Is God the Creator of Good and Evil (Part Three)

January 8

Is God the Creator of Good and Evil? (Part Three)

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isa. 45:7)

Yesterday we learned that Isa. 45:7 must be understood from a “permissive” rather than a “causative” sense. Some passages make this point clear. Deuteronomy 28:15-28, for example, uses the typical punitive language for disobedience and it ascribes to God the tragedies that would fall upon Israel such as “I will destroy thee…. I will smite thee....I will send enemies.... I will send pestilence... etc.”

However, these are simply Hebrew idioms which ascribe to God as doing the thing which He only permitted. Interpreting Scripture with Scripture, we see that God is not the author of the disasters (evils) that came upon Babylon. He permits these disasters due to their sin.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.” (Deut. 31:16-18).

The word “evils” in the passage above is the Hebrew word “ra”; the same word used in Isa. 45:7. Interpreting Scripture with Scripture we see that evil comes when the Lord is absent. This is the proper understanding of the phrase “I create evil”.

Examining Isa. 45:7 in light of the above, we see that God is light (1 John 1:9; James 1:17) and creates darkness when He withdraws and darkness prevails. God offers men His light in spite of their rebellion (Isa. 50:10; John 8:12; 12:46; 1 Pet. 2:9) but men reject it because they hate it (John 1:5-11; 3:19-20). Therefore, Isa. 45:7 is permissive in that God is allowing men the consequences of their choices. God is not the author of physical or moral evil. Evil comes when the source of good that protects from evil is forsaken. This is permission and not causation.

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