Did God Create Evil?

I have been reflecting on past trips to Guatemala and Honduras.

Before I start, Guatemala and Honduras are beautiful countries with beautiful, heart filled people. This post is a bit unfair as it may dwell on some of the problems without giving appropriate voice to the wonderful people, places, and things in Guatemala and Honduras.

I have had the great privilege and great experience of visiting Guatemala and Honduras several times since 2004. We spent time visiting poor neighborhoods where the children 6-8 years old must quit school and go to work in the fields or shining shoes at the airport. We visited one of the Guatemala City ghettos and Tegucigalpa neighborhoods with over 100,000 people living in unimaginable conditions including scrap-tin shacks, no electricity, no plumbing, and one school visited in Guatemala City made of concrete was covered with bullet nick marks from gang wars. With no garbage collection services, trash is thrown down into the valley where it pollutes the primary water supply. We visited the Guatemala City dump where approximately 10,000 people, 6,000 of those children, search through the dump, garbage filled with medical needles, broken glass, and various other hazards, looking for food, clothing, scrap metal, anything they can find to survive.

One of the issues I struggled with was why does God let this happen? I am far beyond wondering if God exists, but I did run across the following e-mail that seemed to help answer that question:

Did God create evil? At a certain college, there was a professor with a reputation for being tough on Christians. One semester he asked if anyone was a Christian. One young man raised his hand, and the professor asked, “Did God make everything?” “Yes he did, sir” the young man replied. The professor responded, “If God made everything, then God made evil. And if we can only create from within ourselves, then God is evil. If God is evil, God is a lie and therefore, God cannot exist.” The student didn’t have a response and the professor was happy to have proved the Christian faith to be a myth.

Then another man raised his hand and asked, “May I ask you something sir? Is there such a thing as cold?” “Of course there is, what kind of question is that? Haven’t you ever been cold?” The young man replied, “Actually, cold does not exist. What we consider to be cold is really only the absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but cold does not really exist. No device has ever existed to create cold. A freezer for example works by extracting the heat. We have only created the term cold 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.” The student replied, “Actually, 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, “Is there such a thing as evil?” The professor responded, “Of course. We have rapes, murders, and violence everywhere in the world, those things are evil.” The student replied, “Actually, evil does not exist. 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 and light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light.” --Author Unknown

I don’t mean to suggest that a person living in poverty is evil or that they are living in poverty because they have an absence of God in their personal lives. That somehow they deserve it (judging others). I have enough poverty in my own life in one form or another least I think I am superior. The e-mail above just helped explain why poverty exists. True, some people may be in abject conditions due to their poor choices, but others are in circumstances beyond their control. Nonetheless, that does not change the destructive effects of sin. If I drink a glass of water laced with poison and I don't know it is poison, I will still get sick and/or die if I drink the water. Rather, the above e-mail is more of a reflection on society in general. I have heard that the USA is the richest country in the world, but the USA is also the most depressed country in the world. I also remember a few years ago an Nightly News program that explored wealth. From their many sources and surveys, one of the points made was that once someone reaches a level of wealth that supports the basic necessities of living (which is right about the poverty line), more wealth does not equal more happiness and often results in the opposite.

Not too many generations ago, you needed your family to survive, and although life may have been more difficult than today, you had the relationships of family and friends. Today, we are relatively wealthy and independent. We tend to live far away from family and tend to fill our lives with material possessions at the expense of relationships. The destructive effect of our somewhat selfish behavior is we are less happy. Possessions don’t make you happy, your family and friends do. And the most important familia relationship is your relationship with God our Father through His only Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

More importantly, the mission trips over the last few years have been a great blessing by demonstrating the opposite of evil. That is, demonstrating the presence of God through the unselfish love of many. How God truly cares and loves everyone and how God extends His love through those that love Him. From Spain to Germany, from Washington state to Minnesota, from Friars to lay people, from Guatemalans and Hondurans, and from the children themselves. It was so great to see the good fruit produced by the love of many. I was not expecting the positive conditions of the NPH homes. I guess I expecting to give and “reach down” to the poor (please pardon my tactlessness), however, in reality I feel I was more a recipient and was taught great lessons about God, faith, hope, love, dignity, family, etc. from the children, staff, San Max Friars, and volunteers.