I often wonder about whether good and evil exist at all. I prefer instead to think there are merely actions and consequences, rather than good actions or evil actions. Afterall, Hitler murderering 11 million people during WWII may be said to be evil, yet God wiping out all life on Earth with the Great Flood isn't referred to as 'evil.' The guy in Norway who murdered all those kids might have commited an evil act, but then why isn't a sniper in a war who slays many called evil too?
Good and evil are just our way of judging events. But ultimately it depends on our point of view. But independent of an observer's judgement there remains actions and consequences. If a star goes nova and vaporizes its solar system with billions of lives lost (hypothetically,) is it an evil star? Of course not, it's merely an action with consequences.
"G‑d did not create evil so that we could indulge it, but so that we could avoid it. If evil did not exist, choosing against it would not be possible, and perfection would slip from our grasp. That evil is a viable option makes it possible for us to choose against it and affirm our inherent goodness."
"G‑d thus created evil. Not so that humanity would choose it, but so that humanity could choose it. Could, but hopefully wouldn't. Inevitably some would fail and choose evil; a lower realm makes immoral behavior possible. But G‑d also knew that not everyone would gravitate to evil. Most of humanity would be upright; they would choose ethics, morality, holiness and G‑dliness. In this way the lower realm would be transformed into a dwelling place for G‑d."
God created opportunity, potential, whatever you'd like to call it, for great things. In a diametric way, if good exists then the opposite has at least potential to exist. By creating things that were outside of his perfect self, God was opening the door for his creation to POSSIBLY become contaminated with evil by their own choices. Evil is proof of at least some level of free choice, because love means nothing unless it is voluntary and God wanted real love from Adam and Eve. He gave them choice, which was potential for greatness or short falling. God did not create evil, but he created circumstances that made evil POSSIBLE to arise in order to give good just as much potential. There is good and evil; Good comes from God, evil comes from God's enemies (Satan and our own sin nature). Both have consequences; good has good results, evil has bad results (though perhaps not immediately for either).
In his Holiness, it is unthinkably impossible that anyone could suggest that God himself created evil or intentionally brought it into existence. However, God uses everything that Satan messes with because he is simply that powerful. Satan (or us) messes up this or that and we think it's over or unsalvageable. God sees it all and says "ha, I'll make it work out for good, if you love and trust me with it all" (paraphrase, Romans 8:28). Why does God continue to allow evil? Because it can be used very powerfully to strengthen us, if we approach trials appropriately (James 1). Nobody ever gets stronger unless they are forced to; your muscles don't just grow stronger unless they are forced to endure grueling work and get broken down, only to get built back up even more (that's what lifting weights is, by the way). Nobody ever changes unless they have to: you see this everywhere. People can change how they act, but their core person doesn't change unless a greater force acts upon them from the outside (much like Newton's first law o motion). I realize I just applied physics to people, but it really is true.
Nevertheless, God did not create evil nor does he endorse it, but he takes evil and twists it around into beneficial things for his beloved children, in stark mockery and spite of those who do and promote evil.
By creating the concept of "good," you're by logical opposites creating something to compare good to like evil. Without evil, good doesn't mean anything. Without darkness, light doesn't mean anything; no up without down, left without right, positive without negative, etc.
Is there such a �Thing� as Cold? Is there such a �Thing� as Darkness or Emptiness?
No�none of those things Exist in the sense of being able to "Stand Aline".
Cold is simply the lack of Heat. Darkness is just the Absence of Light and Emptiness the lack of Fullness (or Substance). There are more Examples but�
Evil came into Being when Man turned away from God; when Man first said �No� to God! As All Powerful as God is He gave us the Ability to say �No� to him�to �Turn our Backs to Him�.
Evil is just The Absence of GOD! The more you turn away from God�the more Evil enters into your Life. Yes Evil Exists because God gave us FreeWill. And the very presence of evil causes mutations in DNA and therefore Defects in Humans that make their Minds Feebly or Aberrated. It is these Defects that make people think that there is no Evil (or Good) but rather that it is Relative (Relativism). Some of them can be helped with Medications�others are Doomed!
Seems to be some debate over the actual source, but is a story attributed to Einstein regarding cold that's relevant:
"Did God create everything that exists? Does evil exist? Did God create evil?
A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?"
A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"
"God created everything?" The professor asked.
"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."
The student became quiet and did not respond to the professor's hypothetical definition.. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question,
Professor?" "Of course", replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"
The other students snickered at the young man's question.
The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat." The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."
The logical opposites that you mentioned above does make sense from a human perspective, but remember that Jesus broke the conventional status quo for good and bad when he was healing lepers, etc. The idea was that if a clean thing and an unclean thing touch, the clean thing becomes unclean. Jesus transcends that because as God, he in his purity can cleanse the unclean. So instead of Jesus being made unclean, he made the lepers clean in a reversal of it all. Similarly, I think that in his purity God can and did transcend the conventional wisdom of making the antithesis at the same time as the thesis. God made creation, and it was good. He said so. Evil came later, after God was done making his stuff. Evil is indeed the absence of God, but it is more than that because while cold and dark are just the absence of heat and light, evil is more profoundly an idea and an action rather than just a noun. Cold and dark have no intentionality; they can't decide to seek you out. Evil does though, and I think it does exist in and of itself, but it cannot exist with Good in the same place and time.
