Did God create evil? In principle it would seem that if God created all things, then evil must have been created by God. However, here is an assumption that needs clarification. Evil is not a thing like a rock or electricity.You can not have a jar of evil! Rather, evil is something that happens, like running. Evil does not exist by itself - it is really lack a good thing. For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call a hole landlessness, but can not be separated from the land. When God made the creation, it is true that all that existed was good. One of the good things God made creatures were free to choose good. To make a real choice, God had to allow something more than good to choose. So God allowed these free beings, both angels and humans to choose between good and lack of it (evil). When a bad relationship exists between two good things we call evil, but that does not make it a thing that required Gods creation. Perhaps the following illustration will help us. If I asked the average person does cold exist? - The answer would be yes. However, this is incorrect. The cold does not exist. Cold is the absence of heat. Similarly, darkness does not exist, this is the consequence of the lack of light. Similarly, evil is the absence of good, or better, evil is the absence of God. God did not create evil, but rather only allowed the absence of good. Lets look at the example of Job in chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Job. Satan wanted to destroy Job, and God allowed Satan to do whatever he wanted, except kill Job. God allowed this to happen to prove to Satan that Job was righteous, because he loved God, not because God has greatly blessed. God is sovereign and has absolute control over anything that happens. Satan can do nothing without the permission of God. God did not create evil, but He allows it. If God does not allow the possibility of evil, both angels and humans serve God out of obligation and not by choice. God did not create robots that simply did what He wanted to do through its programming. God allowed the possibility of evil, so we can have genuine freedom to choose whether or not we want to serve. Conclusively, there is no answer to these questions that we can fully understand. We as finite human beings, we can never understand an infinite God (Romans 11: 33-34). Sometimes we think we understand why God is doing something, only to discover later that it was for different purposes than originally thought. God sees things from an eternal perspective. We look at things from an earthly perspective. Why did God put man on earth knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and would bring with it evil, death and suffering for the whole human race? Why does He not only created us and left us in Heaven where we would be perfect and would have no suffering? The best answer I can think of is that God did not want a race of robots without free will. God had to allow for the possibility of evil for us to make a real decision to worship God or not. If we had never suffered and experienced the bad, really appreciate how wonderful Heaven? God did not create evil, but He allows it. If I had not allowed, we would be worshiping God out of obligation and not by the free choice of our will.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:12:52 +0000
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