Atheism and the Problem of Sin

Atheists are interesting. First, they argue against the existence of God based on the problem of evil. God can’t exist, they say, because God wouldn’t allow evil to exist in the world. Second, they argue that although it seems there must be some sort of natural law of morality, there is no absolute standard of good and evil. So, on the one hand they say that God doesn’t exist because evil exists and on the other hand they say that evil doesn’t exist because God doesn’t exist.

What is further interesting is that lack of intellectual development beyond this. Some atheists recognize the conflict to some degree and try to rectify it by a weak appeal to some natural law of morality. This only results in a relative morality that still fails to address the universal question.

Evil in the world creates a paradox that confuses our thinking on every issue since evil lies in the intents of men. Any attempt to construct a true philosophy is frustrated by this. As a result, we have need to debate and wrestle not merely over issues of behavior and relationship, but over concepts and ideas. This fact alone should be a clue that things are not as they ought to be. But if intellectual conflicts are normal, then they should be expected in our theology. However, atheists point to theological paradoxes as though they are unique to theology when theology alone answers the presence of the paradoxes. So atheists pursue the resolution of the paradoxes of atheistic philosophies and fail to consider any resolution of theological paradoxes proposed by theists.