Did God create evil?

[weatherlover427]

Did God create evil?

At a certain college, there was a professor with a reputation for being tough on Christians. At the first class every semester, he asked if anyone was a Christian and proceeded to degrade and mock their statement of faith.

One semester, he asked the question and a young man raised his hand when asked if anyone was a Christian. The professor asked, "Did God make everything, young man?" "Yes he did, sir," the young man replied. The professor responded, "If God made everything, then God made evil, and if we can only create from within ourselves, then God is evil." The student didn't have a response and the professor was happy to have once again proved the Christian faith to be a myth.

Then another man raised his hand and asked,
"May I ask you something, sir?" "Yes you may," responded the professor. The young man stood up and said, "Sir, is there such thing as cold?" "Of course there is, what kind of a question is that? Haven't you ever been cold?" The young man replied, "Actually, sir, cold does not exist. What we consider to be cold, is really only the absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but cold does not really exist. We have only created that term to describe how we feel when heat is not there."

The young man continued, "Sir, is there such thing as dark?" Once again, the professor responded "Of course there is." And once again, the student replied, "Actually, sir, darkness does not exist. Darkness is really only the absence of light. Darkness is only a term man developed to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally, the young man asked, "Sir, is there such thing as evil?" The professor responded, "Of course. We have rapes, and murders and violence everywhere in the world, those things are evil." The student replied, "Actually, sir, evil does not exist. Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is a term man developed to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn't like truth, or love, which exist as virtues like heat and light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light."

The professor had nothing to say.

[coriolis]

Joshua, an exellent post like that deserves a response!

[Rainband]

TWO!!! even

[mf_dolphin]

Goes to show that truth does win out! Sometimes it just takes time!

[breeze]

Good one, Josh!

[Stephanie]

I hope he aced that class! That post gives you alot to think about. Thanks for sharing it!

[GulfBreezer]

I don't think I have ever read words that were more true and yet so simple! God is all that is good in this world, we create our own evil because we have learned to abuse the gift of free will that God gave us. Thanks for sharing such a beautiful set of words!!

[WidreMann]

Actually, evil does exist just as much as good does. In fact, good should really be described as the lack of evil. Evil is the breakdown of normal order, the damage to natural workings of the universe. When all is restored, all you have is a world that is no longer evil.

[WidreMann]

And God did create evil then. Even if we are the ones perpetrating evil, he created us, he gave us the ability to do evil and moreover, he set events in motion that would make us do evil. The fall was orchestrated by him, and so too has every other evil event in the history of the universe been.

[coriolis]

That's an interesting way to look at it Widremann. I'm still thinking about that. I know God gave us free will so that we could choose to return His love.
Humans have to have free will or else we'd be "robots." I think that free will made evil doing possible, and maybe even inevitable. I kind of think that the fall made the redemption possible, and possibly the fall was necessary so that the redemption could happen.

Being a parent gives me some perspective. When my kids do something sponaneously good, just out of love, it is rewarding. I think that some insight into Gods ways can be had by the analogy of the parent/child relationship.

[southerngale]

Thanks for sharing that Josh. I'm glad someone finally set that professor straight. It is sad that we have professors like that out there teaching kids though. What a terrible example he is!!

[WidreMann]

What's really annoying about this is that Christians turn around and do the exact same thing. But it's okay because it's Christian.