Where did evil come from?

WOW - I love it when you guys get in to these discussions - a little confusing - but nonetheless interesting...

 

The study of the origins of evil is called Theodicy.
God is omnipotent and benevolent and has ordered all that ever comes to pass.
If He sovereignly and providentially controls all things in His created universe, how is He not the author of evil? How can evil exist in the world? How do we justify the actions of God in causing evil, suffering, and pain?
These are the questions the study of theodicy tries to answer.

We can learn a little about the original creation from Romans 8 and God’s plans.

God has great things planned for His children. Great and glorious things. Much better than if we didn’t suffer through this present day of evil.

Rob

 

Sure we can. God created persons, not puppets. He didn't want mindless autonomotons who are forced to follow him. He wanted persons who would follow him out of a choice to do so. </font>[/QUOTE]mans natural choice is not to seek God in anyway.
man in his depraved state is an enemy to God.
mans choice is conditioned by his enslaved will to sin.
God seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and truth.
it is God who has mercy on those He draws.
i hope this helps

 

I disagree. All men are inborn with the desire to have an understanding of their creator. However, wanting to understand our creator and doing his will are two different things. Man's inhierent state of depravity drives us towards wanting to do our will over God's regardless of whether we want to know him or not.

 

Darkness is the absence of light.

Evil is the absence of goodness.

 

I disagree. All men are inborn with the desire to have an understanding of their creator. However, wanting to understand our creator and doing his will are two different things. Man's inhierent state of depravity drives us towards wanting to do our will over God's regardless of whether we want to know him or not. </font>[/QUOTE]scripture disagrees with you and i am not surprised.

Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

it is obvious that sinners do not want to know Him or seek Him or believe in Him. man doesnt understand unless God draws him.

 

john6:63
Johnv
Pastor Larry

 

I theorize that God made evil just like He made good.He gave us the ability to choose.To choose you must have something to choose from.I know this sounds simplistic but what other thought can you go to from here.It is obvious there was evil before man.God is the creater of all things.He doesn't want us to choose evil,but he doesn't want mindless robots either.Forgive my spelling please.

 

See, now we are getting into things I don't understand yet.Thank you for trying to clear them up for me.But it still boils down to God being the beginning.This seems to make me think that nothing existed before God created it.If God is the creator of all things,How could He not have created evil?I do believe that saten introduced evil to this world by tempting Eve.But if God didn't create evil,why did Lucifer buck the system?If evil wasn't already there he wouldn't have had those feelings of pride and jealosy.I know you are trying to explain all of this but in my immature christian mind what I am saying makes sense.

 

Glorybound said:

God created Lucifer with the ability to choose to go against God. But this does not make God the author of evil. Besides, we are talking about evil as though it is a thing in itself. Evil does not exist on its own, as several posters have pointed out. Evil is sin. So we have to ask, is God the author of sin? Never!

Sin is that which acts against God; it is the corruption and/or absence of good. Sin/evil exists through actions. Unless you think God forced Lucifer to rebel or that God made Adam and Eve disobey him (which I assume you don't), then God is not the author of sin/evil. He created Lucifer and man, but he did not force us to sin.

 

I agree,God does not force us to sin,but we have the choice to do so if we want to follow our carnal minds.What I am asking is how did Lucifer know to choose if there wasn't already something to choose from?

 

If Lucifer had the free will so that he could choose to worship God or to rebel against him, that rebellion and choice would be within his own self. Nothing had to be presented to him. Since only God is without sin and holy, any creature with free will would have to have some kind of ability to choose to go against God, and that is what Lucifer did. That's my best shot at this, I think. (We need a thinking graemlin!)

 

God is the prime mover. He is omniscient (all-knowing/ever-knowing)

He created Lucifer with the ability to rebel and would have know that Lucifer would rebel.

God is not the author of evil or sin but can use it towards His ultimate glory.

Rob

 

God being all knowing certainly knew the heart of Lucifer long before Lucifer rebelled. But God also saw the fall of Adam and Eve and sinful mankind as well.

Now God could have have prevented all this, by not even creating old slew foot. But he chose not to. But God wanted man and the angels to see the hideousness of what sin brings and so ALLOWED the devil and sin to enter into the world. He wanted men and the angels to love him FREELY and not out of not knowing why is is much wiser to do so.

God has a permissive will and a unchanging one as well. Someday, all creation will be in harmony once again and all creation will rejoice in the love and grace of God upon us all. We should be on our faces thanking him he even has given us another chance at all, when he could have obliterated us from existence. Oh the marvelous grace of God.

 

Well said Ronald!

Much better than my lame attempt!

Rob

 

I know I keep posting on this topic but that's because I keep thinking about it and adding little layers to my thoughts on it.

It has occurred to me that the question itself, "Where did evil come from?" is faulty, because it is assuming that evil exists as a thing in itself. It's like asking "Where did blindness come from?"

And another problem is the word "evil." What we mean by that from a Biblical view is "sin." So the question really is, "Where did sin come from?" And the answer cannot be that sin came from God.

God cannot be the author of any evil or sin. "Evil" was not somewhere lurking around like a shadowy figure. The desire to have God's glory came from Lucifer, and the willingness to give in to temptation and disobey God came from Adam and Eve's choice to do so.

God knew all this would happen, but that does not make him the creator or author of sin. If he was the author of sin, he could not be the God of 1 John 1:5: "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all." The holy God who cannot abide sin is the One I know and worship.

Okay, I'm repeating myself a bit, but I'm putting it down in a more systematic way, I think.

 

But these evil things are either sin or the result of sin, or the result of the Fall, which, in effect, is the result of sin.

Under evil, the first thing you have is:
"The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness."

That is the same as sin.

The 2nd thing you have is:
"That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction"

If a person or persons are causing these things, that would be sin as well. If it's a natural disaster causing the harm or destruction, like a hurricane, then that comes from the fallen world, and the world fell because of sin (see Gen 3 and Rom 8).

The 3rd thing you have is:
"An evil force, power, or personification"

In the Christian worldview, there is no "evil force." Satan might be called a personification of evil, but that would make him sound unreal and abstract. A lot of people who do not believe Satan is real say he is the personification of evil. Satan is actually a creature, and he is evil, but he's that way because he rebelled against God and continues to rebel and go against God.

The last thing under evil you have is:
"Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice. In an evil manner."

Okay, we're back to either people causing the suffering, injury, destruction, poverty, or injustice or these things resulting from natural disasters or faulty economics. But all are the result of the Fall of man. It was Adam's sin that brought all this about, so we're back to sin as the source of all this.

So if evil and sin are not exactly the same, we could still say that sin is the cause of evil, if you want to say the above things are evil and not sin.

It was a good point to bring up.