Hello and welcome to episode 432 of the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and today on the podcast, we're bringing you the audio from a video that we released recently, probably about two weeks ago, on our YouTube channel. And it's a video that uh resulted in quite a lot of engagement across our various platforms, which was surprising considering the fact that it was a response to a Stephen Fry interview from seven years ago. You might know about this very famous clip of Stephen Fry talking about what he would say to God at the Pearlie Gates. And, you know, I remember when I was at Freshers Week in university, I remember my friends uh watching this clip in their rooms, and uh it has that real gut punch kind of feel to it, and so you can see why it's gained the traction that it has online. But Glenn did a response to this clip we've been meaning to for a while, better late than never, I suppose. So I hope you find this helpful in considering the very difficult subject of the problem of evil, and I hope it brings some really um important and encouraging truths to bear.
SPEAKER_01Seven years ago, Stephen Fry was asked what he would say to God if he met him at the Pearlie Gates, and uh he responded in a blistering polemic. And uh, I want to have a look at that here. It's not the hottest of hot takes, is it? It's seven years old, but um this clip keeps on doing the rounds. Gary Lineker uh shared it online just yesterday and got many, many more views for this. And what I want to say about this clip is that Stephen Frye has a problem with evil, and for that he should be celebrated. The reason why this clip has gone viral is that he is pressing into the reality of evil. And what I want to say to Stephen Fry, I want to plead with him, have more of a problem.
SPEAKER_03Suppose what Oscar believed in as he died, in spite of your protestations, suppose it's all true, and you walk up to the Purley Gates and you are confronted by God. What will Stephen Fry say to him, her, or it? I will basically what's known as theodicy, I think.
SPEAKER_01I Theodicy. So uh theodicy is the word for what Stephen Fry is going to do. It's a word that refers to the justice of God, the rightness of God. So uh John Milton, he wrote Paradise Lost to justify the ways of God with men. And uh, theodicy has been this attempt to talk about how can God be right when there is a world that is so wrong. And I want us to hold on to that word right.
SPEAKER_05I'd say bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right.
SPEAKER_01He goes straight for the suffering of innocence, and that's where all of us go. I don't know if there are particular people uh Stephen Fry has in mind when he mentions the cancer among children. There are many people that I think of, and uh it makes me cry just to think of the suffering of children, the suffering of innocence. It's actually the place that the Bible goes. Um, historically, the first book of the Bible written down is the book of Job. It's an epic poem about suffering, 42 chapters of Job going through suffering that is not his fault. And 20 times in the book he asks the question, why? And he never gets an answer. The suffering of the innocents is the question that humans really have to wrestle with. You turn the page in the Bible, and after the book of Job comes the largest book in the Bible, and that's the book of Psalms, 150 songs that are prayers to God. A third of them are psalms of lament. Psalms of lament where where people say, How long, O Lord? How long do we have to cry out? How long do we have to groan? Psalms that say, We are like sheep to be slaughtered. Psalms that say, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Uh the Bible is full of this very question. Before we came to know this as protest atheism, the very impetus behind it is a thoroughly biblical int i impetus. It's it's the impetus to say, suffering that is unearned, undeserved, is outrageous, it is wrong, and therefore the feelings that are stirred by protest atheism are incredibly biblical feelings. Thoroughly biblical. So what Stephen Fry says and the foot that he gets off on is an entirely biblical foot, and I commend him for it. It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Now that's interesting. It's not right, it's utterly, utterly evil. And this is why I said listen out for the language of right in this video. As Stephen Fry answers this question, as he unpicks a theodicy, um, questioning whether God is right to preside over a world that is so wrong, Stephen Fry calls the world as we know it utterly, utterly evil, and it's not right. Um and and this is at the heart of my critique of Stephen Fry's answer here. By what standard is he going to say it's utterly, utterly evil? It's it's not right. He can certainly point to the evil in this world and say it's painful, it's grotesque, it's maladaptive to su to survival. Um can he say that it is wrong? And my real plea to Stephen Fry is to say, have a problem with evil. Really own the problem with evil. The trick with the problem of evil is to actually have a problem. And my issue with Stephen Frye is he can say that bone cancer in children is unlucky. He can say that it's painful, he can say that it's tragic. Can he say that it's wrong? Wrong according to what? He calls it utterly, utterly evil. E evil by what standard? Well, what is the good standard by which we judge that to be evil? And and this is what brought C. S. Lewis from atheism to theism, from disbelief in any kind of God to belief in some kind of gods. When he discovered when he when he pressed into the problem of pain, he said it was a bit like looking out at uh a whole bunch of crooked lines. And he said, You look out at crooked lines and you know that they're crooked, why do you say that they're crooked? Whatever gave you the idea they were meant to be straight. You have to have some notion of straight line in order to believe in crooked lines.
