then he, like the rest of us, hadreason to fear.

Never was I so incredibly thankfulto be sitting before someone as aChristian. Other ways of seeing the worldwould have had nothing to say. As anatheist, I would have had to say there isno hope at all beyond the grave. If Iadhered to almost any other religion, Iwould have had to tell Joe that he wasbasically right and had every reason tofear what was next.

Only as a Christian could I explainto Joe for the first time that whileChristianity does say that God wants usto do good, that is not what makes usright with God. I was able to share withhim that the message of Christianity isthat what makes us right with God hasnothing to do with anything we do orever could do, but rather with what Jesushas already done—once, and in full, andfor all. I explained that if we trust in JesusChrist, we no longer need to fear judg-ment, because on the cross Jesus hasalready taken the judgment for everythingwe have ever done or will ever do wrong.

I explained this at length, and when I asked Joe if this made sense, he responded—in classic New Jerseyfashion—“That’s a hell of a realization.”Emphatically he said it again, “That’s ahell of a realization,” and then continued,“Sixty-nine years and I never thought ofthat. I thought Christianity was onething, but it was something else entirely.”There was an extended pause, and thenJoe said, “You know, Vince, you spendyour whole life trying to make up for your[mess ups], but this finally explains howwe can deal with guilt.”

I asked Joe if he wanted to praywith me to accept this gift from God—to trust in Christ’s sacrifice and not inour own works—and he said he did, andwith great conviction he thrust out hisarm to me. We clasped hands, and wewept, and we prayed, and as we finishedpraying he exclaimed aloud, “Amen.”

Joe asked me if my wife, Jo, knewthis great truth about Christianity aswell. I said that she did, and he said, “It must be a happy life.” And then, aftera thoughtful pause, “Now I’m actuallylooking forward to what’s next.”

When Joe’s family saw him the nextday and asked how he was, for the firsttime in a long time he responded,“Wonderful.” The transformation in himwas so visible that his family called me

Each one of us is going to deal with significant suffering in ourlives. And, one day, each of us is going to have to deal with thereality of death. When suffering comes, when death comes, whowill bear it with us? Who will see us through it?


immediately and wanted to know everyword that I had shared with him.

Life after death, on its own, doesnot bring hope. Only grace brings hope. I know of no grace as extravagant as thegrace of Jesus Christ. And as grace upongrace—because Jesus has already doneeverything necessary for us to be rightwith God—this greatest of all hopes canbe received with a simple heartfelt prayer.

I have suggested that the rationalityof Christian faith is not undermined bythe existence of evil and suffering. Butthe challenge suffering poses to belief inGod is not the only problem of suffering.There’s also the problem of how we’regoing to deal with suffering, and that’s aproblem for every one of us, regardless ofwhat we do or do not believe about God.

Some think the problem of suffer-ing should push us away from God. Forme, it’s precisely because I feel the prob-lem of suffering so severely that I am ledto trust a God who can do somethingabout it.

Each one of us is going to deal withsignificant suffering in our lives. And, oneday, each of us is going to have to dealwith the reality of death. When suffering

comes, when death comes, who will bearit with us? Who will see us through it?

Jesus will, if we ask Him to. Hewon’t force Himself into our lives. But ifwe invite Him, then we will never bealone in our suffering, and we can trustthat we will spend eternity in a placewhere suffering will be no more.

Vince Vitale, PhD, is Senior Tutor at theOxford Centre for Christian Apologeticsand a member of the speaking team forRZIM.

1 See Justin Brierley’s exchange with Richard Dawkins in his review “The JohnLennox—Richard Dawkins Debate” (October 21, 2008), online athttp://www.bethinking.org/atheism/the-john-lennox-richard-dawkins-debate. Accessed April 25 2014. 2 In the original Hebrew, the names are hwx(“Eve”) and hwhy (“Yahweh”). I do not mean to imply here that Adam knew the name“Yahweh” when he named Eve.3Friedrich W. Nietzsche and Francis Golffing(translator),The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals (Garden City, NY:Doubleday, 1956), 30. This quotation is taken from The Birth of Tragedy.


