Is God evil?
God's character is not a matter of guesswork or mood — Scripture makes a direct announcement about what He is, and it leaves no room for a mixture. The question "is God evil?" runs into that announcement head-on, and also into the harder follow-up: if He is not evil, why is there evil at all?
No mixture in God
The first answer is not an argument but a description of His nature. Writers point out that the statement is deliberately absolute:
William J. HockingLight is the purest element in existence. Its intense purity cannot be defiled. A ray of light shining on a stagnant pool of corruption stays perfectly pure. It cannot be contaminated in any way. So the light of God resists everything corruptible and evil that comes out of moral darkness. "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." God is not one part light and one part dark; He is light, absolutely.
The same reasoning is applied when we look at a confusing world and wonder about God's fairness:
Samuel RidoutThe very fact that God is denies that He is unrighteous. The absolutely Perfect One could not think or do evil. So James declares, "God cannot be tempted with evil" (James 1:13). Let us mark this way of reasoning well. It turns away from all secondary causes, from the difficult problems and dark puzzles in the world, to Him who is light.
Where temptation actually starts
If God cannot be enticed by evil, He cannot pass it on. That leaves the source of temptation much closer to home.
F. B. HoleGod Himself is above all evil. It is completely foreign to His nature. It is as impossible for Him to be tempted with evil as it is impossible for Him to lie. It is equally impossible for Him to tempt anyone with evil, though He may permit His people to be tempted with evil, knowing well how to overrule even that for their ultimate good. The real root of all temptation lies within ourselves, in our own desires.
Testing is not enticing
One text seems to cut the other way: God "tested" Abraham by telling him to offer his son Isaac. Commentators handle this by separating two meanings of the same word.
J. T. MawsonThis must have been some other kind of temptation than the one James speaks of. It was certainly not an enticement to do evil. It could not have been, for it is as impossible that God should tempt a man in that way as it is impossible for Him to lie. It was a testing of what was in Abraham; his faith was put into the furnace, and it came out, as we know, like gold tried by fire.
"I create evil"
Isaiah 45:7 is the verse most often used to charge God with authoring evil. Two things are said about it. First, the word itself: "In Isaiah 45:7 it should be noticed that 'evil' means adversity" (William Kelly). Second, the setting — the verse is aimed at a religion that split the universe between a good god and an evil one.
F. G. PattersonWe are told that the Persians were famous for a two-fold system of idolatry — Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. So Jehovah declares His supremacy over all these principles that the Persian mind had made into gods. It does not convey the thought that Jehovah directly creates evil; it establishes His divine supremacy as God over principles that are mere creatures or abstract qualities, which the Persians held as gods and to which the king might credit his victories.
Permitted, not authored
Why allow evil at all? The answers given point to real moral creatures rather than machines, and to God's power to turn evil back on itself.
A. J. PollockThere is only one answer to be given. God is not the author of evil, but He has allowed sin for His own glory. He did not create creatures who were incapable of choosing between good and evil; otherwise He would have created mere machines — far more wonderful than motor cars and aeroplanes, but still on the same level.
F. G. PattersonHe allows evil to exhaust itself, and then His goodness — indeed, He Himself — is shown in overruling and counteracting it.
Judging evil is not being evil
People sometimes read God's anger as cruelty. Writers argue the opposite: a God who shrugged at evil would be the frightening one.
J. N. DarbyHe takes notice of good and evil, and so He necessarily judges. Yet we are sinners, and as regards such, what can righteousness do? But He is love. Does His love destroy His judgment against sin? Does it put an end to His righteousness? No — that would not be grace and love, but indifference to evil, and it would lead our hearts, sadly, to be indifferent to it too. Why should we not be, if God were? It would be a real curse to us, and He would not be the true and holy God.
The cross settles the question
The final evidence is not a definition but an event, where God's hatred of sin and His heart toward sinners appear together.
James BoydHe could very well have shown His hatred of sin by the eternal condemnation of the sinner, but instead He sent His only Son to bear what we deserved... Where His hatred of sin was fully declared, there also His great love to the sinner was shown.
Summary
- Light. God is not partly light and partly dark. He is light, absolutely — evil is foreign to His nature, as impossible for Him as lying.
- Source. Since evil cannot attract Him, He cannot pass it on. The root of temptation is in our own desires, not in God.
- Testing. God does test faith, as with Abraham, but testing is putting gold in the fire — never an invitation to sin.
- Permission. He is not the author of evil; He allows it, lets it exhaust itself, then shows Himself in overruling it.
- Proof. Judgment against evil is love, not cruelty — and at the cross His hatred of sin and His love for sinners were declared in the same act.