God Neither Causes nor Needs Evil

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The relationship of God to evil and sin is a theological question that almost every Christian cares about. We believe, of course, that God exists and is sovereign. We know evil exists by virtue of our experience. 

Therein lies the conundrum. If God is in control of everything and evil exists, then it must exist because God either desires, permits or needs its existence. 

  1. The first option produces an evil, twisted deity. 
  2. The second makes God a little less warped but portrays him as apparently indifferent and insufficiently moved by our plight to eradicate the cause. 
  3. The third prompt the question of how an omniscient God couldn’t come up with a better plan.

All three formulations should be rejected. They are all propelled by some flawed thinking. 

  1. First, the notion of God’s sovereignty is too often defined as God predestinating everything. God’s foreknowledge does not necessitate predestination. The fact that God knew evil would enter into the world (because he knows all things real and possible) doesn’t require that he decreed the fall or any other evil thereafter. 
  2. Second, we share God’s attributes as his imagers. So do the members of his heavenly host. One of the attributes God shares with all his imagers is freedom. We are not robots with our acts predestined or programmed. If we were, we would not be like God, and we would not be his image.

These observations mean that evil exists because of God’s decision to share his freedom with created beings who lack his perfectly holy character. 


The horrendous atrocities we hear about every day do not exist because God wanted his creatures to suffer. Evil is not part of life because God decided to weave it into his plan for the ages, as though it’s necessary for everything to work out in the end. Evil doesn’t exist because God just tolerates it either, as though he’s unwilling to do something about it.

God’s decision to make humans and the divine beings that serve him in his image—and therefore capable of making choices—also means that eliminating evil would require the extermination of all his imagers. God could do that. He is all-powerful. But God is also love (1 John 4:8). 

God knew what would result from his initial choice to make intelligent beings like himself. He knew rebellion and evil would come and what that would mean. But he deemed that consequence preferable to never having children, whether the “sons of God” or us.

Rather than destroy us all, God chose to forgive and redeem. Using his loyal and loving imagers, he guides the restoration of his good Edenic rule, his kingdom, forward through history toward its proper end. His wisdom and power transcend our choices. In the end, he will have his way without eliminating free will or those who exercise it.



Heiser, M. S. (2018). 

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