Did God Create Evil?
It's a question I asked
myself when I was a believer. I mean if
God created everything, then surely He must have created all things human, too,
right? He created Satan who is supposed
to be pure evil (what's a good story without an antagonist?).
Yes, supposedly, the angels
had free will. And, yes, they rebelled
against God during the Heavenly Civil War.
But, I submit that God, if omnipotent, created evil or at least allowed
it to exist; not to mention that, if omniscient, knew it was going to
happen. Complicated, eh?
Many times during my 'chats'
with believers, I will ask "Did your god create evil?"
And almost every one will
say, "No." They give several
variants of 'man created evil by____________ (fill in the blank).
When I remind them that the
Bibles says it in black and white, they then throw various excuses at me. From, the interpretation of the Hebrew word
'rah' which is where the descriptors evil, chaos, devastation, etc. come from.
To, God is a good god and wouldn't create evil. And, everything in between.
Yesterday, I was accused of
not being a good enough Bible scholar. That's a new one for me.
Here it is in Isaiah 45:7
KJV (Cambridge Ed.)
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
So, there it is. Black and
White.
So, I ask you, gentle
reader, what's it to be? Study a bit
more or read it directly from the Bible as written?
If the Bible in the inerrant
word of God and can't be changed by man, then the believer has no excuse to
deny, 'Did God create evil?'
Walk the Path in Grace
Well biblically the origins of evil are very very vague with Satan only mentioned a handful of times in the Old Testament and mostly acts at the behest of God. It's on the in the New Testament that we meet a Satan who appears as a separate entity opposed to the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus' exorcisms are the front-line of this confrontation so to speak. Therefore, the origins of evil, biblically speaking, are purely a matter for interpretation of text. As to those saying that you are not being a good enough biblical scholar...well if they believe that the Bible is the Word of God that has not and can not be changed by man then just remind them that the New Testament alone, as we have it today, is pieced together from over 6000 fragments and copies of texts, all of them different in some way to each other. There are no two early copies of any New Testament text that are exactly alike...are all of these then the Word of God...or are some imperfect?
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