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Exactly how this transferal took place is a mystery, but it seems to reflect the erosion of the dominant theistic worldview and the growing acceptance of a naturalistic worldview. Perhaps it was Freud's influence. Perhaps the growing "victim mentality" in our culture (which some call "the Oprahfication of America") played a part.

Yet, all the interpreters and advocates of the secular worldview have only managed to marginalize what they consider the outmoded theistic worldview. They offer no new insights to explain the anomalies of life. In place of God, government—a most imposing institution that also seems bigger than life—has assumed the default position.

Most bad things happen in our world because humanity is inherently sinful. In some cases, that disposition spills over the moral dams and results in great and senseless acts of evil, be it individual (Timothy McVeigh or Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) or collective (the Holocaust).

Of course, this view of human nature flies in the face of the romanticized evolutionary worldview of progressivism that humankind is basically good and getting better, only in need of more, better, and politically correct education. We ought to recall, however, that the U.S. Constitution purposefully delineated the separation of the branches of government, articulating the "balance of powers" based on the worldview that human nature is corrupt.

The Creator (whom Jefferson cited in the Declaration of Independence) has "endowed us" with the right to pursue happiness. But that endowment to very evil people like Dylan Klebold or Timothy McVeigh can result in the evil pursuit of a perverted happiness. A chilling reminder of this is the videotape of Osama bin Laden celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Because our world has a significant number of evil people who pursue their happiness in this way, it is impossible to prevent them without being both omniscient and omnipotent. Government cannot anticipate and prevent every evil act hatched in the imaginations of evil people.

When seriously evil people succeed in their pursuit of happiness, many believers angrily ask: Why didn't God stop it? Why didn't God exercise his omniscience and omnipotence and prevent it from happening? In fact many have abandoned faith in God because they cannot find a satisfactory answer to this question.

Yet our omnipotent and omniscient Creator has decided not to directly restrain our evil tendencies. He does not systematically prevent those he endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from using those liberties to do evil. Likewise, he does not cause our computers to crash to keep us from filing false tax returns. He does not cause us to go blind to prevent us from viewing child pornography.

Somehow, though, when evil people shoot at students and teachers in Columbine High School, we expect God to turn bullets into marshmallows. We expect him to turn hijacked airliners away from tall buildings. (Curiously, the one plane that did not find its target on September 11 was diverted by a group of people—led by a Christian—who sought to prevent greater evil than that which they faced. Todd Beamer understood the biblical exhortation to "overcome evil with good.")

While God does not directly intervene to restrain our evil tendencies, he has ordained human government to function in that capacity to a limited degree—to punish evildoers. Hence it is not surprising that unbelievers (both philosophical atheists and practical atheists) now ask: Why didn't government stop it?

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February 2005, Vol. 49, No. 2