Why evil in the world

That is, God spiritually resurrects His children through regeneration, repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ. But moral sin is also the cause of physical death which separates our soul from our body. Without repentance and faith in Christ, the Bible tells us we will experience a second death Rev. But the effects of sin and evil go much further than death. They also include metaphysical evil such as natural disasters, physical evil such as disease and decay, and demonic evil such as possession and temptation.

But what is evil? First, we need to realize that evil is not an independent being or force. Not only does evil require a host but it also requires its acts to be taken upon the backdrop of good. Namely, without good, you cannot categorize an action as evil. So again, evil which is the result of sin is first dependent upon an entity, and, second, it is dependent upon the existence of good. For example, murder cannot exist without an entity willing to impart death toward an innocent party and a moral law claiming that innocent life should not be taken.

But while clarity on the presence, forms, and definitions of evil are helpful, the next critical question to be answered is regarding the origin of evil. Since evil is the result of sin, where did sin come from? That is, sin was not invented by Adam but it entered into the world by his disobedience. We know this because Adam and the fallen angels before him had the inclination to sin and you cannot be inclined toward something that does not exist.

Lewis understood this concept when he wrote in his book Mere Christianity :. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

So, in our case, Adam had the desire for sin because the possibility of sin already existed. It only answers who was the first being to sin. Now, I do believe, however, that both Satan and Adam chose to disobey God but I believe their choice, though made without compulsion, was foreordained or even designed to occur by God. We know this because the Scriptures of Acts , , and 1 Peter explicitly teach that the cross of Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world.

What Christians must stop doing is attempting to free God of the usage and permitting of sin and evil. The Lord, in the Scriptures, is fully content to state His use of sin and evil to accomplish His purpose. He has taken responsibility for permitting its existence. The Bible is filled with Scriptures in support of this claim. Here are just a few italics for emphasis :. If you attempt to strip God of His use of sin and evil you strip God of His sovereignty. So we then arrive back to our original question.

Does the presence of evil defeat Christianity? In fact, I would argue that the presence of sin and evil do not defeat Christianity, it conceives it. Without sin, we would have no need for the cross. Without the cross, we would never understand the righteousness and mercy, and love of God. Put differently, God, for the sake of demonstrating His righteousness and holiness to us, has permitted sin in this world. It is by the presence of sin and evil that we see the glory of God shine most brightly.

Share via. He occasionally sends judgments to earth to remind us of this. Check out FullyFreeFilms. Ray Comfort talks with an atheist and an agnostic. They bring up many different objections but watch how Ray quickly answers them and goes straight to the gospel. Permissions Privacy Terms of Use. Thank you for sharing! If the below fields are visible, ignore them. Accept Terms? Send this to a friend. In this column, I respond to her thoughts on the issue using a theological framework called theodicy and offer a corollary question about the existence of communal evil.

This is perhaps one of the most perplexing questions in history, and a topic about which much been written and speculated. Beginning in the book of Genesis from the ancient scripture, we see a first stab at explaining the root of evil.

Evil thus becomes a punishment inflicted on humanity for its severed relationship with God. The Psalms repeatedly ask the question of how is it that evil befalls those whom God loves.

In the Christian tradition, Jesus, as foretold by Isaiah and the prophets, restores that relationship damaged in the garden of Eden, but alas, evil still exists. The question of evil has certainly plagued theists, atheists, and those in between, since the origin of moral consciousness. As Professor Colb points out, for those who do believe in a perfectly good, omnipotent, and omniscient God as the origin of creation, it is particularly difficult to reconcile.

For others, the dissonance between an intangible deity and palpable evil is irreconcilable and leads to abandonment of the one deemed less reasonable. Theodicy is a theological construct that seeks to answer how and why evil exists if God is truly loving, omnipotent, and omniscient.

The privation theory of theodicy holds that evil is an absence of good. Human reason, under this view, is not solely an intellectual enterprise but is a reflective process that also draws on the spiritual and emotional aspects of the human person and manifests as conscience.

Somewhat paradoxically, God allows humanity to have the full range of freedom to rationally act within its nature — essentially allowing humanity to choose either good or the absence of good, evil. Evil, or the privation of good, exists so that humanity may choose.

The notion of rational action as it applies to free will is essential. As the traditional understanding of God goes, by rationally choosing good, humanity brings itself into more perfect union with the all-good God, and by choosing evil, which is a rejection of good, humanity alienates itself from the source of good.

Accordingly, an inability to choose evil would make choosing good meaningless. Imbued with free will, and living in a world in which good and evil exist, humanity thus uses conscience to make moral decisions.

It is also important to acknowledge the myopic experience of humanity. It may well be, in the boundless knowledge and power of God, that far greater evils than humanity can imagine are possible. Just as humanity is capable of great acts of heroism, love, and generosity, so too is humanity capable of evil.