This is a tough question for anyone to answer.  The Bible is pretty silent as to how or if evil was created.  Many anti-theists use this to try and say how bad God is.  So what does the Bible say on this topic?

I have come to the conclusion that God did create evil.  It took me many years to come to this conclusion and only through a great deal of mediation on God’s word.  I will try to answer several questions this conclusion will raise but let me first explain why I believe this.

There are other things that brought me to this conclusion, but there is one specific verse in Isaiah that supports this conclusion.  Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

In that chapter, Isaiah is quoting God and throughout the chapter He is talking about how He is in charge of all things.  He is in charge of the good and the bad.  He is the God of all things and there is nothing that is not under his power to change.

Many translations do not translate the word “evil” in that verse as evil.  That quote is from the King James Version.  They used it because that is the main meaning of the Hebrew word “ra”.  Out of the 351 times the word is used in the NIV, 190 times it is translated as evil, 24 times as wicked, and 23 times as bad.  Those are its top meanings.

So how does this work?  How can God be love and have created evil?

Let us remember that God is separate from His creation.  If He did create evil, He has not done evil, nor does He like it.

So why create it?

That is the million dollar question.  Why would God create evil?  I believe it is a part of free will.  Love has to be a choice or it is not love.  You cannot force someone to love you.  So God gave us a choice.  We can love Him and love others or we can choose the alternative.  God made that alternative, evil, so that we can love.  Without it, we are merely drones doing God’s bidding.  God did not want robots, He wants love from us.

So how can God blame us for doing evil if He created it?

This is a question that throws the blame of us doing evil into God’s lap.  This is not the case.  One cannot equate giving someone the capacity to do evil with making someone do evil.  God does not want us to do evil and has also given us the capability to resist evil.  God merely allows evil to exist.  He can and will destroy it one day.  Until then we are to resist it and choose love over evil.

Some may still not want to accept this answer.  Believing that God created evil for any reason at all may make people turn against God and consider Him cruel and mean.  However, let us consider again the words of Isaiah.  “Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’  Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?  Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to his mother, ‘What have you brought to birth?’” Isaiah 45:9-10

God is our creator and this is how He did things.  He knows more than I do, so I will accept His wisdom over mine.  Just because I may not fully understand how evil could be part of God’s loving plan does not mean that it is not or that it cannot be.  I cannot be expected to understand everything about God anymore than a dog can understand everything about humans.  We simply trust and obey.

Tags: Bad God, Bible?, Conclusion, Darkness, Dollar Question, Drones, God S Word, Hebrew Word, isaiah, King James Version, Love God, Mediation, Peace, Question God, Quote, Ra, Robots, Theists, Translate, Translations