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Close, this may help, the name of god in hebrew, one of them at least is Yahweh, or I AM, He is the God that IS, He exists, and in the begining he was, it's kinda hard to understand, but when he made all of creation from nothing, there was no evil, only him and what he created, so he created everything for his glory, It's all His story, not necessarily ours, but it's all about Him, because He is God. But just making rock, making beautiful sunsets and horizons and such just lacks something, so God created Mankind in his image, made them inherently valuable and incredible, but gave them free will, without it there's no such thing as love, and His love is deep wide and allconsuming, so in that free will, there's the potential for evil, but He created us that we could be with him and have relationship with him, He breathed a soul into every living person, and it's for Him we exist. so in rejecting god, all of creation was broken and shattered, thats where war, pain, agony, where hurricanes and genocide stem from, and God sent his son to atone and free us from it, because if he were to stop evil, stop sin, He would have to be consistent, he couldn't just pick and choose, because it's all the same thing, so he wouldn't stop with stopping genocide and famine, but it would have to go even to lying and thoughts and we all have evil thoughts, and he'd have to wipe the slate clean. That's why Jesus came and died to break the chains of sins slavery and bring slavery to freedom to hope and an end to evil and darkness, and bringing life more amazing that we can imagine.

I consider good and evil to be matters of perspectives. As an example I have given countless times; terrorists are seen as evil because they kill others, but to the terrorists' perspective they are merely defending their country- every terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. This is important for my opinion about God.

God has proven that he can turn anything bad into something good. So, if the end result is beneficial and positive, is it really evil? It's important, when trying to say whether or not God created evil, that we have already decided what evil is and are talking about the same thing.

Maybe God did create evil. Maybe, depending on perspective, it was merely something that was already there. Regardless, I'll end this post with a quote from a friend; "I don't know about good or evil really, but I know this. Without darkness nobody would know that the light shines."

Oh yeah, it's definitely awesome how thought provoking this thread has become. And Lord Kilo has a good point at the end of his most recent statement. I would think that if all you knew was good, and light, then one might be prone to complacency. It kind of makes me wonder if Lucifer, in his apparently increased capacity for understanding from others like him, seemed to be capable of either experiencing or noticing this complacency. And I would think by acts of evil and suffering committed thereafter, that what is good probably carries a renewed sense of emphasis. Another example might be a rich, spoiled child. They might think they have it so bad not to get every kind of car they want for their 16th birthday (complacancy of good) and say put that same youth in a situation where they must survive in a desolate area with little to no food for weeks on end. And if you throw in a few near death experiences, encounters with thieves and other forms of suffering, then they may be inclined to appreciate the good side of things more. In this context, one could easily conclude the necessity for evil, suffering, etc, because it humbles us in many ways we don't always recognize.

Also if you are interested in fantasy reading, there's this book, it's called black by ted dekker, but the fantasy of a garden of Eden kind of thing when it went right is beyond amazing, the picture it paints in your mind has such vast and luscious colors and it's just a plain work of art.

I love how you consider options that weigh conceivable criteria. Makes my brain hurt less. heart

The Sethian take on the origin of evil is interesting I find. In it, evil is indirectly created by a lower aspect of God, his wisdom seeking to know her source without her consort, Love. She then creates the material world separated from God and a caricature of the One she sought to know, who believes he's the only One.

The short and sweet is that moral evil comes when there is wisdom but no love. Since the world is not a person and has no agency it can't be regarded as good or evil from a moral perspective. If it were, then it's indifference to suffering would make it evil.

I will quote you since you are the OP. There are A LOT of good stuff on this forum--awesome topic. I think God created "evil" in the sense of punishment for the unrighteous, which from their perspective is evil. I mean Adam and Eve were deeply hurt being not only thrown out of Eden but their lives lowered to--ugh--human existence. The Egyptians I'm certain thought God evil as he killed their cattle and smited their children en mass. Those caught up in the Great Flood (which I am aware we can debate the exact time and place of) I'm certain found God "evil". Or the numerous kingdoms God sent whole armies to destroy. The promises or privileges revoked to "chosen" persons who failed to do as expected. The entire book of Revelations! I don't find a lake of fire particularly inviting. So yeah, God created evil, but it's a necessary evil.

Adam and Eve existed in blissful ignorance for however many days, weeks, or years before the Fall. And God probably created them ignorant to protect them, and only later realized that He did more harm than good. In their ignorance they knew not pain or fear or hatred or wrath. Everything was given to them and they didn't have to do anything. They were in a since spoiled and took the gifts God gave them for granted.

Throughout the rest of the Bible we see the faithful and the unfaithful together. The unfaithful are those who are living in the days of Adam--they want God to give them everything without doing anything for it. They want unconditional forgiveness, love, and eternal life because they feel entitled. But the faithful know that God gives because he loves and he takes because he loves and he builds and destroys things because he loves, and all things that threaten his love are ultimately destroyed in John's final vision. And the faithful are constantly praising him because they have fear and know wrath, but it makes knowing his mercy and grace that much stronger.

Even though God created evil, it was only apparent after the Fall of the angels to whom he also gave a choice. And Satan having spent how many millenia exiled as the world was being shaped was clearly jealous of Adam and Eve being of a lesser for but held to greater glory. He knew death and he knew true evil was separation from God and being in that darkness. And God even goes as far to create the Other in Revelations with the Abyss and lake of fire, but only to delineate and underscore his majesty because so many people are trapped in sinful bodies unaware of the immortal danger they're in (at the time of those events). But the same goes for us now.

Christ even preached that to the Pharisees who held to lesser traditions while neglecting the greater beliefs one must hold to. They were in a way blissfully ignorant. In fact most sinners are depicted as blissfully ignorant, otherwise more than 8 people would have repented in the time of Noah, and more than Lot's family would have made it out, and more of Moses tribe would have survived the wilderness. They sinned up to the moments of their destruction. But destroying sin is simply in God's nature--it and all who commit to it.

I have a hard time seeing things as evil. I mean yeah the hurricane that hit Japan was bad, but evil? Might be stretching it. Even Hitler was created with benevolent intent but what he "did" was commit unrepentant sin. The only real evil is existence without God to me. Sin can be forgiven, there are paths of redemption, but perdition is perdition. Luckily it will be destroyed...someday.

The Bible doesn't say that sin is the absence of God, this is a conclusion that we have come to within the thread.

We are not talking the literal absence of God per say, but more like the absence of the influence of God from our actions. When we do something and we do it without Love it leads to us missing the mark... That is an argument which applies when we equate evil with sin, and sin with evil...