RE: (fwd) Did God Create Evil?
Since it’s Halloween and the witching hour is nearly upon us, it only seems right to break out an e-mail exchange from last October that I was going to post for Halloween 2003 but never got around to.
Last year, just before Halloween, a friend of mine got an annoying evangelical/fundamentalist Christian chain letter from a coworker who had been busily praying for her (presumably damned) soul. This friend passed the chain letter on to a couple of people, myself included, with a request to help get the fundie off her back. What follows is my response, in equal parts serious philosophical exploration, a search for common ground on the topic, and unrepentant fundie-baiting with the best anti-fundamentalist tool in the world: the Bible itself.
The people involved in this exchange both have careers in religiously conservative Kansas to worry about, so their names have been changed. As for myself, I have the benefit of working in the relatively sane and reasonable environment of a college campus where debate and free thought are encouraged.
From: Jackie
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 1:50 PM
To: Adam, Davis
Subject: (fwd) Did God Create Evil?
Hey Guys,
Ponder on this one for me. I’d like to come up with an excellent way to refute this argument. Mostly cause this lady drives me completely insane with her constant Forwarded inanely chipper mindless e-mails and this is a subject that I like to argue about so I’d really like to piss her off before next Sunday and see if I can’t get her going. Thoughts, feelings, Semi-rude comments??
Tootles,
Jackie
click here to skip to my response ↓
“DID GOD CREATE EVIL?”
Did God create Evil? This will make you think for a while. At a certain college, there was a professor with a reputation for being tough on Christians. At the first class every semester, he asked if anyone was a Christian and proceeded to degrade them and to mock their statement of faith.
One semester, he asked the question and a young man raised his hand when asked if anyone was a Christian. The professor asked, “Did God make everything, young man?” He replied, “Yes sir, He did!” The professor responded, “If God made everything, then He made evil.” The student didn’t have a response and the professor was happy to have once again proved the Christian faith to be a myth.
Then another man raised his hand and asked, “May I ask you something, sir?”
“Yes, you may,” responded the professor.
The young man stood up and said “Sir, is there such thing as cold?”
“Of course there is, what kind of question is that? Haven’t you ever been cold?”
The young man replied, “Actually, sir, cold doesn’t exist.
What we consider to be cold, is really an absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but cold does not really exist. We have only created that term to describe how we feel when heat is not there.”
The young man continued, “Sir, is there such a thing as dark?”
Once again, the professor responded “Of course there is.” And once again, the student replied “Actually, sir, darkness does not exist.
Darkness is really only the absence of light. Darkness is only a term man developed to describe what happens when there is no light present.”
Finally, the young man asked, “Sir, is there such a thing as evil?”
The professor responded, “Of course. We have rapes, and murders and violence everywhere in the world, those things are evil.”
The student replied, “Actually, sir, evil does not exist.
Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is a term man developed to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn’t like truth, or love, which exist as virtues like heat or light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light.”
The professor had nothing to say…………
Be full of Christ today, there is no room for anything else………
Remember if you love your neighbor as yourself, pass this on!
God bless!!
Be a lighthouse.
It is the same God who said ‘ Let there be light shining out in the darkness.’ who has shone in our minds to radiate the light of the knowledge of God’s glory, the glory on the face of Christ. 2 Corintians 4: 6
From Ernestine in the Kansas prairie
My Response
From: Adam
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 6:13 PM
To: Jackie, Davis
Subject: RE: (fwd) Did God Create Evil?
Jackie and Davis,
Actually this message has a pretty good point, albeit conveyed from a simpleminded fundamentalist point of view (and with characteristic pomposity and anti-intellectual, courage-under-oppression undertones).
Evil could easily be seen as the absence of good. If you take away kindness, goodwill, concern for others, etc. what you have left is a sociopath. Sociopaths make great criminals since they feel nothing for anyone but themselves (witness Ted Bundy, a famous sociopath).
