Something is just not right. We read and hear how much God loves us, yet that love seems to be helpless in stopping the onslaught of evil in our world. “God is omnipotent, He’s sovereign, He’s in charge…” we reassure ourselves as we see many people experiencing terrifying destruction. As we look around, the question has to arise, if God is all of the above and He is good, why does evil even exist?

     As I discussed in my last post, God is love, so let’s start with that concept. Fortunately, we have the detailed description of love found in I Corinthians 13:4-7. Nestled in all the characteristics of love (and, thus of God) are the words, “it is not self-seeking” (NIV). Or, in other words, love (God) does not demand its (His) own way. Stop here and think for a minute. Since God doesn’t seek His own way, any “commandments” that God gave in the Bible were only motivated by love and were not given to satisfy any self-centered desire of God to rule over everything.  As he taught, one of Christ’s major goals was to correct the misunderstandings the human race had about His Father. In fact, he summed up all of God’s commandments into one word, “love”–love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself.

     I don’t know about you, but I have always believed that God is the Creator of everything seen and not seen (Ephesians 3:9). I also have believed that before He created anything, He was all there was. So, this is where I’m going to start with setting up the logic behind the existence of evil. Is it not true that if God was all there was, there would only be one way for created beings to exist–in Him, correct? As long as He was all there was,  there would be only one default setting (His way) and thus, because there would be no alternative settings, God would have to demand His own way. Well, having just one default setting would be contrary to God’s character, so He created a second setting before He created any beings. He created an alternative to Himself in order to give a real choice to His created beings.

     Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) tells of the creation of this alternative, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Not getting hung up on the verb tenses, let’s think about what this verse says. First, God forms or constitutes or makes up the light (this is a different light than sunlight–we’ll get into that in a later post). In other words, where God is, so is light. And, where light is, so is God. Because He is light, darkness would be the exact opposite of God; therefore, darkness became part of the other way. God also goes on to say in this verse that He is the One who makes the peace that comes through completeness–He is the author of real peace. And, finally, God states He is the One who created evil. This makes sense because as Jesus told the rich young ruler, only God is good and since the opposite of good is evil, the alternative to God had to be evil.

     Now, there are several other characteristics of God we need to consider. John 5:26 tells us that God has life in Himself meaning He is not dependent upon anyone or anything for His existence. As we’ve already discussed in my last post, God is love. Not only that, but the Psalms are full of references about God being the truth and Titus 1:2 clearly states that God does not lie. Finally, in John 4:24, Jesus said that God is spirit–there is nothing physical in God’s being. So, along with light and good, God’s character consists of  life, love, truth, and spirit.  Now,since the alternative that God created was in exact opposition to His characteristics, then instead of life, there was death; instead of love, there was hate; instead of truth, there was deception; and instead of spirit, there was physicality. So, to sum all this up, God equals light, good, life, love, truth, and spirit while the alternative to Him equals darkness, evil, death, hate, deception, and physicality.

     Let’s think about how God created this alternative. If I am in a room full of light, the way I make it dark is to turn off the light, correct? Wouldn’t it make sense that when God provided the second way, all He had to do was remove Himself from somewhere? Now, we know Psalm 91 talks about abiding in the Secret Place of the Most High, so let’s consider the analogy of  God being a place. Before He created the alternative to Himself, the Secret Place was the only place there was. By withdrawing Himself from an area, He was able to create a place where He was not present.

     When I was first working this logic out, it dawned on me that the alternative to the Secret Place of the Most High was the Wrath of God. When the Bible talks about God pouring out of His Wrath, the context is that the people involved chose to live in the alternative to God and the consequences always include darkness, evil, death, hate, deception, and physical harm. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the Wrath of God is not an emotion, but the dwelling place that is apart from God.

     Before I close, I want to make sure you understand that because God withdrew Himself to create evil, He has nothing to do with the evil in our world. Isaiah 54:15-17 (KJV) tells us that although He did create the alternative to Himself, anything that comes against us does not come at His hand. James 1:13-18 clearly states that God is not touched by evil nor does He use evil in any shape, form, or fashion. Yes, there is determined evil in our world, but it does not come from God.

     We are going to continue this discussion in the next few blogs. Tomorrow, in celebration of the 4th of July, I will be sharing about truth and freedom, then the next post will look at how the alternative to God–the place of darkness, evil, death, hate, deception, and physicality–became inhabitated.

     Please feel free to comment. Any comment that is disrespectful to anyone will be deleted.

 

     ©2009 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.