God and Evil

[Belk]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Did, or did not, God create Evil? It was stated in a thread that God does not create evil. My understanding (admittedly limited) was that God was supposed to have created all things. This seems to include the idea that some things are Evil.

 

[Hentenza]

Hi Belk,

Evil is not a "thing". It has no form, structure, shape, or mass, therefore, it can not be "created". Evil is the absence of good. God created everything good, so He did not create evil. Good created beings, after creation, chose to do evil.

 

[Belk]

Hi Belk,

Evil is not a "thing". It has no form, structure, shape, or mass, therefore, it can not be "created". Evil is the absence of good. God created everything good, so He did not create evil. Good created beings, after creation, chose to do evil.

Hey Hentenza,

If Evil has no form and can not be created would not good be the same?

 

[Hentenza]

Good is what God said of His creation so good is the creation standard. Good is the bar by which evil is measured. Without good, evil does not exist, but without evil, good will still exist.

 

[drich0150]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Did, or did not, God create Evil? It was stated in a thread that God does not create evil. My understanding (admittedly limited) was that God was supposed to have created all things. This seems to include the idea that some things are Evil.

If sin is anything not in the will of God, and "Free will" by it's nature, will ultimately lead to sin. (Because if we only chose what was in God's will for us then we would really have "free will, because everything we did would be in God's will.) Then Evil can be described as the ultimate expression of "Free will." In that we are allowed to maliciously seek that which is not in the will of God.

So God by placing the tree of The knowledge of good and evil in the garden, He gave Adam and Eve an opportunity to seek a will of there own. (A will outside of what God wanted for them.) Then it makes him the Father of Free will, and all that is attached to it.. (Including sin and evil.)

Understand this is not the same as creating evil..

Remember when you take away the emotion of sin and evil you are left with two very simple definitions.

Sin, Anything not in the will of God

Evil, Is malicious intent to commit sin.

If it is in God's will to do something, it is not a sin.. If whatever he wishes to do is not a sin, then how can he have a malicious intent to do what is not in his will?

God can not make evil things happen, because by definition what ever he does is righteous. Not because we compare his works to a standard, but because he is the standard.

 

[Radagast]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Did, or did not, God create Evil? It was stated in a thread that God does not create evil. My understanding (admittedly limited) was that God was supposed to have created all things. This seems to include the idea that some things are Evil.

Try working with a better translation:

I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, ESV)

No, God did not create evil.

 

[packermann]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Did, or did not, God create Evil? It was stated in a thread that God does not create evil. My understanding (admittedly limited) was that God was supposed to have created all things. This seems to include the idea that some things are Evil.

For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Evil shall not sojourn with thee

Psalm 5:4


Here, this verse clearly means that God has nothing to do with evil.


In the verse you quoted (Isaiah 45:7), in the Greek Septuagint, the Greek word used for "evil" is kaka.

According to the TDNT, there are two definitions for this word.


adj 1) of a bad nature 1a) not such as it ought to be 2) of a mode of thinking, feeling, acting 2a) base, wrong, wicked 3) troublesome, injurious, pernicious, destructive, baneful.

Now it cannot mean #1 or #2, since that iwould contradict Psalm 5:4. God can never do wrong or something wicked. That leaves #3. God can cause something that is troublesome, injurious, or destructive. In fact we Christian believe that God does at time cause troublesome, injurious, or destructive events as punishment for the evil we ourselves performed.

Translating "evil" here to be trouble, injury, or destruction is shown in how the other English translations rendered this passage.


I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.
RSV


I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
NIV

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. God's Supreme Power
NASB

The only translation that translates the word as evil is the KJV which was written 400 years ago. Modern translators have a much better grasp of the original languages that the Bible was written. And these modern translators translate this word to be "woe", "calumnity" and "disaster".

 

[Belk]

If sin is anything not in the will of God, and "Free will" by it's nature, will ultimately lead to sin. (Because if we only chose what was in God's will for us then we would really have "free will, because everything we did would be in God's will.) Then Evil can be described as the ultimate expression of "Free will." In that we are allowed to maliciously seek that which is not in the will of God.

So God by placing the tree of The knowledge of good and evil in the garden, He gave Adam and Eve an opportunity to seek a will of there own. (A will outside of what God wanted for them.) Then it makes him the Father of Free will, and all that is attached to it.. (Including sin and evil.)

Understand this is not the same as creating evil..

Remember when you take away the emotion of sin and evil you are left with two very simple definitions.

Sin, Anything not in the will of God

Evil, Is malicious intent to commit sin.

If it is in God's will to do something, it is not a sin.. If whatever he wishes to do is not a sin, then how can he have a malicious intent to do what is not in his will?

God can not make evil things happen, because by definition what ever he does is righteous. Not because we compare his works to a standard, but because he is the standard.

