Ascent Blog

I just had to share this excerpt from the book I am currently reading (When Skeptics Ask by Geisler and Brooks) because it states very succinctly (and very well) the cause of evil.

What is the nature of evil? We talk about evil acts (murder), evil people (Charles Manson), evil books (pornography), evil events (tornadoes), evil sicknesses (cancer or blindness), but what makes all of these things evil? [...] Some have said that evil is a substance that grabs hold of certain things and makes them bad (like a virus infecting an animal) or that evil is a rival force in the universe. But if God made all things, then that makes God responsible for evil. The argument looks like this:

1. God is the author of all things.
2. Evil is something.
3. Therefore, God is the author of evil.

The first premise is true. So it appears that in order to deny the conclusion we have to deny the reality of evil (as the pantheists do). But we can deny that evil is a thing, or substance, without saying that it isn’t real. It is a lack in things. When good that should be there is missing from something, that is evil. After all, if I am missing a wart on my nose, that is not evil because the wart should not have been there in the first place. However, if a man lacks the ability to see, that is evil. Likewise, if a person lacks the kindness in his heart and respect for human life that should be there, then he may commit murder. Evil is, in reality, a parasite that cannot exist except as a hole in something that should be solid. [...]

In the beginning, there was God and He was perfect. Then the perfect God made a perfect world. So how did evil come into the picture? Let’s summarize the problem this way:

1. Every creature God made is perfect.
2. But perfect creatures cannot do what is imperfect.
3. So, every creature God made cannot do what is imperfect.

But if Adam and Eve were perfect, how did they fall? Don’t blame it on the snake because that just backs the question up one step; didn’t God make the snake perfect too? Some have concluded that there must be some force that is equal with God or beyond His control. Or maybe God just isn’t good after all. But maybe the answer lies in the idea of perfection itself.

1. God made everything perfect.
2. One of the perfect things God made was free creatures.
3. Free will is the cause of evil.
4. So, imperfection (evil) can arise from perfection (not directly, but indirectly through freedom).

One of the things that makes men (and angels) morally perfect is freedom. We have a real choice about what we do. God made us that way so that we could be like Him and could love freely (forced love is not love at all, is it?). But in making us that way, He also allowed for the possibility of evil. To be free we had to have not only the opportunity to choose good, but also the ability to choose evil. That was the risk God knowingly took. That doesn’t make Him responsible for evil. he created the fact of freedom; we perform the acts of freedom. He made evil possible; men made evil actual. Imperfection came through the abuse of our moral perfection as free creatures.

I will post next about the false conclusions people may derive when they read this. Like the authors say, evil may be allowed by God but it is not equal in power to God. Eventually, evil will be defeated even though it cannot be permanently destroyed – because eliminating evil would be equivalent to eliminating choice. Perhaps as the concluding word of wisdom, I would like to emphasize the fact that evil is simply the lack of good. It is not some force separate from goodness and godliness. Rather it is the binary complement of good in the same way that false is the complement of true. To choose between good and evil is to exercise our freedom!