One of the corollaries of “the problem of evil” is its origin. If God created everything good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and together it was very good (Gen 1:31), then how does one account for the presence (and prevalence) of evil? This presents a major issue for the Christian theology of creation, if God created everything, then who created evil?
In an attempt to protect God’s sovereignty, some have suggested that God created evil in the short term to bring about ultimate good in the long term, expanding on Romans 5:20 – “the law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more”. But only two chapters later, Paul defends the inherent goodness of the law – “so then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). God’s will expressed in the law shows us how bad we are, it is not the source of our rebellion.
Realising that we can’t hide behind the law, some have even tried to hide behind God himself as the ultimate cause of evil. Calvin translates Isaiah 45:7 as – “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things” (Calvin, Institutes I.17.viii). The trouble is that the word translated evil here, can equally mean “distress”, moreover, distress is to peace as darkness is to light – translating “distress” preserves the obvious parallelism. Unlike creating evil, creating trials and suffering for God’s good purposes is supported by the rest of the Bible (Genesis 50:20, Job 1-2, Romans 5:3-5, 1 Peter 1:6-7).
The danger in attributing the creation of evil to God, is that one can easily conclude that if God creates evil, then God himself is evil. The law of works states that a person’s (or being’s) character is inseparable from what they do, if what they are doing is evil then they cannot be wholly good and vice versa. This is even made known in popular culture in the movie Batman begins – “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me.” If God is the ultimate author of evil then he himself must be partly or at least at certain times, evil (i.e. when he’s creating evil).
So then who created evil? There is a problem inherent in the question, for evil is not something that’s created, it’s something that’s chosen. God didn’t create disobedience, it’s something that originated in the human heart (Gen 3:6). God created people with the ability to choose good and evil (Gen 2:16-17), but we are the ones who chose, God did not force our hand. Evil is created by our desires (James 1:15). Contrary to what Buddhism teaches, our desires cannot and should not be completely eliminated. Some of our desires are inherently good desires – for relationship, for well being, for the enjoyment of creation – but sin twists our good desires so that they give birth to evil, e.g. a desire for well being (self-interest) can lead us to step on other people to get what we want (selfishness).
Once we stop desiring the one who gives us all good things and set our desires on the things themselves, they become idols, and we become ungrateful children who spend our efforts trying to get more from our parents rather than making the most of our relationship with our parents. Such a child can hardly blame their parents for the ingratitude and greed that they themselves chose. Though most of us think that we’re good, this is the reality of our relationship with God, the very thing that we were created for.
The world is not inherently evil, but ever since the fall, the human heart has been. This is not to say that people are as evil as they can possibly be, but that we cannot draw a line and say “We’re the good and they’re the bad”, for the line between good and evil runs through every single human heart. Christians don’t (or at least shouldn’t) claim to be good people, but bad people that know that they’re bad. When G.K. Chesterton was asked “What’s wrong with the world?” He replied “Dear sirs, I am”. Christians believe that we are the authors of evil and God is the author of good. The line isn’t between the good and the bad, but between those who are humble enough to accept God’s forgiveness and those who are too proud to be saved by anyone other than themselves.
