Why did God create evil?

This is something that truly perplexes the mind. God is supposed to be the creator of everything. The universe, heaven, angels, hell, etc. God is supposed to be all that is good. We are supposed to strive towards God, so why did God need to create evil to juxtapose against His goodness? Couldn't God in His omnipotence have just created humans that intuitively appreciate good without evil to contrast it to?

Because God creates evil, this allows his angels to rebel against him and commit the ultimate sin against God. So more importantly, why did God let Satan and all the other betrayer angels survive knowing that they'd go on to tempt man in the ways of evil? Why didn't God destroy these betrayer angels on the spot? In the Old Testament, God isn't adverse to destroying whole cities for reprehensible evil, yet God can't bring himself to destroying angels that have committed the sin of war against God.

This allows these angels to supposedly go on and tempt man into the ways of evil. And again, we see God punishing man for falling to the temptations of these fallen angels (devils now). God doesn't ever hold these devils accountable for their actions. He just indiscriminately lays waste to large parts of the world killing sinner and believer alike for the actions that originated from a group that remains outside of judgment from God.

God does all this apparently so that when He has decided that evil has ran rampant throughout the earth for long enough, He can wage one final war against evil. But again, God is responsible for all of this. He created it. He allows it to continue. He could end it at any time. Sounds like a sick joke to me.

Without free will we would be mindless drones...

Then there is external additives that cause evil...
Such as oneupmanship in terms of retribution...


They stole from me, so I'm gonna punch them...

They punched me for stealing, I'm going to stab them...

They stabbed me for reacting to their theft, I'm going to shoot them...



A mediocre example, because why the theft in the first place...

Starvation...

Why is there starvation...

Greed...

Why is there greed...

Physycological need to be powerful, like a god...

Why the need...

Envy of God...

Why create envy...

Free will to decide...




It will always boil down to free will...

Why not just create drones...

Don't know...

Which is why my signature is what it is.



Que sera sera!

a reply to: Krazysh0t

God rigged the game of life to win using the ultimate cheat sheet . Utterly pointless in my opinion.

At the same time, your question seems more aligned with biblical evil...

Which is for the Christian's to explain!



If you'd like an Islamic interpretation of "the devil"... & "why"!

Give me a shout!

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Sounds like a sick joke to me.

It probably is, who knows.

I think the general idea is that he wants his creation to be truly good, and you can never be truly good if you are just told to be good and don't' really have a choice.

If he created a world with no evil and humans were good just because we had no choice, than would we really be good?

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So you view free will as a struggle between good and evil decisions? Because I don't view it like that. My free will let's me choose between going to Taco Bell or McDonald's for lunch today. There isn't anything intuitively evil about my choice of lunch. Yet it is an application of free will.

So I really don't think that is a fair response. Free will isn't just an application of choosing between good and evil.

a reply to: PsychoEmperor

Yes I understand the juxtaposition argument that evil was created to better understand good, but God is omnipotent and can do anything he wants. Since he has rigged the game already so that good triumphs in the end, why go through all this song and dance when he could have just programmed humans to be good from the beginning?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

It may not intrinsically be about good and evil...

But they fall under the bracket of free will.



& McDonalds is pretty evil Krazy... Shame on you

Here is another example Krazy...


I only used free will to explain good & evil, because good and evil is the op premise...



So...

Sometimes I have to make a conscious decision, using my free will...

To decide if I want to put my phone through the floor when I read certain things here...


But the phone was a gift...

So to smash it would be evil, imo...



So I choose to do good...


& instead respond, but I may be nasty in response...

So I've still been evil...





I guess the proverb that best fits...

Is the path to hell is paved with good intentions...

And the Kingdom of heaven is narrow to all.




Evil, is also subjective...

Infanticide is evil...
But in the OT, & in Nature, it isn't...
It's pretty normal...


So what is evil?


This good & evil debate is a philosophical nightmare... imo

You could also say that God didn't create evil...

But an infinite universe...
With infinite possibilities...


Which wouldn't be infinite without the concept of evil.

If evil did not exist, then how would you recognize the opposite of evil?

Everything has an opposite. Otherwise we would not recognize it.

Otherwise everything would be lifeless or one big void and there would be no experience of anything. Or no consciousness.

Might have something to do with LOVE .....Evil people loving to do evil .....what is Love ???? ....

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Seems to me that for any kind of energy, real, perceived,imagined or spiritual to exist there has to be a positive and a negative. With a positive and a negative there is no exchange, movement or transfer. It's an interesting way to look at time as well, no positive or negative, no energy movement, maybe no time.

Regardless, if God knows everything that has happened, is happening and will happen, that means reality is preordained, set in stone if you like. You cannot have free will in a preordained reality, it's a paradox.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Perhaps God, too, occasionally yields to temptation.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

This may actually be a counter to your suggestion .

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Lol ok poor example, but you know what I was getting at.

To me evil nor good exists. Everyone and thing is just shades of grays and those grays can change hues depending on the circumstances and even who is judging the action.

I'm just trying to rationalize the Christian account of why god created evil here. The logic doesn't make sense.

a reply to: Debunkology

What is the opposite of choosing to drive my car this morning to work?

a reply to: Krazysh0t
Your questions point out some of the problems with the creator-God idea. This idea is a myth developed on man's need for some sense of security by an all-powerful parent-like figure.

We create evil in this world - not the Divine. We like to blame the Divine for much of what we suffer. So if someone kills someone else, we think the Divine did that? Of course the Divine did not do this.

The indivisible non-separate Divine is the "substance" in which everything appears and disappears but does not have a cause-and-effect relationship to what appears and disappears..

Beings create their destinies in this plane and in all planes. We have to stop blaming "Big Daddy" and take responsibility for what we are doing - and then maybe we will discover the Reality that we all are a modification of.

Life as we know it is just an advanced form of virtual reality, like a galactic MMORPG. Our purpose here is to see if we'll accept God, submit to Him, and then try to improve our standing with Him through our words, actions, and inactions.

Positive & negative scenarios exist as tests to see the true character of each being. Our reactions to those tests are recorded into our bodies and into the memories of all creatures that witnessed them. Judgment Day will be the day our bodies will snitch on us for everything we made them do or encounter. And everything that witnessed us will bare witness for or against us. Once the results are tallied up, we'll get our reward or punishment.

"Evil" is just a wrong choice we make during this process.

Good question, I personally believe "God" allows all possibilities thus both good and evil. Another question is, why would God punish those who commit sin for eternity when he knew beforehand who would commit it and even allowed it to happen even with that foreknowledge?

If we have institutions here on Earth that were ordained by God to punish evildoers for sins committed then why have eternal punishment added on top of that after death? Was the punishment here on Earth not good enough for him so he has to add insult to injury?

It all smacks of man made fear mongering to keep people in line. An all loving God would never set up a place of eternal suffering to send the children he supposedly loves to. The whole concept is convoluted and makes absolutely no sense. This is probably why "faith" is needed because logic dictates it totally unnecessary.