SPEAKER_05Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?
SPEAKER_01Why should he believe in a God who creates a world full of this kind of injustice and pain? Um, there's a problem here. Stephen Fry is not entering into the thought experiment fully. He's entering into a thought experiment in which there is some kind of God at the pearly gates and he's having a conversation with him, but he's not conversing with the God of the Bible at this stage, because the God of the Bible does not create a world full of such pain. The God of the Bible, whether you believe this or not, if you're going to enter into the thought world of Christians, what Christians believe is the all-good God makes an all-good world. Okay, and you think it's a fairy tale, it's a nonsense, okay, we can get into that later. But in order to step into what a Christian believes, in order to do the thought experiments, you've got to believe in the good God who makes a good world, which then falls into suffering and death and evil.
SPEAKER_04That's what I would say. And you think you're going to get in on that? But I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to get in on his terms.
SPEAKER_01Um so Gabe Byrne here, um, he is still of the paradigm that Stephen Fry has to justify himself to God, right? That's that's um Stephen Fry is answerable and accountable to God. That's the world that Gay Byrne is living in, and and fair enough. You know, we are dealing with God, after all. And Stephen Fry is doing something that has us all grabbing our popcorn and watching because it's extraordinary. That he is saying, no, no, no, God must justify his ways to me. God is answerable to me. And and it's like, you know, the clever sixth former having a go at the the head teacher and showing him up to be a fool. You know, it's and and everyone's watching, and this is again why it's so delicious. He is championing the side of humanity against a capricious and arbitrary reality that is dark and diseased and and and hellish. And Stephen Fry is sticking up for humanity, and at that point, he is an absolute hero. And um in in this thought world and in this experiment, no wonder this video has done um so incredibly well. It it it resonates with everybody. I'm a Christian and it resonates with me, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02It's I mean, it's it is the best story ever told. Christianity is, I mean, whether it's true or not, it's a different matter. But as a matter of historical record, it is the most compelling story.
SPEAKER_00That was historian Tom Holland speaking about mission in the meaning crisis, and there's plenty more where that came from. With the help of Christy Mayer, we'll be diving into this very topic during the Speak Life Vision evening. And you, yes you, are invited. It's happening from 8 to 9.30pm UK time on Thursday the 20th of October. To sign up, go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash vision. Along with hearing from Christy Mair and the Speak Life team, you'll get a first sneak peek at our new evangelistic course, and you'll be the first to know about our exciting plans for creative evangelism. This really is a unique opportunity, and it's completely free. Whether you've been following Speak Life for hours or for years, whether you live in England or Djibouti, join us over Zoom as we think about the future of Speak Life. That's Thursday, the 20th of October, 8 pm. Let's tell the greatest story of all time.
SPEAKER_05Now, if I died and it was it was Pluto, Hades, and if it was the twelve Greek gods, then I would have more truck with it, because the Greeks were. They didn't pretend not to be human in their appetites and in their capriciousness and in their unreasonableness. They didn't present themselves as being all-seeing, all-wise, all-kind, all beneficent.
