David Gee writing at Patheos.

A total of 26 people were killed in the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, but the man who ultimately shot the killer – a conservative being hailed as the ultimate “good guy with a gun” – says God sent him to “stop” the attack.

When a man started firing an AR-15 into First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, he killed a total of 26 people and hurt 20 others who were worshiping there. When he left the building of his own choice, he ran into Stephen Willeford, a gun advocate who brought his own AR-15.

They exchanged fire, and the original shooter fled, but when police found him, he had died from the gunshot wounds.

That makes Willeford “the epitome of the definition of a ‘good guy with a gun,’” a phrase used to describe a gun carrier who is able to stop in progress crimes because they are armed, according to Ammoland, which interviewed the man.

Stephen Willeford, an NRA instructor and firearms enthusiast, knew he must do something to stop the killer’s deadly rampage. He couldn’t sit around and let a maniac attack his community. He grabbed his AR-15 and set out to end the murderer’s violent spree.

When Ammoland asked Willeford how he knew about the shooting and why he engaged, he said it was a combination of God and his daughter.

“My oldest daughter heard the shots and made me aware of it,” he told Ammoland. “I truly believe God had called me to go there and stop it.”

Despite the fact that 26 people did die in the attack, Willeford continued to play the same divine intervention card.

“I wasn’t scared at all. I was terrified. But the Holy Spirit was with me, telling me not to concern myself with the bullets coming my way, but to do what he sent me to do,” he said.

Interestingly enough, he also said turning to God is the answer to stopping shootings from happening, despite the fact that this one occurred in a church.

“It is easy to blame the gun for the shooting because it takes away the responsibility of each individual for their actions. It is actually a matter of the heart, good vs. evil,” he said. “That is a lot harder to fix. This country needs to go back to what God values, life. From conception to death. Until we can instill that in our society, these incidents will continue. Life matters — all lives.”

“All lives” matter, said the man who recently took a life.

Willeford is put forth as the best example of a good guy with a gun, but the fact is that he wasn’t able to stop dozens of people from dying.

Aside from the snark about a man believing that all lives matter after taking a life (a sophomoric objection we could fisk later), his main objection seems to be just this: God brought him to the church that day to stop the shooting, but “he wasn’t able to stop dozens of people from dying.”

Poor David.  He’s in way, way over his head and is completely unqualified to address this topic.

David needs to take some coursework in theology and philosophy.  He is attempting to broach the subject of “theodicy.”  How could a good God allow bad things to happen, as the philosophers object?  Or as Alvin Plantinga puts it, theodicy is “answer to the question of why God permits evil.”

Since I am a Calvinist, I won’t proffer a free will response.  I believe, as the Westminster Confession of Faith states, that God ordains “whatsoever comes to pass.”  Rather, I turn the tables on the atheist and point out that without the Scriptures (which presuppose the existence of God, and yet evidence and affirm it as well), he has no definition of evil to begin with.

If you study the debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston, while I might object that Copleston was too gracious and lenient with Russell throughout the debate, even the highly knowledgeable Russell wasn’t able to develop a coherent, consistent system of ethics based on atheism.  You can see the same struggle in the debate between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein.  Stein was reduced to a blubbering idiot when pressed on this issue by Bahnsen.   Stein failed, as do all atheists.

In order for David Gee’s objection to be an effective defeater, it has to demonstrate inconsistency in my own system (David doesn’t believe in my system, but I do, so David must convince me that my views are incoherent).  David hasn’t even come close.

For a brief answer to the question of evil, one needs to go no further than reading Romans Chapter 9.  My views are entirely coherent when I say that there is a preceptive and decretive will of God, the first being His precepts or laws (what He wants us to do), the second being his decretive will (what He ordains will come to pass).  The two are not the same thing, and He uses secondary causes to bring about His decretive will (see 2 Kings 22:20-23).

God is sovereign.  See for example Isaiah 46:9-10, and Ephesians 1:11.  I have no logical problem with His having decreed the events of that day, from start to finish, including the fact that Mr. Willeford got there to stop the attack, and got there when he did, not a second sooner nor a second later.  And David Gee cannot demonstrate that there is a logical problem with any of this.

I’m glad that Mr. Willeford was armed.  It would have been better if others were armed as well and been prepared to defend their families as God has ordered.  Perhaps this event serves as a reminder to heads of households that they have a duty to God and their family, and perhaps that’s one of the good things that comes from this event.

Now to one final related point.  I ran across this commentary under a Google news search.  Note again – a Google news search.  I’m not joking.

TCJ, this very web site, provides useful and insightful commentary, with robust and educated reader responses on virtually a daily basis, and isn’t on Google news.  How does Google news decide to give juvenile, random mental meanderings like David Gee’s piece visits by categorizing them as news?

Nevermind.  I think I answered my own question.  Google news.

If you’ve read this far David, I do have one more question for you.  I think you really do believe in “good guys with guns,” don’t you?  You believe in cops, don’t you?  That means you want the state to have a monopoly on violence, which means you aren’t really an atheist.  Your god is the state.  You worship a totem pole.