Good and Evil

The following should be attributed to a man by the name of Ronald Rhodes. The large majority of this can be found in a book by the name of "Who made God?". This was shared with me by my good friend Joan. Thanks Joan!
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Evil is not something that exists all alone; rather it is a corruption of something good. Evil is the absence of something good. Evil is real. There is moral evil: cruelty, suicide bombings, discrimination, crime etc. There is natural evil: hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, wild fires started by lightening etc.

By what process is evil distinguished from good? The reality is that it is impossible to distinguish good and evil unless there is a reference point that is absolutely good. The reference point for absolute goodness is God. If God did not exist then there would be no moral absolutes by which you can judge something or someone, even someone such as Hitler.

The Original earthly creation was wholly good. There wa no sin, no evil, no pain, no death. Bible scripture indicates that the turn downward came the moment Adam and Eve used their God-given free will to disobey him. God could have created we humans so that we would never sin, thus avoiding evil altogether. But, we would not have been truly human, more like robots...no capacity to make choices. Our God given free choice leaves open the possibility for wrong choices. Evil is inherent in the gift of free will. God did make moral evil possible by giving us a free will, we humans make it happen.

Even natural evil - earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and the like is rooted in our wrong use of free choice. We must not forget that we are living in a fallen world, and because of this we are subject to disasters in the world of nature that would not have occurred had man not rebelled against God. The Garden of Eden had no natural disasters of nature or death until man brought sin into it. There will be none in heaven when God puts an end to evil. Evil will one day be done away with. Just because evil is not destroyed right now does not mean it never will be.

How can God be both loving and just? God's justice demands that sin be punished, but his love compels him to save sinners. So by Christ's death for us his justice is satisfied and his love released.