Whence Evil: Did a Holy God Create Evil?-Part 3

OK. God did not create evil. He cannot create evil. He is perfect. Evil is a malignancy in the heart of His creation. Where, then, did evil arise from? To understand the origin of evil, at least at one level, we need to understand the origin of satan, the father of lies, and the personification of evil. Scripture addresses this question, but the answer is controversial. Here is how I understand the origin of satan and to a great extent, the origin of evil. 

Satan is a fallen angel. Jesus says: “I saw satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10: 18). Satan is presumed to be the angel Lucifer, which means angel of light. Angels play important roles in both the Old and New Testaments – delivering messages from God to humans and intervening when humans face demonic forces. Michael and Gabriel are two examples of angels called Archangels. About Lucifer Isaiah writes: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground” (Isaiah 14: 12 NKJV). Isaiah means here that Lucifer was cast down or exiled to earth.

Isaiah goes on to write about the hubris – the extreme pride and rebellion – of Lucifer in Lucifer’s 5 “I will” statements

“You have said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly; on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the most High” (Isaiah 14: 13, 14 NIV).

It is clear that God, and therefore Jesus, created angels. That is what The Message translation of Colossians states. While God created angels, including Lucifer, the angel of light, He did not create angels to be rebellious, prideful, or evil. As we have seen, God, who is all good, cannot create or produce ‘bad fruit’, and if there is an example of ‘bad fruit’ in the Scripture, it is satan. Someone or something created the ‘bad’ Lucifer. If not God, then whom? Much of the Church over the ages has concluded that God created angels with free will – they could obey God or they could rebel. Lucifer exercised his free will – and chose rebellion rooted in his pride! God created Lucifer, the angel of light. Lucifer choose rebellion and through this act of hubris and selfishness, evil came into existence. For this Lucifer was cast out of heaven and landed on earth, where he assumed the title prince of the world or prince of the air and the name satan.

Ok, that makes sense to me. But there is one thing I don’t understand. If evil is a force or power, is that force we experience today the fallen angel Lucifer also known as satan? Did Lucifer ‘invent’ pride? Or was there a preexisting force or power that ‘infected’ Lucifer with a spirit of pride and caused his rebellion? Good question. I don’t know. I’ll assume the latter and move on, with this note from Os Guinness writing about this ultimate question: “For all the passion and curiosity of our human answers and attempted answers, none of us finally knows “whence evil”, nor why there is evil” (Unspeakable, pg. 139). For the purposes of this post, it really doesn’t make a difference. However satan got here, he is here and evil came with him.

Whatever the force or power of evil is, it contains at its core the hubris or pride that caused satan to rebel and defy God – really, a spirit of pride – manifested in rebellion and idolatry. Who did Lucifer worship? Not God, but himself. Note the final line in Isaiah 14 above: “I will make myself like the most High”. These are similar to the words satan spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden: “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God”(Genesis 3: 5 NIV). Satan infected Adam and Eve with this spirit of pride, which manifested in their rebellion and disobedience.

So while God created angels, He gave them freedom to choose to love and obey God or to rebel. The choice made by Lucifer created evil, not God. Adam also had choice – “eat whatever you want in the Garden, but don’t eat from this one tree”. He chose rebellion rather than obedience and through him sin entered the world.

This original sin of rebellion committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden has infected all of creation since then, not just humankind – the subhuman creation and the natural world – mountains, valleys, rivers, the sea, etc. – as well. All humans inherited this spirit of pride. “Therefore, just a sin entered the world though one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5: 12 NIV). Mankind has a warped mindset that is, by its nature, anti-God, hostile to the rule of God in our lives, and unwilling to acknowledge the supremacy of God and His Son Jesus over our ‘self’.

God gave Lucifer free will and Lucifer chose rebellion. From this rebellion evil entered the world. God gave Adam free will and from his decision to rebel, sin entered the world – sin, the weapon of evil used to destabilize God’s creation. I have said above that evil has no power of its own. If that is the case, and evil is still at work in the world, what is the source of evil’s power? Not from God. That leaves you and me. Like Lucifer and Adam, the power of evil today must come from our decisions to rebel. We also have freedom, free will if you like, to obey God or to rebel against God. We rebel when we worship something other than God. I believe that when we worship something other than God, which is always self in one form or another, we give power to evil that we were originally given to rule over it. N.T. Wright again:

“When we humans commit idolatry – worshipping that which is not God as if it were – we thereby give to other creatures and beings in the cosmos a power, a prestige, an authority over us which we, under God, were supposed to have over them . . . You call into being a negative force, and anti-God force which is opposed to creation” (Evil and the Justice of God, pg, 112).

