The Nature of God — Did God Create Evil?

Since God created Satan this implies God created evil. How can a pure, good, and loving god create evil? If God is good, and God is righteous, why did God create evil? Does this make Him not good, or evil Himself?
The question presupposes evil exists as a quantifiable entity. Stay with us, as we’re not saying evil forces don’t exist, but we’ll need a bit of background before we arrive at the answer. Don’t make the error evil doesn’t exist, as it most certainly does, and those seeking to deny it become trapped in their own delusions. We’ll come back to the question in a bit, and you’ll find the answer becomes obvious.

First think of hot and cold — do they exist? Well, yes and no. Hot does exist, but cold really doesn’t, as the absence of heat defines cold. Cold as a physical quantity does not exist — what you experience isn’t cold, but a lack of heat.

That may sound like splitting hairs on a definition, but it’s crucial. You see, if cold existed as a quantity, absolute zero would not exist (absolute zero being the lowest possible temperature, roughly -273 Celsius, or -460 Fahrenheit). If cold existed as a physical quantity, by continually adding cold no lower bound of temperature would exist.

Thus, heat exists, cold really doesn’t — it’s only the absence of heat.

Likewise, consider light and dark. Similar to cold, darkness doesn’t really exist. If you’ve ever been in a cave or other completely dark situation, you know once it’s totally black, it can’t get darker — you’ve removed all the light, and what’s left is darkness. You can’t add “darkness” to make it blacker, all you can do is remove all the light.

So back to our original question — did God create evil? And the answer should be obviously no — the Bible says all creation was good, it later became evil. How did that happen? By ceasing to be good, Satan became evil. It’s not a quantity of evil added, it’s the removal (or rejection) of good which creates evil. “Pure” evil therefore, is the removal of all goodness, not a creation of God — rather it’s a choice of His creation.

Thus evil isn’t a real quantity, but evil forces do exist as they have chosen to reject God’s goodness.

Filed Under: Doctrine

Recommended Citation:
Yeager, Darrin "The Nature of God — Did God Create Evil?" (2023-11-23 14:45),
https://www.dyeager.org/post/nature-of-god-part5-did-god-create-evil.html
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