The Origin of Evil and other thoughts I had while bicycling | NowPublic News Coverage

The Origin of Evil and other thoughts I had while bicycling

by Andrew_Hoehn | April 10, 2006 at 09:01 am

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The other day I started my morning with a bicycle ride, despite the early spring wind and rain. I decided that as accompanyment to the ride, I'd listen to C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. For those of you who havn't experienced this particular work, he begins with a philisophical defense of Christian thought.

He is, of course, fairly convincing. His mind works in a way that mine does not, so that when I don't agree with one of his smaller points, I can't concieve whether or not that disagreement discounts his argument.

While he was talking about dualism, I started to become distracted with my own thoughts, and began to think about the origins of Evil. If evil came into the universe, it had to either

1) Be created by God, which means that Evil is part of God.

2) Come from somewhere outside of God, which means that there is something outside of God in the universe, which means that God can not be the ultimate and only creative force.

Both of those seem a bit more complex than the Christian worldview usually admits. I'm sure I'm far from the first person to think these thoughts, but it's not something that I've come across before.

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kate

at 21:52 on April 10th, 2006

In some mediaeval thinking, evil is conceived as absence.

at 14:00 on April 11th, 2006

I don't think evil has to be part of God to have been created BY God. Even we mere mortals are capable of imagining something that is the complete opposite of us. Is it unreasonable to assume that God is capable of thinking of and creating something that is opposite of itself?

pspruett

at 05:49 on April 12th, 2006

Evil is not a "thing" to be created. It is more of a lack of good or a misuse of good things that God has created. A metalworker could create a knife, which is useful for carving and eating, but if that knife was used for murder would we say that the metalworker had created that murder? No, only the potential for murder if anything existed to actualize that potential.

Unless you want to reject the laws of logic, or take a pantheistic view of God as "everything," then you must allow that things opposite of God's nature and intentions could theoretically exist. If God bothers to create "something," then "nothing" must logically be able to exist. If God creates "light," then "darkness" must be an option. If good, obedience, and order exist, then evil, disobedience, and chaos could find an expression, especially if God creates free will (a "good" thing), which can be turned to either alternative.

Maybe the better question would be, Why does God allow people to do things counter to His will and nature?

xyz

at 06:56 on April 13th, 2006

Here's a "thought" for you: Maybe instead of plugging your ears and plumbing the depths of your mind on the origins of evil while you bike, you should leave the audio books at home and pay attention to what's happening on the road. As a runner, I constantly see jackasses like you skating and biking along lazily, lost in thought and oblivious to all else.

Wearing headphones and becoming "distracted with your own thoughts" while cycling isn't quirky or eccentric or funny. It's reckless and stupid.