Did God Create Evil or did man.
...iled to locate any passage that explains the creation of the angels. Nowhere in the bible does it state whether or not angels have free will. Assume that they do have free will, Lucifer and his angels’ chose freely when they decided to go against the Lord. This choice of Lucifer’s is not documented at any point in the bible. When the war in heaven broke out it was divided into two sides, God’s and Lucifer’s. Michael, God's general, won the battle. Lucifer and his minions were cast down from the heavens. From this time on Lucifer would be known as the very epitome of evil. Since then it has seemed that all evil has originated from Lucifer, Satan. The part of the story that seems to be a bit odd is that God, as we understand him, is all knowing. Augustine described God as having “supreme knowledge of all things.” So if the Lord were all knowing, then he would know that Satan and his angels would rebel. He would know that Satan would be evil and bring evil in to the world. In this sense God created evil. God was the only thing that existed before He created angels and Lucifer. In order for him to choose to be evil, (assuming free choice), evil had to exist before him. Understand I’m not saying the Lord is evil and in no way am I saying the Lord likes evil. I am simply stating that, indirectly or directly, the Lord created evil. Even the argument that evil was created by The Morning Star through a perversion of God’s gift still backs my statement. Since God is all knowing and omnipotent, he would know that Satan was going to create evil with his actions and he would have the power to stop that from happening. Again some would say that it was his love that allowed Lucifer to chose that end, but that would still mean that God indirectly created evil. God created Lucifer and Lucifer is evil, or created evil, so therefore God had a part in the creation of evil itself. Another thought that has entered my mind during my research for this paper is free will itself. Free will is the gift God gave to us allowing us to choose between good and evil. If that were truly what free will is, then what good would it be without evil? What would we have to choose between if there was no evil? We would only be able to choose good because it would be the only option available to us. This means that the greatest gift God gave to mankind, the ability to choose out of our own will, would not exist without evil. The thing we value the most, as Christians, relies on the existence of evil. Not only that but whom defines evil. All of our laws are based on past or present religious beliefs on what is right and wrong. All of those beliefs began from what God told us was evil. So God not only allowed evil to be created, so that he could give us free will that we might choose him, but he also gave it definition. He brought it to our attention. Man had no knowledge of evil until God told us of it. Even in the Garden man didn’t know evil. He did not know that eating from the one tree in the center of Eden was evil until God told him. So why would God put the tree there in the first place if he didn’t want man to eat it? He knew that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit and he knew what would happen when they did. He had to know because he knows all. So what was his reason for putting evil with man, why was the tree placed in the Garden of Eden? It was put there so man would have a choice between evil and God. The Lord knew that his gift of free will would be meaningless if man had no other option but to obey and worship God. He did not want man to love him because there was no other choice; he wanted man to love him because he chooses God over evil. That is why the tree was placed in easy access to Adam and Eve. And that is why the good Lord allowed the entrance of evil into the world. He was greatly disappointed when they chose evil, but he knew that if he did not give them a choice then their love for him would have no other meaning than simply a lack of options. This way every time someone chooses God over evil the Lord knows they do it because they truly love him and that love is stronger than any temptations that evil may give them. St. Augustine is a good example of the love God desires. As we have discussed, Augustine was an extreme sinner. Not in the acts that he did, but in their rationality. He sinned for the evil in sinning. He fought the evil in himself for many years before he chose God. And when he chose the Lord, he chose full hearted and knowing of the evil he was turning away from. He said to God, “I will love you, Lord, and thank you, and praise your name, because you have forgiven me such great sins and such wicked deeds.” This is why God gave us free will. Not only because of his love for us, but because he wants our love for him to be real. If you have only known one person your whole life and you love that person dearly than it will mean a lot to them. However, the meaning, depth, and trueness of your love for them will be exemplified to them if you are shown many other people, some very tempting to be with in different ways, and you still come back to the one you’ve always know was there for you. You might not love that person any more than before, but your love will mean more to them because out of all your choices, you choose them. That is why God allows evil to exist and that is why God gave us free choice, to show us his love in hopes that we will return it to him. In addition, we know that God is incapable of doing evil, because everything that comes from God is good. Whether we see the good in it or not, it is still good because the Lord created it. However that doesn’t mean that some things God does can not be malum in se, evil in and of itself. That means that when the Lord destroyed Sodom and killed some Egyptians to free the Jews, his actions were not evil and he did not commit any evil. However the fact that people were killed is evil. The actual taki...