If God created everything, how is it that God didn’t create evil?
An “illustration of this is the difference between light and darkness. Light actually exists. There are waves and particles; there is such a thing as light, but there is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is simply a lack of light.” - Ligonier
- 255 views
These kinds of answers don't really seem that helpful. It may be true that evil is not a thing like good, but the fact that God created everything still compels us to ask how exactly he is not responsible for the presence of evil.
Responsible is a somewhat difficult word. The confessions usually use language like “not the author of.” But in a sense He is ‘responsible.’ When you create a world where it’s possible for good to fail to exist/to be distorted into not-good, you are in that sense responsible for its existence.
The Augustinian answer tends to not feel satisfying, partly because we see evil so often in active ways. It our experience, it doesn’t seem like the absence of something. But I do not know of a better answer than that one, and setting perceptions aside, it makes sense. If you create an environment where people are free to turn the lights off, they may decide to ‘create darkness.’ You didn’t create the darkness, but you made it possible.
It’s logically possible to have good with no possibility of evil—like you can have a room with lights and no switches. But a demonstration of “the praise of the glory of His grace” is not possible in such a world. So God did not make that world. He made this one. … and we have both good and not-good (aka ‘evil’).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Perhaps check out this excellent article in the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal - see here.
Aaron Blumer wrote: But I do not know of a better answer than that one, and setting perceptions aside, it makes sense. If you create an environment where people are free to turn the lights off, they may decide to ‘create darkness.’ You didn’t create the darkness, but you made it possible.
Yes, I agree that there's not a better answer. Last Wed I read Charles Hodge responding to objections to the divine decree. He essentially says that God is holy and good and evil exists, so it must be compatible. He's not wrong, but that's not an answer or explanation, either. It's just another one of those areas where we don't have the ultimate explanation.
pvawter wrote: He’s not wrong, but that’s not an answer or explanation, either. It’s just another one of those areas where we don’t have the ultimate explanation.
How is it not an answer or explanation?
I don’t see it as a fully satisfying answer, but this has more to do with our defects as humans than to the inadequacy of the answer.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
It's not an answer because it merely asserts that God's goodness and wisdom are compatible with the presence of evil without explaining how that can be so.
I guess “all alternatives would be impossible” (because, by definition, voluntary goodness and impossibility of evil can’t coexist) isn’t really ‘how’ either… more like ‘why.’ But I’m not seeing a huge gap between the why and how. I understand why many would, I think. But with the ‘why’ understood, the ‘how’ seems moot. There doesn’t seem to be a problem to solve anymore.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Discussion