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“God saw all that he made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
As Christians, we believe that God is the creator of all things. Does this mean God created evil?
To answer this question, we turn to St. Augustine of Hippo
who tells us that evil is not a thing, but is rather a privation or loss of good. Make no mistake - evil is real, but it cannot exist by itself apart from good. Take, for instance, light and darkness. We can measure the properties of light (e.g., intensity, speed, etc.), but we cannot quantify darkness. The reason for this is that darkness has no existence of its own; it is merely the absence of light. In the same vein, we can say that sin is the privation of God’s will; blindness is the loss of sight; death is the absence of life; and so on. Therefore, God created all things, but not “non-things”, such as evil.
1. Introduction
who tells us that evil is not a thing, but is rather a privation or loss of good. Make no mistake - evil is real, but it cannot exist by itself apart from good. Take, for instance, light and darkness. We can measure the properties of light (e.g., intensity, speed, etc.), but we cannot quantify darkness. The reason for this is that darkness has no existence of its own; it is merely the absence of light. In the same vein, we can say that sin is the privation of God’s will; blindness is the loss of sight; death is the absence of life; and so on. Therefore, God created all things, but not “non-things”, such as evil. 1. Introduction
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