(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Did G-d Create Evil?
Rabbi Aron Moss
Mar 13, '06
Did G-d create evil? Surely, G-d made everything. So,
although it is people who actually do evil, it was G-d who must have created the
idea of evil. But if G-d is good, how could He create evil?
Answer:
Here's the paradox: goodness exists because G-d desired it; evil exists because
G-d doesn't want it.
If a human wants something, but doesn't actually do anything about it, nothing
happens. You may want a piece of cake, but a cake will not materialise unless
someone bakes it.
But when you're a Divine Being, your desires create reality. With G-d, just
wanting something makes it exist. After all, He is all-powerful; if He wants it,
what can possibly stop it from being? He wanted a world, so it was. He wanted
goodness, so it was.
Now, the same applies to G-d not wanting something: it, too, becomes
reality. If G-d decides He doesn't want something, then that decision itself
makes that thing exist. G-d's all-powerfulness means that even His not
wanting creates. Evil is what G-d doesn't want. So it exists.
But evil doesn't exist in the same way that goodness exists. G-d wants goodness,
so its existence is true and everlasting. Evil exists as a negative, something
G-d doesn't want, so its existence is flimsy and temporal. Evil is no more than
an undesirable non-entity, a path not to be taken. By doing evil acts, we give
evil more credit than it deserves. Our bad choices make evil into a truer
existence than it really is.
In the end, evil can't prevail. It is an unwanted ghost, a temporary illusion, a
thin facade. Over time, evil dissipates, no matter how menacing it may seem.
Wicked empires crumble, rotten ideas become exposed, and goodness eventually
shines through. That's what G-d wanted all along, but He leaves it to us to
achieve.
The only way to banish the ghost of evil is to turn on the light of good.