Deep Questions

Think Again

WE ARE LIVING in an era when apolo-getics is indispensable, but at the same

time, we need aChristian apologeticthat is not merelyheard—it must alsobe seen. The field ofapologetics dealswith the hard ques-

tions posed to the Christian faith.Having had deep questions myself, I listen carefully to the questions raised. I always bear in mind that behind everyquestion is a questioner. The conver-gence of intellectual and existentialstruggles drives a person to a brutal honesty in the questions they have.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is beauti-ful and true, yet oftentimes one will ask,“How can it be true that there is only oneway?” Odd, isn’t it, that we don’t ask thesame questions of the laws of nature orof any assertion that lays claim to truth.We are discomfited by the fact thattruth, by definition, is exclusive. That iswhat truth claims are at their core. Tomake an assertion is to deny its opposite.Rather than complain that there is onlyone way, shouldn’t we be delighted thatthere is one way?

The question really is, how do wereally know this is the truth?

Whether Hitler or Hugh Hefner,religious or irreligious, everyone has aworldview. A worldview basically offersanswers to four necessary questions: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. In turn, these answers must be corre-spondingly true on particular questionsand, as a whole, all answers put togethermust be coherent.

Taking it a step further, the threetests for truth must be applied to anyworldview: logical consistency, empiricaladequacy, and experiential relevance.When submitted to these tests, theChristian message is utterly unique andmeets the demand for truth.

Consider the empirical test of theperson, teaching, and work of JesusChrist. A look at human history showswhy He was who He claimed to be andwhy millions follow Him today. A com-parison of Jesus’s teachings with anyother claimant to divine or propheticstatus quickly shows the profound differences in their claims and demon-strations. In fact, none except Jesuseven claimed to be the divine Savior.His offer of grace and forgiveness bybeing the perfect sacrifice of our offenseis profoundly unique.

I position the sequence of fact anddeduction in the following way: Love isthe supreme ethic. Where there is thepossibility of love, there must be the real-ity of free will. Where there is the realityof free will, there will inevitably be thepossibility of sin. Where there is sin,there is the need for a Savior. Wherethere is a Savior, there is the hope forredemption. Only in the Judeo-Christianworldview does this sequence find itstotal expression and answer. The storyfrom sin to redemption is only in thegospel with the ultimate provision of aloving God.

But the question can be pushedback further. Does this not all assumethat there is a God? Yes, it does, and thereare four stages in the argument. The firstis that no matter how we section physical


concrete reality, we end up with a quantitythat cannot explain its own existence. If all material quantities cannot explaintheir own existence, the only possibilityfor self-explanation would be somethingthat is non-material.

Secondly, wherever we see intelligi-bility, we find intelligence behind it.Thirdly, we intuitively know that ourmoral reasoning points to a moral frame-work within the universe. The very factthat the problem of evil is raised eitherby people or about people intimates that human beings have intrinsic worth.Fourthly, the human experience in history and personal encounter sustainsthe reality of the supernatural.

There you have it. Who is God? He is the nonphysical, intelligent, moralfirst cause, who has given us intrinsicworth and who we can know by personalexperience.

The verification of what Jesustaught and described and did makebelief in Him a very rationally tenableand an existentially fulfilling reality.From cosmology to history to humanexperience, the Christian faith presentsexplanatory power in a way no otherworldview does. Our faith and trust in Christ is reasonably grounded andexperientially sustained.

I often put it this way: God has putenough into this world to make faith inHim a most reasonable thing. But He

has left enough out to make it impossibleto live by sheer reason alone. Faith andreason must always work together in thatplausible blend.

Many of you may be familiar withmy own story. I was born to Indian parents and raised in India. My ancestorswere priests from the highest caste ofHinduism in India’s Deep South. Butthat was several generations ago. I cameto Christ after a life of protracted failureand unable to face the consequences,sought to end it all. It was on a bed of suicide that a Bible was brought to meand in a cry of desperation, I invitedJesus Christ into my life. It was a prayer,a plea, a commitment, and a hope.

That was fifty years ago. I hardlyknew what lay ahead of me, except thatI was safe in Christ’s hands. Now as theyears have gone by and in 2014 we cele-brate thirty years of ministry at RZIM, I marvel at the grace and protection ofGod and the doors He has opened forour team. And more and more, I am convinced that Jesus Christ aloneuniquely answers the deepest questionsof our hearts and minds.

Warm Regards,

Ravi

Love is the supreme ethic. Where there is the possibility of love,there must be the reality of free will. Where there is the realityof free will, there will inevitably be the possibility of sin.

For more information or to make a contribution, please contact:

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries4725 Peachtree Corners CircleSuite 250Norcross, Georgia 30092770.449.6766

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“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

—Isaiah 55:8-9

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