God created everything... even sin?

[OnlyAmbrose]

I’m sure this is commonly brought up but I’ve never gotten a firm answer on it, and it’s definately an issue I’d like cleared up.

God created everything, and because sin is a reality in the world, does that mean He created sin as well? And if so, how can He be perfect?

Thanks for any answers in advance.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Okay. Open your Bible to the first Chapter of Genesis, and you will see God’s creation of the world, right up to and including the creation of Adam and Eve, “and He saw that it was good.”

The garden of eden, the earth and the universe–all good.

Now, once you have good, and once you have a rational creature capable of free will–the ability to choose any given thing, that opens up the possibility of ‘bad’ or sin, or evil. Note that sin itself is NOT A CREATED THING; it is a ‘reaction’ or a perversion of a ‘good’. All things are good; sin is always a PERVERSION of that good.

God did not create sin; human beings (and angels too) are capable, having free will, to chose the good, or to pervert that good by willing to distort that good into something sinful.

Sin or evil can never exist ‘independently’, as good CAN, since good is a ‘creation’ and evil ever, always, and only a ‘reaction against’ that creation.

 

[Ghosty]

I’m sure this is commonly brought up but I’ve never gotten a firm answer on it, and it’s definately an issue I’d like cleared up.

God created everything, and because sin is a reality in the world, does that mean He created sin as well? And if so, how can He be perfect?

Thanks for any answers in advance.

Sin isn’t a “thing”, but is rather a deformity of things. It’s what’s called a privation in theological language. When the things that God has made turn against God with their free will, they sin; it is the absence of good. In short, sin is the absence of what God has made, and it’s impossible for God to make the absence of Himself.

God allows His creatures to sin, but only because in doing so they don’t escape His Will completely, but simply fall into it in another way. For example, one individual sinning can become the source of virtue for another, such as when a criminal sins by robbing a house and the community acts virtuosly by seeking justice and helping the victim restore their life. In this way free will is preserved, but God’s Will is not utterly defied. This doesn’t mean that people should sin so that good things happen, of course, because virtue without sin is the ultimate good, and is the ultimate intention of God. It’s simply that God’s power makes good out of even the worst sins, such as the murder of Christ.

Paul discusses this matter in the Letter to the Romans, especially chapter 3.

Hope that helps!

Peace and God bless!

 

[JimG]

Sin isn’t a thing which is created. It is an action or behavior on the part of humans which is contrary to their nature and God’s law.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

God created heat and light and good. Cold and dark and evil are but absences of these created blessings.

 

[StMarkEofE]

God created heat and light and good. Cold and dark and evil are but absences of these created blessings.

God created freewill so that we could make choices: Whether to serve God (life, light) or Satan (death, darkness). If there were no freewill then creation has no point. God did not want us to be robots but free human beings. He made us in order that we may accept Him.

 

[GeneK]

I heard a theologian describe sin by comparing it to an “absence”. That is, if I throw a rock at a glass window, the window was without a hole before I threw the rock (no sin). After I throw the rock and hit the window, I put a hole (sin) into the window. So, sin has caused the “absence of good” (before there was no hole, now there is a hole in the windw).

Therefore, I created the hole by removing some of the good (the lack of a hole) that existed before I threw the rock.

In conclusion, like others have said, sin is not a “created thing”, i.e. something that God created. Instead it is the privation of a good that existed before and is caused (or created) by creatures.