Did God create evil / sin?
A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?"
A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"
"God created everything?" The professor asked.
"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."
The student became quiet and did not answer the professor's hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question, professor?"
"Of course", replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"
The other students snickered at the young man's question.
The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."
The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color.
You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."
Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man's Inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil".
So evil is the result of what happens when we CHOOSE to draw away from God. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light. The Bible tells us that God ALONE is good (Matt. 19:17) and all goodness comes from God (James 1:17). This means that there is no place where true goodness can be found unless God is there. But suppose there is no goodness present, what is it that remains? Evil remains! Where goodness exists evil cannot exist, but as soon as good is gone, immediately all that is present is evil. So we can understand why God is referred to as “light.” When God’s spirit is present and God is in control, sin cannot remain. It is only when God’s spirit is withdrawn, when God is not in control that sin can appear. Sin is in essence simply the condition which arises with the absence of God. It is that other side which manifests itself whenever the presence of God is withdrawn.
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There is no such thing as abstractly a principle of good, and a principle of evil; God is the only good, and choice of separation from God is the only evil. This truth Jesus expressed when the young man came to Him, saying, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” and Jesus answered, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” In God, the only good, lies inherently all conceivable good or goods; and in choice of separation from God lies inherently all conceivable evil or evils. In the original choice of Lucifer to exercise his existence, his faculties and powers, apart from God, there lay all the evil that has ever been or that can ever be. He thus became the very prince of evil; the author of all the evil that the universe can ever know. – AT Jones
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