Can we be good without God?

Most of the readers of this magazine should be familiar with JOHN BLANCHARD’s growing range of Christian apologetics that have rapidly established themselves as a strong defence of the faith as well as an excellent tool for evangelizing the sceptic and the secularist. On that basis, this latest book from the pen of this busy writer will be warmly welcomed.

The book deals with a fundamental issue when it asks, ‘Unless God exists, can we even discuss whether anything is ‘good’ or ‘evil’?’ From that start point BLANCHARD examines the different world views, which he simplifies into three main categories: ‘those who assume a world without God’, including humanism, materialism, existentialism, and nihilism; one of the religious systems invented by man; or ‘the one which sees the God who reveals himself in the Bible … as the Creator of all reality outside of Himself’.

What gives this book its evangelistic usefulness is the question that BLANCHARD raises halfway through: ‘Can we be good enough for God without God?’ Using two biblical case studies the author shows that: our moral sense is triggered by the conscience; there is no consistent and dependable moral basis for conscience in nature, in ourselves or in culture; God alone is the explanation for our moral sense; the Bible clearly states that ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’, Rom. 3. 23. The gospel indicates that ‘Jesus left the glory of heaven … allowed himself to be despised, abused and rejected … and finally let himself be murdered by crucifixion … so that undeserving sinners “… might become rich”!’

This book can be recommended as a useful means of strengthening the faith of some and challenging the cynicism of the lost.