- Did God create evil? The Bible says that God is the creator of all things (John 1:3), but it also tells us that God is perfect, faithful, and just (Deuteronomy 32:4). So, how could a perfect God be responsible for evil?
- God is holy and knows no sin (Psalm 77:13). Thus, he could not create evil. God did, however, create a world where evil was a very real possibility; and he had a good reason for doing so.
- Evil is the result of God’s sovereign choice to create human beings with free will. God created us to know and experience a genuine love relationship with him, but to know this kind of love required that men and women have the free choice to say “Yes” or “No” to God. Sadly, we chose wrongly.
- In Genesis chapter 3 Adam and Eve, the original human pair, living in a paradise free of evil, chose to disobey God’s good plan for their lives. That first freely chosen act of disobedience had disastrous consequences, ushering evil into the world.
- The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:12 that because of the freely chosen disobedience of Adam and Eve sin and death entered the world. Furthermore, in Romans 8:21-22 Paul states that because of that original sin all of creation is “groaning” and waiting to be “liberated from its bondage to decay”.
- God did not create evil, but it also didn’t take him by surprise. God is sovereign over all of history (Isaiah 46:9-10). In his gracious love, and in his desire to have genuine relationships of love with his creation, God set a plan in place “before the creation of the world” that would ultimately see sin and evil defeated for all time (1 Corinthians 2: 7-9; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 21 & 22).
For more helpful answers on the problem of evil, please check out the CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students available in our online store.