Yesterday I posted something on my Instagram story answering a question someone asked me. They inquired as to my ideas towards the idea of God creating evil. I’m SO glad they asked this as I semi-recently wrote an entire essay on this topic. A couple of you sent me DMs asking if you could read this essay, and therefore I decided to just post it on here so all of you could read it, if you wish. :) Quick backstory to how this all came about: for our final assignment in school this past semester, we were required to give a speech pertaining to any topic of our choice from the book, Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias. Clearly, I chose the matter of whether or not God created evil. I’m thankful I did as it provided me a good, practical reason to finally write down the thoughts I had been having about this subject over the entire year or so prior.
And when I say that I had been having previous thoughts about this topic, I mean it. I listened to someone present an entire senior thesis on the topic. I read several books that argued one way or the other for the emergence of evil. I had numerous conversations with friends and family members and was able to hear and compare their thoughts. I read Scripture, prayed, and, obviously, spent a lot of time pondering it for myself. And this essay is the final result of all that wrestling, thinking, and considering. I really hope you enjoy it and that it causes you to think more about this issue if you haven’t already. Thanks for taking the time to read this; you guys are the best! And without further ado, here is my essay about the origin of evil.
Sarah Reinertsen
Challenge 4, Classical Conversations
Reasoning, 4/18/19
The Emergence of Evil
In Ravi Zacharias’s book, Jesus Among Other Gods, we encounter many propositions and arguments that truly get us thinking. Ravi articulates in a way that really challenges you to deeply consider many Biblical truths that we as Christians sometimes tend to just gloss over. Throughout his many stories, examples, quotes, and other thoughts, he addresses six questions that Jesus answered whose topic no other religion parallels in response to. Throughout the book, we continually see examples of Christ’s uniqueness when compared to other religions. But every portion of the book isn’t solely about Jesus Christ. In one chapter in particular, Zacharias discusses the problem of evil and suffering, which many people tend to use as an argument against God’s existence or at least against His good character. They reason, “how could a good God create evil and allow it to exist?” Not only does Ravi talk about the ever-present effects of evil in our world, regardless of whatever religion we may follow, he also goes on to discuss the origin of evil along with a couple ramifications Christianity offers for its existence.
Reading this chapter was particularly intriguing to me as this past year I have been thinking quite a lot about whether or not I believe God created evil. While I had already come to my conclusion on this topic before reading this book, seeing such an influential writer, speaker, and apologist such as Ravi Zacharias not only address the matter of the origin of evil in great depth but also essentially agree with some of the very same thoughts I had been having prior to reading his book, was extremely affirming and enlightening to say the least. So, with all of this being said, this speech consists of my thoughts and conclusions as to why I believe God created evil, and I’ll be using some of the same arguments Zacharias mentions, along with a couple from C.S. Lewis as well.
So, first off, God must have created evil because we could not even begin to understand goodness without having it’s counterpart also in perspective. An argument made by C.S. Lewis on the topic of the creation of the universe applies perfectly to this point of evil having to exist in contrast with goodness. “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” In a similar regard, if we lived in a perfectly “good” world, we wouldn’t even know it or be able to appreciate goodness in any high regard without an awareness of what the alternative looked like. There would be no room left for the comprehension of badness if goodness was all we’d ever known and experienced. Good and evil would not even be terms to us. What’s more, how could we even try and comprehend God’s perfection if evil did not exist to display the opposite?
We need both good and evil to exist simultaneously in order to understand the depth of each of their essences. We wouldn’t know darkness if we had only lived in the light. This makes logical sense. However, most everyone who disagrees with the idea of God creating evil, believes this because they make the claim that an ultimately “good” or “perfect” God could not create that which is evil as this would be contradictory to His character. But many of these people don’t realize that this proposition is actually an even stronger explanation for God’s goodness and glory. Let me explain. God wants us to pursue Truth, as He knows it will lead us back to Him ultimately. He created us to be able to think and reason and wrestle with differing concepts. But how could we do so if we had no sense of morality? Of what’s right and wrong?
