Where does [evil] come from, then? The only way to get a bad thing is to take a good thing and spoil it. For example, darkness isn’t made up from nothing; you get it by blocking the light. Disease isn’t made up from nothing; you get it by ruining health. Notice that this doesn’t work the other way around – you can’t get light by blocking darkness or health by ruining disease. So God created only good things, but some of them have been spoiled.
Copied from How to Stay Christian in College by J. Budziszewski copyright 2004, p.38. Used by permission of NavPress (Think Books) – www.navpress.com. All rights reserved. Get this book!
While we do not believe that personal freedom is the ultimate explanation of the origin of evil, we do believe that freedom was the means which sin did come into the world.
If trifles are vital parts of divine providence, what of evil? Evil is often vastly significant. The most important event which ever occurred was, in one aspect, horribly evil. The crucifixion of Jesus from the standpoint of the crucifiers was grotesquely wicked. Yet, even though the killing of Christ was atrocity itself, what event was so vital and its effects so beneficial as the death of Christ? If God’s providence does not include evil, it does not include the most important event which has ever taken place.
Theology for Everyman, Moody, 1965, Chapter 2.
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end.
[Knowing the character of ] Satan, we may easily judge who his children are. They are those who love to tell a lie, who slander and speak evil of their neighbor, and whose hearts are full of pride, deception, hatred, envy, revenge, and cruelty. Surely they have Satan for their father: for they know Satan’s character and they do the works of Satan. But if they could either see themselves, or Satan as he really is, they would be terrified at their resemblance to him, and totally hate themselves with a deep remorse.
Sermon, Satan’s Schemes, 2 Corinthians 2:11.
