June 23

Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Isaiah comes to grips with two of the most basic questions of life and human existence. First, is there real good and evil, light and darkness (objective moral standards), the kind that does not depend on anyone’s view or opinion? Second, if there are such standards, why? How can there be? What is their foundation? This might be the most pressing issue that confronts our post modern world.

We live in a culture where 75% of adults and 90% of teens do not believe in absolute good and evil. My question is this; can you live life this way?

As Christ followers, we believe there is good and evil. We believe that only God can determine what that is. In a world without God, evolutionary philosophy would be the only way to live. The survival of the fittest, the strongest, and the most ruthless.

It there are no absolutes, (no God) can life have any meaning? If there is no God, then we are all cosmic orphans. Without God, our lives only have relative meaning. But, we can never answer the questions, why? who am I? why am I here? Without God, the only future for us is death. If that is true, then our lives can only have relative impact, but we can never do anything of ultimate significance. From a scientific point of view,what is the difference if the big bang had occurred or had not? In the end,it makes no difference. Mankind is no more significant than a swarm of mosquitoes or a pack of rats, for our end is the same. The same blind cosmic process that coughed us up in the first place will eventually swallow us up again. Each person's life is therefore without ultimate significance. And because our lives are ultimately meaningless, the activities we fill our lives with are also meaningless. The long hours spent at the university, our families, our jobs, our interests, our friendships, trying to be loving, treating people with respect - all these are, in the final analysis, utterly meaningless. This is the horror of modern man: because he ends in nothing, he is nothing.

In a world without God, there can be no absolute standard of right and wrong. All we are confronted with is, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s words, “The bare, valueless fact of existence.” In a world without God,who is to weigh values are good and which are evil? Who is to judge that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of Mother Theresa? The concept of morality loses all meaning in a universe without God. There can be no right and wrong. This means that it is impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, and love as good. For a universe without God, good and evil do not exist - there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.

If God does not exist,there is no good and evil, there is no meaning to life,and there is no hope for the future. Is this a world we want to pass along to our children?

May God give us strength and courage to join with Isaiah and call evil - evil and good - good.