I don’t believe this means that we are necessarily the cause of specific evil in our lives like disease or accidents. It is a fallen world, bad things happen and satan may not be behind all of them. If I get sick, I will not necessarily say I am being punished for my sins. Innocent people get caught up in large-scale evil like war and genocide and in personal tragedies like cancer. But collectively, does mankind feed evil with our rebellion? Does our idolatry deposit power into an account, like money in a bank, that evil can draw on and apply to anyone or any place in the world? Can this power be used by evil – the powers and principalities that Paul mentions in Ephesians 6 – for human as well as natural evil, like disease and natural disasters? In that sense, are any of us truly innocent? Os Guinness writes about our role in evil: “The bible unequivocally grounds its evil in the consequences of free, responsible, culpable choice” (‘Unspeakable’, pg. 140) — Lucifer’s, Adam’s, and mankind’s freely chosen rebellion.

If we are the source of the power that evil draws on, and if God has given us freedom to choose good or evil, will God everywhere intervene to negate the consequences of our choices? The bible is clear — choices, for good or evil, have consequences, even under grace, although for many the consequences are not as severe as they should be.

I believe that if we loved God and each other as we are commanded, there would be no evil or sin in the world. God is love and there is no darkness in Him. If we love as He calls us to love, we will be in Him and He will be in us. This is how evil will be defeated in every human heart –  “love each other as I have loved you”. By the way, in 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul uses the word “love” in the “Love is” – section, you can replace the word love with the name ‘Jesus’ every time and it makes perfect sense.

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives our fear” (1 John 4: 16 – 18 NIV).

This is not a naïve, idealistic  hope. Jesus calls us to love this way – “love each other as I have loved you”. If it was impossible, would Jesus command us to do it? It is a hard-edged, radical, nearly impossible battle-plan to destroy of the power of evil completely. It won’t happen overnight in our lives. And it certainly won’t happen in the world if it doesn’t happen in us. It is the meaning of the cross. At the cross God did something about evil – He destroyed the power of satan, and for all who repent and believe, set them free from bondage to His implacable enemy. He did this out of amazing, incredible love for us. And then He turned to us, individually and collectively, and said: “Now you finish the job” meaning not on our own, but in partnership with Him and His Holy Spirit. But still, it is our job.

The strategy is clear – Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself, and love your enemy. And, this is important, not with the worlds love – which is ‘contract love’, but with ‘covenant love’ (see my posts on ‘love’). I heard Gary Haugen, the founder of International Justice Mission, ask this question about evil “Does God have a plan?” His answer is “Yes, God has a plan. You are the plan”. And your love is the weapon that will make the plan a reality. But, this plan can only be implemented by Kingdom men and women! Apart from life in the Kingdom of God, there is no indwelling Holy Spirit. No indwelling Spirit, no agape love. And apart from true repentance, there is no Kingdom life. Our mission is to implement the plan – to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world, through love. See how it all ties together?

Wow! What a plan. What responsibility.

Still, I believe at one level human beings, through idolatry in all its forms, are unwittingly or even willingly working with Satan to undo God’s creation. But is that all we are? What about the image of God in each one of us? Has that been obliterated by the fall? Are we so thoroughly evil that we no longer have the capacity to choose good? And what does it mean to choose good – is all ‘good’ really good? Most importantly, when presented with the choice, can we choose God (some theologians say “no, you cannot”)? Because if we can’t, then why does God judge, condemn, and punish us when we don’t choose Him? Also, we need to know how far we have fallen in order to know the price God has paid to raise us up. But we also need to see ourselves the way God sees us – apart from Him we are ‘not good enough’ and without love “we are nothing”; but in Christ, which is also Christ in us, we are more than conquerors. We are free and we are victorious. And that is the radical truth satan does not want us to know.

At the end of his first letter, John affirms who we are when we are ‘in Christ’ and adds a warning:

“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true – even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5: 19 – 21 NIV).

That says it all. Kingdom words for God’s Kingdom people.

So, who are we really? Anti-God, rebellious sinners or the beloved children of God? Or both. How did we get to this place of split-personality? And how does who we are impact our understanding of the wrath of God? How does understanding who we are help us understand the deep and amazing love God has for each of us? These are the subjects of the next post, or if it gets too long, the next series of posts.

Still standing but wanting prayer,

John

PS. I have found that thinking about these questions, and praying and asking God to show me the answers has significantly deepened my faith and my connection to Him spiritually, emotionally, and even physically. My prayer times with Him are ‘out of this world’.  Am I the only weird one who thinks these questions are important?