Who has not come across Siri, the Apple software, the “woman in the iPhone’, who replies to you when you ask her where the next restaurant is? Imagine she suddenly says to you, “I love you!” Would you find that nice?
Imagine a robot sitting next to you, putting his arm around your shoulder, and saying, “I like you!” Would you be moved? I think you can easily imagine how embarrassed you would be if that happened. These nice sentiments from Siri and the robot would not stir feelings of happiness in you. You know very well: “The software is only programmed; it has to say that.” And that’s why you cannot take these expressions of affection seriously. If “I love you” is to mean what it says, it must be voluntary and from the bottom of the heart. Right?
These examples are helpful when examining the question of whether God has created evil. The Bible says that God seeks people who worship him (see John 4:23). In other words, God does not seek robots, who only honor him because they’ve been programmed to do so. He is looking for people who thank him from their hearts and love him because they want to.
God created man with his own responsibility
This is why God has given man responsibility. We are responsible for making the right decisions regarding Him. Man can say “No” to what God says in His Word and choose instead to go the wrong way.
This is exactly what the first humans, Adam and Eve, did — unfortunately! Because they could not resist the temptation to do evil, they overstepped the only command God had given them. This is how sin came into the world — and also its terrible side effects, such as envy, pride, selfishness, and greed. And even worse, due to sin, death came, too. Death remains a dreadful reality, even today, and though man tries his very best to put it off, it remains a reality: every unsaved person must die one day. And why? Because every person is a descendant of Adam and, therefore a sinner. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome explains this: “Therefore, just as through one man [i.e., Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Through sin, man swapped his freedom to obey God for inner estrangement from God. Since then, the love of the truth has been swamped by an openness to falsehood and lies. As a result of sin, man cannot live in happy fellowship with God anymore. He does not even want to do so, as the Bible says:
“you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:40); “men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19); “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7); “now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father” (John 15:24).
This makes it clear that it’s not God who is guilty of the evil in this world but man who decides to be evil. What right do we have to accuse God of creating evil if it’s the result of us deciding to go against Him?
Is God the source of evil?
God says of Himself in the Bible that He is “perfect” (see Matthew 5:48). There’s no evil in him. Therefore, it’s impossible that He could have created evil. The Bible tells us of perhaps the first sin ever committed: Satan (the devil), the angel of God, fell because he decided to go against God and sinned (see. Ezekiel 28:15–19 and Isaiah 14:13–14). It was Satan, too, who seduced Adam and Eve to sin. He promised them everything under the sun — just as he’s done people ever since; they fell for it and sinned. This is how evil came into the world in the first place. From that day forward, sin has been in every single person; since then, none of us has been able to live without sinning (see Romans 5:12). But Satan, as well as humans, were not created as evil beings. Still, both ignored their responsibility to obey God and sinned against Him as the One with absolute authority. Sin, therefore, did not come into the world as the result of any action by God but because our ancestors disobeyed Him.
For example, God says in the so-called Ten Commandments, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). So, who is guilty of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps at Auschwitz? The one who prohibited such violence and cruelty, or the one who decided not to listen to God and acted evilly instead? It is not for men to make God responsible for the things they did themselves.
Do we want to lay the blame on God?
Why do we ask whether God created evil? Does it have something to do with the peculiar tendency we can observe in ourselves when we sin? It was because of what the other person did. Right? “He started it” is something children very often say when they do something wrong and get into trouble for it. We always want to shrug off responsibility, and therefore guilt, as quickly as possible. When God wanted to call Adam to account after the Fall, he said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Eve, in turn, blamed someone else, too, “The serpent [the devil] deceived me, and I ate” (v. 13).
If we ask where evil comes from and put God in the dock for it, we are no better than the first couple, Adam and Eve. And it’s interesting to note that God spoke of this “blaming others” many centuries ago: “The foolishness of a man twists his way, and his heart frets against the Lord” (Proverbs 19:3). I have no right to put the responsibility for my misfortune on God if my selfishness, mistakes, and independency of Him have caused it.
No, God did not sin, but we did. We decided not to listen to Him and not to accept that he has a right to give us commandments. Would it not be better if we admitted that we are guilty instead of blaming Him? This confession that we are guilty before Him is not easy but necessary. I, need to realize that I’m guilty. And you need to realize that you’re guilty, too.
Then God can free me from my guilt and you from yours. Why? Because Jesus Christ died for you and me on the cross. Therefore, confess your sins before God and ask him for forgiveness! Put your trust in Jesus Christ. How much I wish that you would not try to find God guilty but instead accept that you — as well as I — have sinned against Him. He really wants to forgive you, but He will only do that if you recognize and confess your guilt. He is waiting for you to do that.
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