Did God create evil?
Read Dave’s answer
Answer 1
No.
If there were no evil, there could be no good. As The Book of Mormon states, “There must needs be opposition in all things.” Philosophically, we can only know a thing by what it can be contrasted with.
When we say that God is the Father, that means, in our limited understanding, that we are likening God to what we know of fatherhood. Are fathers responsible for the evil their offspring do? Only if the father is a tyrant and orders the offspring to do evil.
We, however, have free will - it is a gift of God.
To argue otherwise is irrational when there are so many examples of dramatic change in individuals based on no identifiable stimuli EXCEPT that the individual says they made a choice, and so much variability in response to seemingly identical stimuli.
Thus, since there is no evidence that God created evil, to believe He did is to accept the premise of a God who loves evil, which is irrational on its face.
It is far more logically consistent to accept the premise that certain things we take for granted have always existed and are co-eternal with God. In other words, they have no beginning or end. Such things as good, evil, logic, error, light, darkness, and so on.
Thus, God is not the Father of Evil, even if He is the spiritual father of beings who do evil.
Answer 2
Only if you assume that there is nothing that is co-eternal with God, and thus God created EVERYTHING but himself.
Personally, I believe our understanding of eternity is severely limited while we’re in a fallen, human state of being, but that the essence of each living being is co-eternal with God. Creation is, roughly speaking, the process of taking something in one state and causing it to progress into another better (“possessing more good”) state.
Thus, good and evil exist and have always existed as core concepts independent of God. They are, like God, uncreated. Same with our essence as intelligences, or agents of free will.
Once you posit the eternal existence of good and evil and agents of free will, with God as the Supreme moral agent of perfect good and the perfect Creator, then the question of evil no longer requires convoluted explanations. God created Earth to allow His spirit children (us) to have a place where good and evil choices (and their respective consequences, short term or long term) were available for us to experience, observe, and learn from. The ultimate objective of life on earth is to learn good from evil so we can learn to always choose the good and thus become more like God, our Creator and Loving Father in Heaven.
Answer 3
Because most people are not aware of the premises they accept as true, and therefore never question their premises.
In this case, someone might uncritically accept these two premises (among others): PREMISE #1: God must be good. PREMISE #2: God must have created everything that exists except God Himself.
One can then reason from these premises that:
- Evil exists.
- Evil must have been created.
- It is axiomatic that no good creator would create evil.
- Therefore, no good creator exists.
Critical thinking quickly identifies the problem as PREMISE #2 by reasoning backwards from PREMISE #1 as follows:
- God is good.
- Evil exists.
- Therefore, God must not have created evil. Evil must simply exist, as a requisite opposite of good. In other words, good would not exist if there were no evil, since a thing can only be known by contrast and comparison with an opposing thing.
- If God is good, God must know evil without being evil or ever choosing evil, since whatever God chooses is good.
- Since evil exists on this earth, then God must not have made the choice to introduce evil on earth. God could have allowed another independent being to make the choice to introduce evil into this world.
- All of the above is consistent with the story of Adam and Eve. Whether that story is literal or figurative, it is remarkable in its philosophical insights about good and evil and how man was created to know the good from the evil in order to learn to choose the good.
In summary, people believe God created evil because:
- they choose not to believe in the God of good and perfect righteousness, and therefore adopt premises consistent with their choice;
- they misinterpret scripture consistent with their choice, attributing to God any defects in language or interpretation; or
- they lack the critical thinking skills to identify their cynical choices as premises they freely adopt, thinking instead that there is no other way of thinking about things than the way they think.