SPEAKER_01This is brilliant from Stephen Fry. He's absolutely right. The thing that makes the problem of evil such a problem is the goodness of God. Without the goodness of God, no one's got a problem. So, in a sense, if there are Greek gods overseeing reality, then there's no problem of evil. They were capricious and they were nasty. They were subhuman in their kind of moral proclivities. So he's absolutely right that if you believed in such an ultimate reality that was itself capricious and malevolent, then you don't have a problem with evil. But also, um, if you get rid of all the gods and it's just where matter in motion, we're like tiny collections of billiard balls just clacking together. And sometimes we clack together positively and sometimes we clack together negatively. Some people get lucky, some people get unlucky. Um but it but again, if that's the nature of ultimate reality, then again, you have no problem with evil. There is no problem with evil. There's no problem with evil if Zeus is in charge, and there's no problem with evil if just blind, pitiless indifference is in charge. There's no problem. But that is the problem. You need to have a problem with evil. I invite you to have a problem with evil. Christianity does not so much come along with a solution to the problem of evil. Christianity comes along and says, You're right to find a problem with this. It's the Christians who really must wrestle with the problem of evil because we believe in an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God. Okay? Where did we ever get such an idea from? Because it it doesn't come naturally. It didn't come naturally to the Greeks, it didn't come naturally to the Romans, it didn't come naturally to the Assyrians or the Babylonians, or it didn't come naturally to the Egyptians. Like all these visions, all these non-biblical visions of reality say that ultimate reality is capricious, it is malevolent, and you take your chances in this world. Don't be surprised if your kid gets cancer, right? That that's what all these other kind of worldviews lead you to think. And yet, isn't it extraordinary that in the world there are billions of people who actually believe in an all-good God? But given the world around us, isn't that extraordinary that anyone has come to think of an all-good, all loving, all knowing God? Isn't that extraordinary that anyone should think that? You know why we've thought that? It's because Jesus has come into this world as the ultimate Job, the actually innocent sufferer, right? Who goes all the way to the cross and takes onto himself the suffering of all ages and all peoples. He is the he is the true psalmist who who prays, why, O Lord? Who who says, I'm like a sheep to be slaughtered. In fact, he is the lamb who is slain for the sins of the world, who cries out on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so in Jesus we have a God who suffers. Now, without that picture of gods, you might think that God and suffering are these sort of incommensurate realities, and there's no way you can put the two together, but you can't say the same thing of the suffering God. The suffering God comes with arms outstretched to the world, bleeding for his enemies, and he says, Trust me. And many people have, billions of people have, and down through the centuries, we have come to look to him as a picture of what a good God might look like in the midst of a suffering world. Somehow we've come to expect goodness. Somehow we've come to expect cosmic justice in the world, and we are disappointed when the evil of this world strikes. We are profoundly disappointed. Why? We're profoundly disappointed because of an all-good God who has revealed himself in Jesus, the one who suffers the most for us.
SPEAKER_05Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac. Utter maniac. Look at Kay Bern.
SPEAKER_01He's a he's a religious man, I understand, and uh yeah, a man of deep faith. And so was utterly, utterly shocked by Stephen Fry, you know, calling whatever God must have pres must preside over this age and this evil is an automaniac. But actually, I I think it's it's kind of a biblical thing. Um Jesus calls Satan the Prince of this world, and um Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 calls the devil the god of this age. Um if there is simply a potentate, a power who is over and above this decaying, fallen world, and this is the way that such a God wants it, you may as well call that person Satan. Satan is the prince of this world, the god of this age. If you looked at the world to figure out what God is like, you would come up with Satan. You would come up with an utter maniac, the kind of maniac that Stephen Fry is railing against. Thankfully, Christians don't look at the world to figure out what God's like. We look at Jesus to figure out what God's like. Totally selfish.
SPEAKER_05Totally we have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?
SPEAKER_01You certainly don't have to worship God for cancer. And you ought not to worship, you should rail against cancer. You should turn your protest against the evil of this world into prayer, and you can rail against the evil of this world to God. But then there are things in your life that you probably should thank God for. We need to be grateful for the things that are good in this world, and it is for our good that we ever thank God.
SPEAKER_05Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind, they eat outwards from the eyes.
