Does Evil Exist?

Did God create everything that exists? Does evil exist? Did God create evil?

A University professor at a well-known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, & according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet & did not respond to the professor's hypothetical definition.The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the religious faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand & said, "May I ask you a question, professor?"

"Of course," replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"

The other students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied,

"In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat.Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmitsenergy, & heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy.Absolute zero (-460F) is the total absence of heat; & all matter becomes inert & incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist.We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors & study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness & illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime & violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God.It is just like darkness & cold, a word
that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart.It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."The professor sat down.

The young man's name--Albert Einstein. A true story.

I received this in an email. It sounds like an apocryphal Einstein story. I believe it is a good explanation of evil. It also explains well Rambam in MN3:10:

“Just as we say of him who puts out the light at night that he has produced darkness, so we say of him who destroyed the sight of any being that he produced blindness, although darkness and blindness are negative properties, and require no agent. In accordance with this view we explain the following passage of Isaiah: "I form the light and create (bore) darkness: I make peace, and create (bore) evil" (Isa. xlv. 7), for darkness and evil are non-existing things. Consider that the prophet does not say, I make (‘osseh) darkness, I make (‘osseh) evil, because darkness and evil are not things in positive existence to which the verb "to make" would apply; the verb Bara "he created" is used, because in Hebrew this verb is applied to non-existing things e.g., "In the beginning God created" (Bara), etc.; here the creation took place from nothing. Only in this sense can non-existence be said to be produced by a certain action of an agent.”