Fritzl and Evil

2009 Bill Muehlenberg | Very few people – at least Westerners – would be unaware of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man just found guilty of kidnapping, rape, murder and a host of other atrocities committed against his own family. He is routinely called a monster, an ogre and an animal. What he did simply raises once again the problem of evil. Why do such things happen? From whence comes such horrific evil? Why is evil such a perennial problem? What is the origin of evil? Such questions have been debated for millennia now.

Of course one’s worldview will greatly colour how one answers these questions. The Judeo-Christian worldview deals with these issues in ways that often radically differ from other worldviews. Yet most people seem to have a view on these matters. Even the secular press attempts to weigh into this topic on occasion.

...The good news of the Gospel makes no sense unless first predicated upon the bad news of sin. It is exactly because we are all sinners and unable to help ourselves out of the mess that we are in that Jesus came. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” And Jesus makes it clear that we are all sinners, we are all sick.

God and Goodness

2008 Bill Muehlenberg | The biblical understanding of morality is rather straightforward: There exists an objective, universal moral law because there is a transcendent, personal moral lawgiver – God. Our triune God is a personal, volitional, personal and moral being who is the source of all morality. And we, made in God’s image, are capable of making moral judgments, decisions and actions.

Of course the biblical storyline goes further: Mankind has chosen to reject God and his rightful place, and we have sought to make ourselves autonomous and free of God’s moral universe. Thus the fall has skewed everything, and we now see in every human being elements of goodness but also elements of evil.

The biblical doctrine of the fall and sin means that we are all born into the world with an orientation away from God and toward sin and self. Thus God has created the institution of the state to keep evil in check, administer justice, and punish wrongdoing.

In fact, there are two main things which keep us from being as evil as we might be. One, as mentioned, is the restraining influence of government and its laws. They provide the outward check on individual and social evil. The second is internal: conscience. Because we are made in God’s image, we all have an inner moral compass. But because of the fall, that compass is badly damaged. But our internal conscience, along with external policing, keeps human civilisation in some sort of order and equilibrium.