Mere Christianity -- Book 2, Chap. 1

The Rival Conceptions of God

What do Christians and atheists NOT have to believe about all other religions other than Christianity?

-- Christians don't have to believe that all other religions are completely wrong.

-- Atheists don't have to believe that everyone else, other than Christians, got it all wrong.

-- All religions have some grasp of the truth.  Christianity, we believe, is the truest.  Some religions, other than Christianity is closer to the truth than others.

All people are divided into two groups:

1.  The majority believes in God/gods (like Christianity)

2.  The minority does not believe in God/gods (Materialists).

All people who believe in God/gods can be divided by the kind of God/gods they believe in.

1.  He is beyond good and evil (Pantheists like Hegel, Hindus) -- good and evil are an illusion.

Believe "god" animates the universe as you animate your body.  The universe is "god."

Therefore, the Pantheists does not distinguish between good and evil since all is "god."

2.  God is good and righteous who wants us to be good (Theists like Jews, Islam, Christianity).

Christians believe that the universe originates from God.

Therefore, the Christian believes that God is separate from the world and there are things in the world that are contrary to His will and God insists on making it right.

But this leads us to an important question:  "If a good God made the world, why has it gone wrong?"

This is the question (the problem of evil) that causes many to become atheists. 

But atheists really have the greater problem:  "How did I get the idea of right and wrong, just and unjust?"  "Where does it come from?"

In the very act of trying to prove that God does not exist -- that reality is senseless -- we are forced to assume that at least one part of reality is full of sense.