This morning, we awakened
to the news of a horrific massacre in Las Vegas. A presumed lone gunman,
Stephen Paddock, had rained deadly bullets from a room high in the Mandalay Bay hotel. At this time, we know that 59 attendees at a
country music concert have died and hundreds have been wounded.
We watched as President
Trump spoke to the nation, calling the massacre “an act of pure evil.” He
followed with an assurance based on Psalm 34:18, saying “Scripture teaches us
the Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit. We seek comfort in those words, for we know
that God lives in the hearts of those who grieve.”
To these obvious references to moral teachings of the Bible, the president added that, “In times such as these I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness.” Then, President Trump tried to assure a stunned America by saying, “The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope.”
President Trump’s message was an effective encouragement this morning. We were also encouraged to watch the reports of heroic efforts on the part of first responders and even average Americans who sprang into action to provide assistance to the wounded and dying. Yet, horrific events like this one in Las Vegas are becoming all too common. And each time, we see our leaders and law enforcement officials rise to the occasion to pronounce the acts as “evil” and “morally reprehensible.” Yet, most do not attempt to answer the deeper question, “WHY do these things occur?”
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY called today for a more reasoned explanation for the existence of “pure evil.” I will refer you to his well written blog article, “An Act of Pure Evil”--Searching for Meaning in Las Vegas, and conclude my article with excerpts from his article. Mohler asks, “Why do we ask why?” and continues as follows:
 |
| Las Vegas massacre brought compassion in the face of "evil." |
To these obvious references to moral teachings of the Bible, the president added that, “In times such as these I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness.” Then, President Trump tried to assure a stunned America by saying, “The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope.”
President Trump’s message was an effective encouragement this morning. We were also encouraged to watch the reports of heroic efforts on the part of first responders and even average Americans who sprang into action to provide assistance to the wounded and dying. Yet, horrific events like this one in Las Vegas are becoming all too common. And each time, we see our leaders and law enforcement officials rise to the occasion to pronounce the acts as “evil” and “morally reprehensible.” Yet, most do not attempt to answer the deeper question, “WHY do these things occur?”
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY called today for a more reasoned explanation for the existence of “pure evil.” I will refer you to his well written blog article, “An Act of Pure Evil”--Searching for Meaning in Las Vegas, and conclude my article with excerpts from his article. Mohler asks, “Why do we ask why?” and continues as follows:
We cannot help but ask why because, made in God’s image, we are moral creatures
who cannot grasp or understand the world around us without moral categories. We
are moral creatures inhabiting a moral universe and our moral sense of meaning
is the faculty most perplexed when overwhelmed by horror and grief.
Dr. Mohler commended President Trump for classifying the massacre as “evil” and for directing us to consider the moral basis for the hope of finding solace in God’s sovereign purposes. Mohler then went deeper to address the necessity of defining the moral absolutes necessary to define and explain the existence of “evil:”
Evil is a fact, too. And evil is a theological category. The secular worldview cannot use the word with coherence or sense. The acknowledgement of evil requires the affirmation of a moral judgment and a moral reality above human judgment. If we are just accidental beings in an accidental universe, nothing can really be evil. Evil points to a necessary moral judgment made by a moral authority greater than we are — a transcendent and supernatural moral authority: God.
College professors tell us that moral relativism has produced a generation of Americans who resist calling anything evil, and even deny the existence or moral facts. Justin P. McBrayer, who teaches at Fort Lewis College in Colorado, wrote in The New York Times that “many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts.”
That’s truly frightening, but McBrayer argues that by the time students arrive at college, they have already been told over and over again that there are no moral facts — that nothing is objectively right or wrong.
Only the Christian worldview, based in the Bible, can explain why moral facts exist, and how we can know them. Only the biblical worldview explains why sinful humanity commits such horrible moral wrongs. The Christian worldview also promises that God will bring about a final act of moral judgment that will be the final word on right and wrong — as facts, not merely speculation. The Gospel of Christ points us to the only way of rescue from the fact of our own evil and guilt.
Our hearts break for the families and communities now grieving, and we pray for them and for those even now fighting for life.
It is both telling and reassuring that secular people, faced with moral horror as we see now in Las Vegas, can still speak of evil as a moral fact — even if they continue to deny moral facts in the classrooms and courtrooms. No one can deny that the horror in Las Vegas came about by an act that was evil, pure evil, and evil as a fact.
Dr. Mohler concludes his article with a quote from Isaiah 5: 20, ESV, the same passage of Scripture that I referenced in my September 21 article in which I discussed Lessons for America from the 1950’s?
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 5:20, ESV]
Dr. Mohler commended President Trump for classifying the massacre as “evil” and for directing us to consider the moral basis for the hope of finding solace in God’s sovereign purposes. Mohler then went deeper to address the necessity of defining the moral absolutes necessary to define and explain the existence of “evil:”
Evil is a fact, too. And evil is a theological category. The secular worldview cannot use the word with coherence or sense. The acknowledgement of evil requires the affirmation of a moral judgment and a moral reality above human judgment. If we are just accidental beings in an accidental universe, nothing can really be evil. Evil points to a necessary moral judgment made by a moral authority greater than we are — a transcendent and supernatural moral authority: God.
College professors tell us that moral relativism has produced a generation of Americans who resist calling anything evil, and even deny the existence or moral facts. Justin P. McBrayer, who teaches at Fort Lewis College in Colorado, wrote in The New York Times that “many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts.”
That’s truly frightening, but McBrayer argues that by the time students arrive at college, they have already been told over and over again that there are no moral facts — that nothing is objectively right or wrong.
Only the Christian worldview, based in the Bible, can explain why moral facts exist, and how we can know them. Only the biblical worldview explains why sinful humanity commits such horrible moral wrongs. The Christian worldview also promises that God will bring about a final act of moral judgment that will be the final word on right and wrong — as facts, not merely speculation. The Gospel of Christ points us to the only way of rescue from the fact of our own evil and guilt.
Our hearts break for the families and communities now grieving, and we pray for them and for those even now fighting for life.
It is both telling and reassuring that secular people, faced with moral horror as we see now in Las Vegas, can still speak of evil as a moral fact — even if they continue to deny moral facts in the classrooms and courtrooms. No one can deny that the horror in Las Vegas came about by an act that was evil, pure evil, and evil as a fact.
Dr. Mohler concludes his article with a quote from Isaiah 5: 20, ESV, the same passage of Scripture that I referenced in my September 21 article in which I discussed Lessons for America from the 1950’s?
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 5:20, ESV]
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