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If God is Good, Explain Evil

Critics of Christianity often point to the existence of evil as proof that there cannot be a God. After all, if there is a God, as we say there is, and if that God is good, as He claims to be, then there should not be any evil in the world. 

We all know there is evil in the world, so God is either too weak to prevent it, or too cruel to stop it. Such is the claim of the atheist. 

But evil is not really a thing. It is comparable to coldness or darkness. Think about it: cold is not a thing. Something is cold when there is an absence of heat. The same is true of darkness, which is only the absence of light. Where no light is present, there is darkness.

Evil is like that. It is simply the absence of good. And God made a good world. When He created the universe He called it "very good." In Genesis 1 we see the word good used seven times to describe God's creation. There was no evil because there was no absence of good. 

That was all before sin. Two chapters after calling everything very good, Adam and Eve sinned, and the world was cursed. And because Romans 5:12 tells us that "death passed upon all men, for all have sinned," no one can claim to be without sin; we all contribute to the evil, or the absence of good, on this planet.  The blame lies with us. In fact, the only one who has never contributed to the evil is God, and yet He is the one who seems to bear the blame. 

We have each been given a free will, the ability to choose whether to do good or bad. If God removed the evil, or the absence of good, He would have to first remove our free will. The ability to make our own choices is a gift from God, but all too often we use that gift to do the wrong thing. 

The reason we have evil is people do wrong things (sin). But salvation is being rescued from the sins that we were once addicted to. God loves us too much to let Adam's sin have the final say, so He sent Jesus on a mission to seek and save the lost. Whenever we choose Jesus, we add a little more good to this cursed world, which means there is a little less evil. And in the end, all believers will live in a perfect place, a restored earth that will never have the capacity for evil. 

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