I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
(Isaiah 45:7) KJV
Something that you may hear if you discuss religion with other people are questions like, Why does God allow evil to exist? It’s a really good question, but fortunately we have a really good answer.
God allows evil to exist so that we can have free will. If I have free will, then I can choose to be evil. Evil has to be possible.
One outcome of this is that some people take this to mean that God is evil, or how else could evil exist? That’s also a good question, and we need to have a good answer. This is the best that we’ve come up with, an interpretation of Isaiah 45:7 which is congruent with God’s nature as kind and loving, and with the reality that we see around us.
- Darkness forms in response to the light God created,
- but God isn’t darkness.
- Evil forms in response to the peace that God created,
- but God isn’t evil.
Matty Lawrence 