Where did, or does, “Evil” come from?
As we discussed previously, Augustine defined “evil” to be “the lacking of some particular good that is appropriate to it”, in the same way as darkness is the lacking of light. Did the Creator as described in the Bible consider the world good? Absolutely! At the end of His creative activities, the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, said that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”.
Now, if the Creator called the world good, then where did bad, or not good, come from?
The book of Genesis tells us how humanity introduced “evil” into this world. According to Genesis, God created a man and a woman in the sixth day. He named the man “Adam” which carries the meaning of “earth” as God used the materials on earth to create him. Adam in turns gave the woman the name “Eve”.
God provided all the needs of Adam and Eve. They enjoyed wonderful fellowship with God. God issued one and only one commandment to Adam and Eve. That is not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God told Adam the consequence of eating. He said, “for when you eat from it you will certainly die”.
In Genesis chapter 3, we found a fairly detail description of how Adam and Eve broke the commandment of God. The English Bible has the title for this chapter as the “Fall”. The initiation of the Fall came from a serpent. It tempted Eve to take the fruit that God commanded not to eat. Eve resisted the temptation at first. However, the serpent kept tempting Eve. In the end, the serpent succeeded. Eve ate some fruit from the forbidden tree and gave some to Adam to eat.
The disobedience of Adam and Eve is the first sin humans ever committed. Soon God came to Adam and Eve in the garden and asked why they broke the commandment. Adam blamed Eve for giving the fruit to him. Eve in turn blamed the serpent.
One may ask, “All right, then that is how human started to sin. Evil began in humans and probably caused suffering from it. But what about natural disaster?”
Following the disobedient act of man, God said to Adam,
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it, all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field…”
It indicates that the corruption of the ground is part of God’s “curse” because of man’s sin.
We should be aware of a couple things related to the above description from the Bible. Right after the “Fall”, the Bible said God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed them. So we see that God did not abandon the first couple even after the Fall. As for the cursed earth, the apostle Paul tells us that in the future, the “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay…” The Bible promises that there will be a day when there is no more natural disaster.
Friends, there has been a lot of study on Genesis. Many great books have been published that explain the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which carries so much significance. I have to admit that I am not an expert of Genesis at all. But I feel compelled to highlight to you these few descriptions in Genesis, as it has a direct connection with what we have been discussing on the Problem of Evil.
Comments