One could argue that these people are broken in some more fundamental way other than just lacking normal feelings, but I think that the fascination we all seem to have with violent crime and murder speaks to the underlying nastiness that such mental disorders unleash so efficiently. Therefore, from even the most clinical point of view, evil could be considered the absence of good.
On the other hand, if you really want to fuck with this woman’s head…
The primary figure of evil in Christianity is Satan, A.K.A. Lucifer. Formerly the head honcho of the angels (before Michael took over the job), old Scratch got a little full of himself and challenged God’s authority. This lead to a war in Heaven, which Lucifer lost. He was banished to hell along with (according to some apocryphal texts) a third of the Heavenly host (who went from being rebel angels to being demons).
Now note the contrast in the two translations of the passage from Ezekiel (linked to above), particularly Ezekiel 28:13. I read the KJV of this first, and took “the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created” to mean that Lucifer was created by God specifically to become the adversary he later would be. The seeds of his dissension were planted in the act of his creation. In the NIV, however, this passage is changed to one about Lucifer’s clothing — a rather uncompelling, if convenient, non sequitur in the story of a fallen angel. I find the NIV footnote for that passage stating that “the meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain” a little suspicious, but then again that’s my nature.
Nevertheless — ignoring the Ezekiel passage and its implications — why would a loving, omnipotent, and omniscient deity knowingly (by definition) create the ultimate force of evil? This has been a quandary for Christian theologians for centuries, and isn’t likely to stop bothering them any time soon.
Some believe that Satan, like everything else, was created by God for the benefit of humanity (or, to be more inclusive of those on other planets, “intelligent life”) in order to provide the temptation necessary to help us forge our immortal souls into shape for the Kingdom of Heaven. Nietzsche may have claimed that anything done out of love is beyond Good and Evil, but I refuse to believe in a god that plays such games (so did Nietzsche, who refused to believe in God at all). Some Christian fundamentalists have much more interesting and elaborate theories (even I found this one a page turner). An ex-Mormon, however, offers some interesting scholarly insight into the matter that kind of nullifies the entire debate.
Here’s where I stand:
I believe in Evil (that’s capital-E Evil). Evil doesn’t come from God. Evil doesn’t come from Satan. Evil exists in and of itself, wherever beings of conscience are present to succumb to it and help it grow. It is without will or guiding intelligence, but is more akin to a force of nature (like gravity), or possibly a kind of spiritual infection (like the Ebola virus for your soul).
So ultimately, Evil comes from us. It is part of the human spiritual journey to overcome the Evil within ourselves and to cherish and amplify the Good within instead. This ideal can be found across the board in most major world religions in the doctrine that one should strive to become more like Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. Which is just further evidence that we’ve all got a lot more in common than we have differences, and we should stop killing each other over what name tag we’ve decided to slap on our separate god-concepts and just fight the good fight together.
Now pardon me while I go toss this soapbox in the dumpster…
Thoughtfully yours,
Adam
Well that does answer my question. Since in Free Choice we can choose Good or Evil. in choosing one, we rebell against the other.
So- rebellion and defience itself is not evil, but tools to be used wisely. so is compliance and obediance.
Soo many websites seem to insist that God gave us free will only to be used to choose to serve god, and if we do not chose to serve god then we are rebelling and that is sin and evil. and that God only gives us free will to be taken back.
and that it is wrong and evil for us to want to have our own will and way, so long as it does not take away from some one else’s will and way. and wanting our way is rebelling against God?
but yet it is ok for God to dominate and to take away our will and to control and etc.
That doesn’t seem right or fair. Considering all the long history of people forcing or demanding others to obey them.
I think you know what I mean. I am confused.
