In questions about God and good and evil, there is a tendency for us humans to polarize, and to divide into two overly simplistic and diametrically opposite positions. This is perhaps brought into sharp focus by a YouTube debate between Christopher Hitchens and David Berlinsky. Hitchens had written a book entitled “Religion poisons everything.” The tongue in cheek title of the debate was “Atheism poisons everything.”
Part of the problem here, is that we tend to give pat and shallow answers to complex questions. The question “Can we be evil if we believe in God,” is such a question. First and foremost in order to have an intelligent discussion, we would need to determine what we mean by good and evil, what we mean by belief, and finally which god are we talking about!
One of the objections that I hear all the time, and which goes along with Hitchens' point, is that there has been more evil done in the name of God than in anything else. While I understand the point, and do not debate that there has been a great deal of evil perpetrated in the name of God, in the last century the balance of evil was certainly on the side of atheism. I’m thinking about Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc., and I would want to include Hitler in this list. I’m willing to debate about this last individual, because he certainly used the name of God. However, as Belinsky points out in the debate, for Hitler, Stalin and others they acknowledged no power greater than themselves. In other words each of these individuals was their own god.
By way of a clarifying question we might ask "Can an individual can be good or evil?" In my own life, I have come to the conclusion that I am capable of the greatest good, and the basest evil. Part of my journey to becoming a Christian was the rude awakening I received when my eyes were opened to my own propensity to do evil. In particular at the breakup of my first marriage I was totally convinced that it was 100% her fault. So convinced was I of this, that in my heart I felt she deserved to die. What I’m saying is that I had murder in my heart, and the scary thing is that I’m not at all sure that if I thought I could have gotten away with it I would not have followed through. My rude awakening came when my eyes were opened to my own faults in the matter. I read in the Bible that the heart is deceitful above all and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). In light of what I had felt and thought and now knew to be wrong, it devastated me, and was one of the things that led to my conversion.
So, can an atheist to be good? Well there are some atheists who put some Christians to shame! Can an atheist be evil? Yes of course. Can someone who believes in God be evil? Yes! Can someone who believes in God be good? Jesus answered that by saying “No one is good, but God” (Luke 18:19)!
If this is true and I think it is, then we have a problem. It is that when we put our trust in anyone or anything other than the God with the character of Jesus, then we are putting our trust in something that is not good. So to ask again, can an atheist be good? By God's standards no-one can be good, but by the standards of this world yes, certainly. The problem though, is where does he or she get the motivation to be good? History shows that when a culture turns its back on God as exemplified in the character of Jesus, then that culture eventually becomes lawless. I see it, not only in history, but all over the place. I see it in the increasing lawlessness of the West, and I have seen it in me!
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