Dustin responded to the case of Dr. Z becoming an agnostic by writing “Yes, there are people who lose their faith in God due to evil. This just shows that their faith was no true faith, but only temporary (cf. Matt. 13:21). God has varying means by which He exposes spurious faith, and rancid evil is one of them.”
This seems to suggest that Dr. Z did not have a real faith to begin with. His actions in the Congo may have appeared legitimate but in fact they were not because the faith he held, while looking good for all outward appearances, was really counterfeit. And God used the brutal murder of an eight year old to expose Dr. Z’s false faith.
Now let’s say that Dr. Z goes to Dustin’s church. He returns and goes out for coffee with Dustin and shares with Dustin his agnosticism while tears run down his cheeks. (Dustin called the story a tear-jerker after all.) If I understand Dustin on Romans 1 correctly, Dr. Z is in sinful rebellion. Thus his telling Dustin that he now is an agnostic is as ripe for condemnation as if he had told Dustin he is in an ongoing adulterous relationship or downloading movies illegally from Pirate Bay and selling copies to his friends. Just as Dustin would be right to condemn Dr. Z’s actions of adultery or stealing as sin, so he would be right to condemn his agnosticism as sin.
I wonder if Dustin and others would agree with this diagnosis. And if so, I wonder what they would say to Dr. Z as he cried into his Starbucks coffee over the horrors he had seen and the faith he had lost.
