Where does Evil Come From?

[TDickensheets]

Gen 6:5 [Today's English Ver]
When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Evil comes from God's permissive will...it is not what He wanted, but it is what He allowed to come into His creation.

 

[Emmy]

Dear WillHDearborn. God is Love, and everything not Love is Not from God.
I believe it is fair to say: "Where there is No Love, Evil develops, and thrives."
God is Love, Jesus died for God and for Mankind out of Love, and we are made in God`s image. We are very able to be loving and kind, but being surrounded by endless temptations in this imperfect world, our Love withers. But we need not dispair or even lose hope, because Jesus has promised to give us his Love and Joy, and the Holy Spirit will empower us with His Love, also. Jesus told us to "Ask and ye will receive," ( Matthew 7, verses 7-8) then we thank God, and keep sharing all Love and Joy with our neighbour.( all we know and all we meet, friends and not friends) We keep asking, and thanking God, and sharing
all with our neighbour. ( Matthew 22, verses 35-40) God will see our efforts, and God will know that we Love God, because we are following God`s Commandments.
Strong`s Exhaustive Concordance Of The Bible, tells us that Satan`s Origin
is unknown, and we know that Satan and his followers are all Evil.But we may be sure that Evil rules, where love is unknown. I say this with love, Will.
Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

 

[asiyreh]

Evil is simply the opposite or the negligence of God's will. I always find it has unforeseen consequences. As a Christian pastor once said (his name escapes me at the moment) - Evil always takes you further than you want to go and makes you spend more than you want to spend. Always seems to be the case, have you ever noticed that?

 

[Peripatetic]

I didn't read through the five pages of replies, but here is how I see it:

Loving and being loved is pleasing to God.
God created people in order to love them and to be loved by them.
There is no love without choice (ie. robots and puppets don't love).
There is no choice without an alternative anti-love option.

God is all-knowing and has awareness of anti-good (ie. evil) concepts and behaviors.
He is sovereign and all-powerful. He can prevent or allow evil to exist as he wills.
God allowed evil to present in Heaven and gave free will to angels (temporarily, with restrictions).
Satan and the fallen angels were given permission to influence the Earth (temporarily, with restrictions).
God gave people free will in order to have the capacity to love.
Some people choose Satan's evil path and the world has been corrupted.

If we believe in God's sovereignty, it cannot be denied that evil is a component of His perfect will. This plan for humanity is beyond our comprehension, so we simply need to trust Him. It's like a very young child who doesn't understand how the world works, or why his parents often tell him to do things that seem scary or confusing. He trusts... and so should we.

 

[asiyreh]

Prof. William lane craig has a good answer for this one.

Evil as I said is the negation of God's will however it has no substance in of itself.
An example in physics would be cold. It has no substance in of itself, it is simply a lack of heat.

Simples... Ahh I love William can't wait to meet him in heaven.

Every Christian should watch a WIlliam Lane Craig debate btw.

Image the knowledge and authority in the Words of Christ when he can make a creature like Willie.

Praise to our Lord.

 

[PureDose]

“Satan brings evil to this world.”“God gave us free will to choose a life following Jesus and to let him worry. To live in his light and behold the wonders that God has created. There are those who will choose another path and bring evil into this world.” That is what I got from him. I understand that Jesus is the real path to God but it still doesn’t answer my question “where does evil come from?” if we bring it into the world where from? From Satan? If he brings it into this world where did he bring it from? This made me think terrible thoughts like “who gives Satan the power to be Evil or bring it into this world?” or “if we bring it in to this world why would God allow this?”

What... you studied Law and have this pressing question, but have not studied Scripture? So, then you go from place to place, and you will not get the answer.

I think your question is wrong, as well, and if you insist that what your real question is can be simply summed up as "who brought evil into the world", then you will never be able to jerry rig any answer into that.


Job is a good place to start. For one. Jesus and Paul and the Apostles speak quite a bit on evil. God reminded Moses - which God had clearly already well taught Moses - that it is He who makes people mute or able to speak. Yet, Jesus pointed out that those He healed were prisoners of Satan. In another place Jesus points out that when He was healing people He was forgiving them of their sins, "Which is easier to say, you be healed or your sins are forgiven... to show you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins on earth, your sins are forgiven" And the man was healed.


Jesus pointed out that He would send the Spirit of Truth to all who believed Him and the Spirit would lead you into all truth.

Above all, it is said "Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil".


If you are arguing, by inference - a tricky way to argue - that God created Satan, why not just blurt that out. God did create Satan. Paul pointed out because of the wickedness of men, God put over them a depraved mind.


Maybe it is just that you do not have the questions to ask.

Maybe, you want to shoehorn the answers into very particular areas.


There is a great amount of evil in the world, but it is also not like what you think. There are countless angels behind the scenes protecting people from too much evil. What one sees someone go through, and what they go through are two very different things.

You have to start with your own reality and your own troubles which have come to you. That is objective reality.


The Book of Job really is a starting place in all of this. It is not the most easy to understand book, but it is not so difficult that a student of the law could not understand it.

I do not feel comfortable going forward, unless you have or can admit you have read this book and understand the general message and concepts. That would be like going to a second semester material, when you are just on the first.


If this is not correct, then please come forward with your understanding and findings, and please refrain from speaking the words of some nobodies you met on the street.


I am not trying to be harsh here, but simply I feel I must be blunt.

 

[Matthew247]

Evil is more like the absence of Good. One main question I asked a friend of mine today was "How did the angels and Lucifer become 'evil' so to say? I mean, all there was was good and God, no evil. But some how they rebelled and were cast down". I also noticed their is no definite story as to how they fell. There are only references here and there. Like when Jesus said in Luke 10:18 "I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning". But there is no specific story as to the happening. Evil is what accumulates when we choose to deviate from good.