Why did God create a world in which there was evil?
I think we are all inclined to ask whether the world wouldn’t be so much better if there were no evil, if everyone were good and they committed no sins. The answer must be yes and no.
But first, let us remind ourselves that God did create a world in which there was no evil. He created Adam and Eve as adults in a garden of paradise which we call Eden. They were in a close relationship with God, who made them in his image and likeness and loved them dearly. They were in the state of sanctifying grace, a sharing in God’s own life, with the Blessed Trinity dwelling in their souls, as we are too in the state of grace. For a time they didn’t sin and there was no evil.
Evil entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned. Tempted by the devil, in the form of a serpent, they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God forbade them to eat. In so doing, they lost the state of grace, of intimacy with God, and also their freedom from suffering and death, from disordered passions and from ignorance. Thereafter, evil and sin would be part and parcel of man’s life on earth.
Why did we say that in answer to the question of whether the world would be better if there were no evil, the answer must be yes and no? The yes is easy to understand, since we know the harm that sin causes in the human family and in the individual person. We need go no further than to remember that one of Adam and Eve’s own sons, Cain, killed his brother Abel.
But why do we say that the answer must also be no? Simply because the only way for there to be no sin on earth would be for God to have created us without freedom, so that we would be incapable of sinning. But God wanted us to be free like him. He created us in his image and likeness, with an intellect capable of knowing truth, including the truth about God, and a will which was free and capable of choosing and of loving God. And yes, also capable of choosing to offend God by sin.
Animals, which are not free, cannot know truth, they cannot love God, and they cannot sin. They simply follow their instincts. Surely, a world in which there are creatures capable of knowing and loving God and each other, and of being with God forever in heaven, is better than a world in which there are only animals, with no rational intellect or free will, with no immortal soul.
In a sense, God himself confirms this. After each day’s work of creation, beginning on the third day when he created plants, God “saw that it was good,” but on the sixth day, when he created man in his image and likeness, God saw that saw that “it was very good” (Gen 1:31).
Yes, I think we would all agree that it is better for us to be capable of knowing and loving God and of spending eternity with him in heaven, even if it means we are also capable of sinning and bringing evil into the world.
What is more, we know that God can bring good out of evil. The church’s liturgy sings in the Easter Vigil Proclamation with respect to the original sin of Adam and Eve: “O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” Yes, because of that sin, God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son to dwell among us, to give us the church and the sacraments, and to die on the Cross to redeem us and open up the way to heaven.
God brings good out of our personal sins too. He forgives us when we come back to him with true sorrow and we experience the joy of his forgiveness, as did the prodigal son when he was embraced by his father (cf. Lk 15:11-24). Also, when we confess our sins, we grow in self-knowledge and in the virtues of repentance, humility and sincerity.
When others hurt us by their sins we can live the beautiful virtue of forgiveness, remembering that God has forgiven us much more than we will ever forgive our neighbour. And we have an opportunity to pray for those who have hurt us, thereby showing love for our “enemy.”
St Paul sums it up: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). Yes, a world with freedom and consequently with sin and evil, is much better than a world without it.