Did God create evil?

[mle]

 

[mle]

Please read Isaiah 45:7(kjv) and you will see what I'm getting at with this question.

It is hard for me to imagine God creating evil but Gods ways are higher than mine and His thoughts higher than my thoughts. I have been searching to know God in this matter. There is no evil in God himself, so how could He create evil?

I believe that God did create evil because He is the Creator. No other has the power to create. God created Lucifer. He chose to turn away from God along with the other angels who went with him and the became Satan and his demons.

I think it is important not to debate whether God created evil directly or indirectly, unless it is backed by the word of God with scripture reference, please.

Other bible versions refer to evil as disaster in this passage of scripture. Is disaster the same as evil? Perhaps, evil in simplicity, is the absence of God.
What do you think of this part of scripture and the other thoughts I've had in relation to it?

I'm so happy that I've asked for your help. I have changed my opinion because of the teaching I have recieved from you.

In God's creation, He made free will. In turning away from God or the absence of God there is evil. God did not need to create evil for it to exist.

I am preparing to put together, from your posts, a small presentaion to my home group on this subject, for Thursday night. If there is anything else that you think should be communicated, please let me know.

Thanks and blessings to you all!

 

[I'm4Him]

He formed evil but He gave us a free will to do what we would with it....

 

[victoryword]

He formed evil but He gave us a free will to do what we would with it....

I would have to disagree with the implications made in your understanding of Isa. 45:7. In that passage God is speaking about SENDING calamity upon an enemy. It is not in referencing to God "forming" (creating, inventing) moral evil.

Moral evil is not a CREATION, it is a PERVERSION. It requires no creative abilities to bring about evil. All one needs is to know what is good and do the opposite. This is what Satan did. God did not create Satan. He created a beautiful arch angel. The archangel had free will and was able to choose to be different from all that is good. Because of this, that archangel later became a satan.

If God created evil then man is not truly free. Having free will shows that we can choose good or choose to do the opposite of what God has revealed as good.

God makes it plain and clear in His Word that He is NOT the source of moral evil:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (1 John 2:16)

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man .... Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1:13, 17)

And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. (Jer. 32:35)
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There is a difference between the artist who creates a beautiful sculpture and the person who takes the artist's sculpture and damages it. One takes creativity, the other takes no real skill at all.

There is no creativity involved in doing evil. Just simply do what is not right. Why would someone thing that doing what is not right a "thing" that must be created?