bbyrd009...
Man, is this a deep subject….
God never creates or created evil, in the truest sense.
In the heavens, God’s presence permeates everywhere. There is no place for evil to exist.
This world and universe began with the absence of God’s presence. It was completely the opposite of goodness. It was all darkness, all evil.
God then made his presence known in selective areas of this universe and this world. Evil existed where God was not.
Take the following scripture passage:
(Isa 45:5) I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,
(Isa 45:6) that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.
(Isa 45:7) I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. (ALL ESV)
No one knows God, his ways and why he does things, although God chose to make his presence known to selective people, from Adam to the latest and newest true believer in Christ. From the start is was sufficient that the people knew that it was he that caused the rising and setting of the sun. Light to darkness (that already existed).
In this world, God causes goodness and its effect is the presence of darkness. He does not create the darkness.
Verse 7 seems to indicate that God created both the light and darkness. Or that he created both well-being and chaos. Upon closer examination, we see that God’s presence of goodness in specific areas will always produce ‘adjacent’ to it, evil, where God’s presence is absent. We see this type of ‘common law’ throughout scripture.
As with goodness, evil is also spiritual knowledge and consciousness or presence.
It is impossible for either the good and evil (physical and spiritual) to cohabitant and exist forever. It will eventually die, as with this earth and universe and with evil mankind.
Now God did not create the ‘tree’ of ‘good and evil.’ It was first created as a ‘tree of goodness,’ with total dependence on God. Then God allowed independence of consciousness to exist, separate from the presence of God. The power given by God was overwhelming and the ‘tree’ eventually became the spiritual presence and consciousness of a ‘fallen’ being, it had the knowledge of evil. God then created a lower form of existence and created man for this same purpose, to ‘fall’ and then ‘rise up.’ It initially went down the same way, death.
God always knew that his presence must always dwell within his creation; he cannot allow self-reliance with the power of goodness become independent. And scripture tells of the plan of restoration to that perfect state once more.
Does God know evil or have the knowledge of evil? It is impossible. By his very existence and spiritual presence of goodness, he cannot know evil even though it is present in this world. He only knows what he is. And this is another reason why God cannot produce evil.
The only people today with the knowledge and spirits of good and evil are the true believers in Christ. Others that are ‘lost’ only have the knowledge and spirit of evil.
Once a believer is restored in their new bodies they will only possess the spirit and knowledge of goodness and receive the energy of the spiritual tree of life.
One the basis of man, he is basically good. God says otherwise, he is (born) evil.
Bless you,
APAK
