Monotheistic religions tend to make two claims: 1) that god is good; and 2) that he is the only example of an uncaused cause. But aren't these two assumptions logical contradictions? Either he is the Cause of all things (including Evil), or there are many examples of other uncaused causes.
The way this question is posed it can easily be misinterpreted to mean that it assumes that everything is predetermined and freewill does not exist.
That God is good and evil exists is not an illogical contradiction. Especially when one understands the truth about life, existence and why humans are on this planet and held captive to the evil of suffering and death.
When speaking of monotheistic religions, the Bible speaks of the same God in both the New and Old Testaments. The Koran does not reference Yahweh, whose Son has revealed His name—Lord Jesus Christ—in the New Testament. On the other hand, the Tanakh tells us God, The Holy One, has a Son Who possesses the same name as Himself. (Proverbs 30:3-4).
The other monotheistic religions are not based upon the teachings of the Tanakh, whereas Christians are instructed within the New Testament that they are not to go beyond what is written in the Tanakh, which is the Old Testament.
The Tanakh teaches that God created everything and saw that it was Good. There is no reference to God being the source of evil. There are references to God using evil now that it exists, but He is not the source of evil. Those who claim that God is the source of evil are speaking of their god the Devil. For the Devil is the source of evil.
Language is an amazing tool for understanding our existence and our environment. Without language we would be zombies, or animals that merely exist to prey on food sources, procreate and die without reason. Since we have the capacity to reason, we have the capacity to use language as a means of understanding and formulating concepts. Moreover, people seek to make a universal language (e.g. Esperanto), when we already have one (English). The English language being spoken globally is why so much progress has been made in the world of technology. It is also the language that tells us that the originator of evil is the Devil.
The Devil is evil. The Devil is d'evil one. This is intimated in the Tanakh but revealed in the New Testament. An example of revealing what is hinted at in the Tanakh and revealed in the New Testament is evidenced by the name of God being revealed as Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Holy One. The Son of God never sinned and remained the Holy One even though He was in the form of a human. Only Jesus of Nazareth, unlike other mortals, had the power of an indestructible life.
God is good. God is love. God is righteous. God's righteous love shows His goodness. However, being righteous also means God is just. Justice requires judgments, rewards and recompense. But this does not mean God created evil.
Evil came about because of freewill being given to creatures created by the Creator. Freewill may be the cause of evil, but like a gun that kills people, an antecedent is required. For the gun does not kill people of itself and neither does the capacity for freewill. Guns kill people because somebody had determined to exercise their freewill to use a gun to do so. Likewise evil came into being because an entity that possessed freewill decided to exercise the volition given to him as a gift foolishly and took the risk of challenging the Creator.
God created freewill. God saw that freewill was good because it gave entities the ability to appreciate goodness and the ability to choose the enjoyment of wholesome pleasures. Unfortunately, freewill also posed the risk of someone doing the unthinkable and challenging the Supreme One Who is superior in all respects to the Creation and any individual entity within it.
It is illogical in some people's minds that because evil exists, its origins could not be with the First Cause or the Uncaused One. The truth is the Uncaused One need not be the progenitor of evil for it to exist.
If the argument for evil is developed from an evolutionary point of view, evil was either existing within the beginning or it came about along the way. An evolutionist could argue that evil did not come into existence until men began to exercise freewill. Such an argument would be in line with the Bible's description of evil's origin. This is because there was no cause necessary for evil to exist. Indeed, there was no valid reason for evil to exist at all.
The New Testament speaks of evil as sin. Sin is the rupturing of relationships. Jesus said that the Devil sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared in the form of a human being was to destroy the works of the Devil. To attribute Evil to God is to say that the Creator is the Devil.
- He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)
Why would a person choose to be a fool? Evidently conceit arises from covetousness and selfishness. Those who think they are wiser than the Creator turn into fools.
Conceitedness is evil. Those that love evil, dive into their eternal hole of darkness and solitude because of the shame it brings once exposed. For according to the Bible, this shall be the lot of the Devil and those who follow him. Of course, when we are speaking of evil, we are speaking of the pain of not being enjoined in a loving relationship with our Heavenly Father. Satisfied individuals have no cause for evil.
Is it illogical to believe in no uncaused causes and the truth that God is Good? Yes it is illogical to believe that there are no uncaused causes and that God is Good. Because every act of evil that is committed by freewill is an uncaused cause. The first act of evil was committed by an uncaused cause because, without legitimate cause, an agent possessing freewill decided to challenge its Creator. The only reason for this challenge appears to be conceit that has arisen from narcissism, which required a choice having to be made between foolhardiness and humility before being acted upon.
The first act of evil had no legitimate cause, but was determined by an act of freewill and this resulted in a state of separation from God. This state is termed "sin". Sin is separation from God. Sin is also alienation between humans. Alienation between humans is the current state of this world.
In this respect, we see that the Son of God, in humility, did not consider equality with Lord God Almighty as something that was to be grasped; instead, he emptied Himself of His glory and took on human form, so that He could suffer for the sake of redeeming what had been unjustly rent from the Eternal One. This the Son of God did by taking on the likeness of men and becoming sin as an act of reconciliation to permit humans to be ransomed from the state of separation from God into which they are born. This act appeased the righteous requirements of a law-abiding Creator and meet the criterion for universal justice to be upheld: a righteous life sacrificed for the unrighteous act of Adam and all his seed that were in his loins as the progenitor of the human race.
While sin is the cause of evil, and we exist in sin because we are placed here by our Creator, we have to be given every option possible to resist evil and seek salvation from its tentacles of death. Moreover, we have to be given every option to recognize that to reject our Creator becomes our decision. Only when this has been provided can anyone exercise his or her freewill with uncaused cause and thus be reconciled to the Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, or reject the offer of eternal salvation from the consequences of sin and death. Therefore it is not illogical for God to be wholly good and the uncaused cause who did not create evil.
The Ones Who Overcome Evil Are The Ones Who Find Life's Everlasting Secrets
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