Where Does Evil Come From?
Someone asked me recently where evil came from. Did God create it? And if He has control over all things, wouldn’t that somehow connect Him with being responsible for the element of sin or ‘evil’ entering into His creation?
The existence of evil seems inconsistent with the existence of an omnipotent and loving God. The theological term for this problem is called ‘theodicy’. Theodicy is the attempt to explain how these two things can co-exist: a loving, all powerful God and the problem of evil.
It’s not like I’m going to add much to the hundreds of years of debate over this issue. Or, the thousands of books written about this topic. But I will share with you how I personally deal with seemingly difficult questions such as God and the problem of evil. I like to reverse engineer the issue.
Instead of starting with the problem of evil, I first go to the character of God. I always begin there. Starting there saves me a lot of time. If God proves to have the capacity to create evil in His character, I know there’s a chance He did create it. But, if I discover that He has zero capacity in His character to create evil, then I can eliminate all possibility that He was the author of it. Not saying this spells out all the details of how evil entered the world, but it certainly eliminates God as the cause.
But before I even go to the character of God, it must be understood that I have already set in my mind how I am going to determine what the character of God actually is. And there lies the key to entire issue.
When your answer to the question is based on the Word of God, meaning, the 66 books of the bible (both Old and New Testaments,) the seemingly impossible problem of evil begins to disappear.
God’s Word tells us that some of His primary attributes make it logically impossible for Him to create evil.
Evil is the opposite of ‘just’. Evil is the opposite of ‘holy’. It’s also the opposite of ‘love’, ‘righteousness’, ‘goodness’ and many other attributes the scriptures teach about the character of God. Of course, the scriptures also teach us that God’s creation was created good, along with man being created ‘holy’ and free from sin. Satan introduced sin to mankind. Mankind partook in sin and the creation became contaminated with evil. But reading these portions of scripture must first be aligned with what the scriptures teach about God’s character.
We also must understand that the entity of sin was not a tangible creation. Sin originates with an intent from one’s heart. God made His angels and Adam and Eve with the freedom to select good or evil. His ultimate test of humanity was left to Adam and Eve and they failed miserably. Yes, God knew they would fall. Yes, He knew they would choose evil. But what Satan meant for evil, God meant for good. All seems to make sense right? :-))
The hard part isn’t reconciling God’s love and His allowing, even predetermining the fall of mankind. The hard part is believing with faith, the Word of God is truth, unquestionably and entirely. Anyone that disqualifies God’s goodness due to His permission and even use of evil to accomplish His purposes, must also deny the absolute truth and authority of scripture. The Word of God remains the only place the origin’s of evil can be explained and reconciled with an all powerful, loving God.
Once you accept the bible as the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, all problems work themself out. You can know that regardless of what evil is knocking at your door today, God did not create it - but He is controlling it for your good.
And here comes that question - ‘but why’? My answer - I have no idea. You could have caused it through your personal choices of sin. Or, God can be using it to do something in and for you.
In either case, will you trust Him? God loves you beyond comprehension, and because it’s impossible for Him to be cruel or unjust or anything contrary to His character, you can know He is for you and not against you. But you must trust Him completely.
Trusting God in the midst of encountering evil, not blaming Him, is your key to victory. We must never let what we don’t know about God’s purposes, ruin what we do know about His purposes. All His purposes are righteous and good. Put your full faith in Jesus Christ, the one who died to defeat evil, and trust in Him today regardless of what this day may have in store.
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