Wow, that was a really good explanation, thanks. Combined with Radagast's post it looks like the passage I quoted can best be explained as a poor translation.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

If evil is defined as the absence of Good, then the fact God, as the Creator, allows the absence of Good in created beings does not make the statement that God created everything, including the possibility of the absence of evil (and the consequences of it) untrue.
We should have to acknowledge God could have made a world where only Good in created beings was possible, but am not sure how free choice of the will would be possible is such a world. In any case that is not the world we live in.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

<staff edit>.

Yes, the absence of good is the result of the Fall of Man or more precisely the action of a free will against Good.
Righteous anger is Justifed when people behave badly. That is true whether one is the Creator or just a person. The intent of God was clearly that beings should have free will, which includes the possibility they would choose to act against Good. True, He would not only know this was a possibility but also that it would happen.

However when discussing the actions of beings created with free will, it does not follow that the act (or consequences) of exercising that free will against Good is the intention of the Creator.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

<staff edit>

No. I said evil, which defined as the absence of Good, is the result of bad choices by beings given free will by their Creator. And absence is normally relative, IOW, a person can be evil or act that way but there still be some Good in them. It is like the difference between light and dark. Dark does not really exist, it is a relative expression of the absence of light.

<staff edit>

Sorry, may have said it poorly. My meaning was that God is certainly capable of creating a world where beings are not able to choose to act against Good. Then it would be impossible for such beings to "do evil". My point was I could not see how such beings could also have "free" will. That is not the world God made. In this world we are free to choose good or not.

<staff edit>.

I am not so sure we could conclude that. It would require knowing God was surprised by these acts of defiance (had no foreknowledge it would happen). Am not sure how or on what basis we could say that.
Also assumes God could not have made a world where beings did not have such choices. Even though I cannot understand how such a world would work if they also had free wills, on what basis do we know that God could not have done it? Lower animals do not have free will, so even though it seems beneath our diginity as intelligent creatures, I could not say it is impossible for God to create intelligent life without giving it free will. Am just not sure that would be a good thing.

Not omniscient, I think it is more correct to say this world, certainly less than ideal, is the best possible or else it would be some other way.
Saying not omniscient also implies God did not have a plan for this possibility, the possiblity that creatures He had given free will would act against Good. Not sure how to conclude that either, especially since most of the Bible deals with the expression of that plan. In the end of that plan, the world is restored to the former state it was created in, no evil.

 

[Emmy]

Dear Belk. God is Love, Satan is Evil, Love can NEVER be Evil, and Evil can NEVER be Love. God and Satan are adversaries, one the opposite of the other. Where God is there is Love, where Satan is there is Evil. Why all these many words? What will be theout come? No-one can call Love anything else BUT Love, and no-one can call Evil anything but Evil. God and evil do not go together, Satan and love do not go together. Jesus said: " unless you believe as children, you will not enter God`s Kingdom." What is more straightforward?? Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[packermann]

<staff edit>.

It should give the unbeliever pause not base an argument against Christianity on a passage that is open to many different ways of translating it. But go ahead, if it pleases you. If the best attack against Christianity is based on a translation that hardlly anyone uses anymore, it just shows how desperate the attackers of our faith are getting.

<staff edit>

No believer is saying that the translations are infallible, only the orginal manuscripts. The original manuscripts were written over 2 thousand years in languages that are considered "dead languages" - classical Hebrew and koine Greek. No one speaks them anymore. So we cannot just go over to Israel and Greece and ask them what these words mean. Words evolve. What a word means today can mean entirely different than what it meant thousands of years ago. You should understand that better than others since your logo is about evolution.

BTW, please read the rules on this posting in this section. There is supposed to be only one nonbeliever on this thread, the one who opened this thread. All the other contributors to this thread are supposed to be believer who respond to the one who opened this thread. You need to open your own thread and then we will respond to you.

This does not mean that the way we interpret the Bible is totally up for grabs. It means that when these translations differ, we need to accept the ambiguity of not knowing what the text exactly means. But when the translations all agree, which they do 99.99&#37; of the time, then there is a high degree of certitude that our translations are getting it right.

 

[ebia]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

The prophet, Isaiah of the Exile, isn't makeing a statement here about the nature of evil, but using poetry to talk about the way God accomplishes what he needs to accomplish through people like King Cyrus who don't even acknowledge him. To use it to deduce something about the nature of evil would be to ignore its context, its genre, and the fact that the (as pairs of complements) the word translated 'evil' has to be the complement not of love or goodness, but the complement or opposite of peace.

Biblical authors are much more concerned with the practical questions like "why is evil so pervasive?", "what are the consequences of evil?" and (most importantly) "what is God doing about evil?" than the academic question "what caused evil to exist in the first place?".

A really good discussion of the topic is +Tom Wrights' book "Evil and the Justice of God".

 

[newbeliever02072005]

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[Jpark]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Did, or did not, God create Evil? It was stated in a thread that God does not create evil. My understanding (admittedly limited) was that God was supposed to have created all things. This seems to include the idea that some things are Evil.

Before the Fall

Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Impact of the Fall

Genesis 3:22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever".

We should be cautious not to attribute to the pefect will of God or to acts of God those characteristics of our world that resulted from the ruin of God's original order by reason of man's fall.