SPEAKER_01Let's press into the idea of parasites. What are parasites? Parasites, like this insect that he says, burrows into the eyes of a child. Um parasites are things that latch onto a life source and drain it. Okay, there's an original and life-giving good, and then a parasite comes along and perverts it, twists it, sucks the life out of it. And this is this is horrible. And we ha we hate parasites, right? And um and yet what I want you to do is to think more closely about parasites, because what is the story of a parasite? The story of the parasite is an original life-giving good to which is fastened something parasitic, something that depletes it, something that twists it, something that perverts it, something that takes away life. But as soon as you've told the story of a parasite, you've told the story of the Bible. The Bible begins, right, with an all-good God and an all-good creation from which there has been a fall. Bone cancer in children, you know, there is meant to be good and healthy cell division, but then it can go malignant, right? It's it's something good that goes wrong. Or loving relationships that go wrong, or societies that go wrong, or the universe that flings out into heat death, or whatever it is, whatever example of evil and suffering you have, it is always a parasitic kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_05You could easily have made a creation in which that didn't exist. It is simply not acceptable. So, you know, atheism isn't not just about don't not believing there is a isn't not believing there's a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is he? It's perfectly apparent that he's monstrous, utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01So um he's entering into the thought world. Uh he's not s entering into a sufficiently Christian thought world, right? But he's trying to enter into a certain religious thought world in which there is a God presiding over the evil of this world, and and he's saying it's unacceptable. Unacceptable on whose terms um who knows. But let me return the favor. Okay. Let me enter into his thought world. And in his thought world, we are all DNA replicators, we are DNA replicating machines, right? We are wet robots clinging to an insignificant rock, hurtling through a meaningless universe towards eternal extinction, and some people are blinded by a parasite. Unacceptable. Unacceptable on whose terms? On the universe's terms? The universe is cold and indifferent. It will be the the death of you. It's not unacceptable to the universe.
SPEAKER_05The moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_03That sure is the longest answer to that question that I ever got in this entire series.
SPEAKER_01He's a good sport, Gabe Dunn. He's a good sport. But what are we being sold by Stephen Fry? What are we being offered in ex in exchange for an all-good God with his most compassionate suffering son and an incredible future ahead beyond suffering and evil? In in exchange for that, we are we are being offered an entirely horizontalized life in which some people are incredibly well off like Stephen Fry, and some people are like those African or South American children who are blinded by a certain parasite, right? It seems like a big poor deal. And my big problem, here's how I'll finish. My my big problem is not that Stephen Fry has a problem of evil. My big problem is that he does not have a problem with evil. Because once he has exchanged the good God for an indifferent universe, he no longer has a problem with evil, but he knows that bone cancer and children is wrong. What I want to do is invite him and invite all atheists to truly believe that. Your intuitions tell you that bone cancer and children is wrong. Your intuitions tell you that what the goodness and glory of God might look like would be the suffering man Jesus with his arms outstretched to the world enduring our suffering and evil for us. You can't help but think that the evil that you encounter in this world is unjust, not right, and utterly, utterly evil. So believe that more. Have a problem with evil, and let the intuitions which Stephen Fryer has brilliantly fired for you. Let those intuitions take you home to where those intuitions really belong. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00Well, there we go. Thank you so much for listening. A shorter episode for this week. A bite-sized chunk of Speak Life content. Nice. Well, thanks so much for listening. Again, I'm sorry we've been bombarding you with adverts for the Vision Evening. Those will stop soon because the Vision Evening is tomorrow at the time I'm recording this. Depending on when you're listening to this, uh it might be a lot sooner. And so we'd love to have you along. There's still an opportunity to sign up. Sign up will be able to happen right up to the event, which is 8 pm on Thursday, the 20th of October. It's a zoom link. Go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash vision. Fill in very brief form there, takes uh 30 seconds, and you'll be sent the zoom link to click on the evening. It's honestly gonna be such a cool evening. I'm really excited for it. It's gonna be great to have Christy Mayer along talking about the meaning crisis. There's gonna be all sorts of sneak peeks. There will also be some giveaways. Well, that's all from me. Thanks so much for listening, and I will see you next time. God bless.