The Irrational Entailments

The same soul-searching debate gnaws away at the con­science of the nation on the issue of abortion, pulling us apart. This contradiction was illustrated when I participated in an open-line talk program at one of America's fine and renowned universities.

The host of the program was a confessed, mix-it-up-type atheist. From the moment the telephone lines were opened, the callers vented their hostility, unblushingly using slurs and epithets. Finally, in a surprising call, a woman who had be­come quite outraged brought up the issue of abortion, which had not been one of the subjects under discussion even by extrapolation. Yet she raised it and charged that Christians used the issue of abortion as a smoke screen for their ultimate goal of controlling society. Her whole point of emphasis, on which she wanted a comment from me, was that the freedom to abort was her moral right. Although the main subject we had been originally discussing was the existence of God, I decided to respond to her challenge.

It was interesting, I pointed out, that on virtually every campus where I debated the issue of God's existence, some individual challenged God's goodness by pointing out all the evil in this world, especially the gratuitous evil that seems purely the result of a whim. "A plane crashes, and thirty die while twenty live ... what, sort of God is that? If God is good, why does He arbitrarily allow some to live and destine others to die?" The implication was, of course, that since God is so arbitrary in His actions He must be evil.

"My question to you, madam, is this," I said. "When you arrogate the right to yourself to choose who may live in your womb and who may die, you call it your moral right. But when God exercises the same right, you call Him evil. Can you explain that contradiction to me?" The response was nothing but anger and verbal frustration on the other end of the line. It was the torment of contradiction desperately seek­ing escape. We apply our beliefs selectively and judge by different standards. This is the sad result of living with flagrant contradiction that exacts a heavy toll, ultimately breeding justification of even the most irrational opinions and actions.

Think, for example, of the rationale behind the defense of abortion. The comment is often made that we do not know when life begins and therefore may abort at will. How irrational can that argument get? If my two-year-old son were missing on a friend's farm, would I go plunging a pitchfork into haystacks looking for him, because I do not know whether he is lost in a haystack? The death of reason has resulted in such loss of the sanctity of life because plu­ralism has bred irrationality, which is the steppingstone to the unconscionable. It is the equivalent of plunging the pitchfork into the womb because we do not know if life is there.

Extracted from Ravi Zacharias’ Deliver Us From Evil.