Apologetics I

I found the argument below in Ravi Zacharias' book Jesus Among Other Gods. Of course, its not new to him either, but I wanted to remember it for later. Here it is in my own words:

Skeptics point to the problem of evil as the greatest challenge to the Christian faith. Here's a VERY nutshell response:

1. Without good, there is no evil, but since you've already admitted that evil exists, you admit good exists also. This begs the question: how are objective good and evil determined? Answer: Objective truth (unless you think its okay to mutilate children for fun. Any takers? Didn't think so!) Question: What, then, is the source of objective truth? Answer: Atheism offers nothing, so it must be something super-natural. THAT would be God.

2. Now, perhaps you want to simply say that evil doesn't really exist, its only a euphemism for things we don't like, such as emotionally painful events, giant tsunamis, or asparagus. Weeelllll.... Now we're back to mutilating babies for fun. I mean, if you eliminate evil, then you have no way of establishing any objective morality, therefore, if I want to mutilate babies for fun (or poke you in a sensitive area), you have nothing; no basis for complaint, no reason to say, "that's wrong!" Do you really want to go down that road? I didn't think so.

Incidently, anyone silly enough to call themselves a relativist fall afoul of #2 as well. Moral relativism is ultimately indefensible, philosophically speaking. Its also important to note that although we've dealt with the existence of God here, we're still a country mile from proving Jesus's death on the cross as the propitiation for all of man's sin.