To quote Ravi Zacharias on this point, “If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil. But if a moral law exists, must not one posit an ultimate source of moral law?... [Ultimately] If evil exists then one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference.” In order to reason well, we must be able to understand and weigh both sides of an issue. We would have no concept of justice, virtue, consequence, or, most importantly, grace if we weren’t first aware of the reality of the two sides of good and evil. By creating evil and allowing it to dwell in this world, God explicitly and intricately designed a way in which, first of all, we could recognize just how good, perfect, and holy He is by seeing what the alternative look like displayed in evil. And then further be able to realize our need for Him in a fallen, wicked world in which we have no way of escaping or defeating evil on our own. We have to turn to God.
Believing that God created evil does not imply that He Himself is any less good. In fact, He is so good that He created a way in which we could comprehend what goodness is. But also, He isn’t just good. He is holy. He isn’t strictly constrained by the boundaries goodness, as we understand them by our human standards of morality. He is set apart from all that. Not saying God is bad or evil in anyway, but that because He is so holy He could create the alternative to goodness that would point us back to just how incredibly powerful and praiseworthy He is. To again quote Zacharias, “God is not merely good. This means that with reference to God, we are dealing with more than moral issues of right and wrong, pleasure and pain. We are dealing with a transcendent source of goodness that is opted for, not because it is “better” in a hierarchy of options, but because it is the very basis from which all differences were made…Holiness is not merely goodness.”
The next main point, which flows along nicely with the first, is that evil can’t exist before goodness. In fact, as odd as it sounds, evil actually is born out of goodness. Think about it this way: you can’t have a lie without first having truth because, by definition, a lie is a twist of that which is true. Similarly, wickedness distorts decency and virtue. But decency and virtue had to exist first in order to be distorted. You can’t have falsity, without first having fact. What this also implies is that God’s goodness must therefore be stronger than the subset of evil that can be bred out of it. That which is the original is stronger and purer than anything that is produced in succession. Evil can’t exist without first having some kind of virtue to distort. Evil is secondary and subordinate to the primary of God’s goodness and holiness. God’s holiness is always superior in this argument, regardless of the terrible damage evil causes in our world.
Finally, the alternative to this whole argument, of God creating evil, posits implications that are illogical and even contradictory to what the Bible teaches. We know from passages in Genesis and John that in the beginning God and His Word existed; never once do we read verses implying some other entity or being also co-existing before all time began. If evil somehow existed without God deliberately creating it, this would mean that not only has it been around for as long as God has, but it also would imply that evil is self-creating. If this were true, then suddenly essentially the whole message of the New Testament would be incorrect. It would mean Jesus didn’t truly defeat evil. It would mean His work on the cross was not sufficient and that it wasn’t truly “finished”. It would mean evil is just as powerful as God, if not more so. It would mean “in the beginning” God wasn’t alone.
If evil is self-creating and self-existing, God is not omnipotent. He suddenly ceases to be the source of all life and created things, and all Scripture describing His sheer power and authority are suddenly untrustworthy. Additionally, if evil can exist apart from God, His promise to one day completely destroy it can’t also be authoritatively true. For even if He did fully conquer it, if it’s self-creating, it will forever exist, regardless of being temporarily destroyed. As we can see, the argument for God having not created evil abounds in flaws and faulty implications when compared to the proposition that God did, in fact, create evil. We’ve already established that God having created evil does not make Him any less good. In fact, it actually points even more to Him being completely holy and completely perfect, seeing as He is powerful enough to create evil and yet righteous enough to conquer it.
So, in conclusion, evil must have originated from God’s hand because 1) we couldn’t understand good or evil or their distinction without first knowing they both existed, 2) evil is born out of that which is good and 3) the argument’s alternative makes less sense. God didn’t create us to be mindless robots. He wants us to think for ourselves, make choices, and ponder that which He has created. And the only way to fully recognize and appreciate who He is and what He has done is by being able to weigh the effects and consequences of evil versus goodness.
If He hadn’t allowed us to taste and experience how damaging and awful evil truly is, we would have no cause to recognize our need for Him and therefore no desire to know Him and be in relationship with Him. As C.S. Lewis brilliantly puts it, “A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world—and might even be more difficult to save.” What a terrifying thought… to live in a perfect manner apart from and completely unaware of our perfect Creator. But perhaps even more terrifying to believe... in the beginning was God…and something else.