I really want the truth. I hope I can handle it
Comment by ellie owens — April 5, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
Recent realization. There are sociopaths. They are born that way or with the predisposition. It is genetic. There is a 50% likelihood that your child will be born that way if one of the parents is one. Sociopathy is more common that originally presumed. A large percentage of the population suffers from sociopathy(lack of conscience) which is an insufficient amount of neurons, much like other mental insufficiencies. Being born without a conscience is a brain disorder. We should be helping these people. There is a huge amount of suffering. Some people are not born that way, but become that way as they hit puberty because their brains are growing. Scientists need to figure this out. I believe there is a higher power because there is nothing but space, that I know of, beyond our atmosphere. I believe in an evil force, and not just from humanity, but also from the earth’s natural disasters and accidents which kill or hurt life forms, ie. the existance of the Devil or similar. We must have been created. If I knew there were other planets and atmospheres it would not help me because what is beyond that, and then what would be beyond that? Space should end somewhere, but it doesn’t. We are on a ball flying in space,and telling me about gravity doesn’t help explain it to me. It is what it is, and it is all too weird and scary. Balls should drop. So something had to have made us. Human beings are not like steel. We are easily broken.We break down and age so this shows me that we have just so much time to figure this out. If this was spontaneous combustion then explain how we are fed and how the oxygen on this planet sustains us. Well that could be explained by big bang theory i guess, but the planet in the middle of space and endless space is what gets me. what is beyond that.dont tell me that it goes beyond that. so what. the bible says you will live forever in heaven too. i dont think anyone has the answers. i know we are inherently evil humans, i know there is an evil force, but i dont feel any angelic forces except in myself when i want to help others etc., good qualities came from somewhere, and we are on a ball in the middle of the sky and the ball doesnt drop. so something else like a higher power is up or out there
Comment by withheld — August 17, 2006 @ 11:24 am
I found both e-mails very interesting. I am not a Christian, but I do study it. Especially the Constatine era. I do agree with the ideas of good and evil though. Mainly in the context to all things must have a balance. If there is wet there must be dry, if there is life there must be death, if there is good there must be evil. Without good and evil our world could not be. There must always be a balance. The same goes for people. I believe psychopaths and sociopaths are the balance to the normal everyday person today. Our world needs them or we would have chaos and disorder.
Comment by Amadeo — January 10, 2007 @ 2:26 am
Interesting thoughts, Amadeo. Thanks for stopping by.
As I mentioned in a comment on this blog some 17 months ago, I’m not exactly a Christian either. I’m not exactly anything, though I’ve studied several faiths and think they all have something to teach us. Nice to hear from a like-minded person.
Supplemental Note: I’m not sure where “withheld” got his statistics on sociopath birth rates, but they’re way out of whack. Back when withheld first commented, I’d found specific research abstracts from peer-reviewed journals to refute the 50% number. I lost it all in a browser crash, however, and had forgotten about it until I got Amadeo’s response.
You don’t have to worry about half your friends and family being sociopaths; the number is more like 4% to 9%, depending on whose research you want to quote.
Comment by Adam Messinger — January 10, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
There is a 50% likelihood that your child will be born that way if one of the parents is one.
I got the above information out of a high school psychology book
Comment by withheld — February 23, 2007 @ 11:06 am
That’s entirely possible, especially if sociopathy is a neurological — rather than purely psychological — condition. There are plenty of examples of neurological illnesses that can be inherited from parents. It’s also possible that being parented by a sociopath could engender sociopathic tendencies in a child.
When I went hunting for statistics on sociopathy, it was in response to your original claim that “A large percentage of the population suffers from sociopathy.” Like I said, though, I lost all of that in a browser crash. I remembered enough to mention it in my follow-up to Amadeo’s comment, but I admit that I only had time to skim your original comment at the time I wrote my response. When answering Amadeo, I misread you as suggesting that half of everyone was a sociopath.
Anyway, here’s the upshot as far as I can tell from my reading: sociopaths really aren’t all that common (4% to 9%), but the children of sociopaths may have a greater likelihood of being sociopaths themselves.
Comment by Adam Messinger — February 24, 2007 @ 1:49 pm