Did God Create Evil?

In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question.   Isaiah:45:7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
See All... seems to state that God creates evil.  How can this be possible if God is only and totally good?  And if he doesn’t create evil what and why would it be?

Tom:

Dave, let me read Isaiah:45:7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
See All....  “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil:  I the Lord do all these things.”  Well, does the person have a point here?

Dave:

This is a verse that, of course, the atheist critics have jumped on.  Yes, why does God create evil?  I think the verse explains itself.  He says:  I form light and create darkness.  Well, we know that darkness isn’t something that God created literally—darkness is nothing—darkness is the absence of light.  So, what He is saying is that the light reveals the darkness in contrast.  If you grow up in a cave a hundred yards under the ground, totally dark, you wouldn’t be aware that you were in darkness that would be natural to you.  If suddenly somebody came in with a flashlight, then you would recognize the darkness for what it is.  So, God is saying that in the same way he creates evil.  Evil is not something that God conjured up and then men have somehow fallen into this morass because God made them or God entrapped them in it.

Tom:

Imposed it upon them.

Dave:

Right.  Evil is the absence of good, but it is more than the absence of good, it is opposition to good.  In other words, the Scripture defines sin as falling short of the glory of God.  We were made in the image of God and then the Bible says, “…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  So, sin is anything that is less than God’s perfection.  So, this is the way that God creates evil.  In other words, he defines evil.  His purity, his perfection defines everything else as evil, but evil isn’t something that God created and then entrapped man in.

Tom:

Right, but when we bring—when God allows for free choice, falling short of the glory of God is going to take place, right?

Dave:

Any being that has the power of choice that is less than God, will make less than godly choices, less than perfect choices.  And this is what allowed sin to enter into the world.  But, on the other hand, if we didn’t have the power of choice we couldn’t love God— we couldn’t love one another—we would be robots created to say, I love you God, I love you God, and it would be meaningless.  Therefore, in allowing man the power of choice which man must have in order to know God, in order to love God, and to love one another, that opened the door to the possibility of evil but it’s not that—Well, the Bible says God cannot be tempted neither tempteth he any man.  In other words, it’s not God’s desire that anyone should sin.  It wasn’t God’s desire that Adam and Eve should sin and you could say that he gave Adam and Eve the easiest, easiest command that He could possibly give them.  I don’t know how many trees were in the Garden of Eden, but I think there must have been millions of them.  I don’t know what tree this was—I don’t believe that it was a special kind of a tree.  It could have been an apricot, or a pear, or a peach, or whatever and there were many other trees I believe, just like this tree.  But this particular one—let’s say there’s a thousand apricot trees and God points to one apricot tree and says just don’t eat of that one.  You couldn’t ask for an easier commandment and yet we couldn’t keep it.  The reason that He gave the commandment was not to entice man into evil, but to reveal the fact that man was capable of evil.  I couldn’t say reveal the evil in man’s heart because Adam and Eve were perfect beings when God created them.

Tom:

Yes, but they had to make a choice every day.  I mean, we don’t know how long it was from the time the command was given to the time they disobeyed.  But that’s how you demonstrate love—this goes back to the point of choice that they loved Him and they were going to obey Him—if there was no condition set up for them to respond.  I mean, that’s how—that’s a love response, isn’t it?  To obey.

Dave:

That’s right.  Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments.  So, God is literally giving them the easiest test he possibly could give.  You know, when you get in the Army, the marines or whatever, they don’t send you off to the battlefield without testing you.  You have to go through basic training.  You’ve got to be tested and God was simply testing Adam and Eve.  It’s like—Tom; we could make a little application for children and their parents.  It’s like the little boy that disobeys his mother—let’s say not a little boy, let’s say a teenager—disobeys his mother all year, just disregards her desires, and just grieves her in so many ways but when it comes to Mother’s Day, then he gives her a nice present.  Well, if all you knew was that he gave her a nice present on Mother’s Day, you would think what a wonderful son he is.  But when you see the rest of the year, then you realize that there is something that isn’t right.  So, as you said, it wouldn’t be enough for a man to say “I love you God” but let’s have a test and let’s see whether you really do.  This is why God says in Deuteronomy 8 that He led Israel through the wilderness.  And, I allowed you to thirst, to be hungry in order to see what was in your heart; whether you would really love me and obey me or not.

Tom:

Yes, there was a quicker route to the Promised Land, wasn’t there? 

Dave:

Yeah.