Did G-d Create Evil?

Question:

Did G-d create evil? Surely G-d made everything. So although it is people who actually do evil, it was G-d who must have created the idea of evil. But if G-d is good, how could He create evil?

Answer:

Here's the paradox: Goodness exists because G-d desired it; evil exists because G-d doesn't want it.

If a human wants something, but doesn't actually do anything about it, nothing happens. You may want a piece of cake, but a cake will not materialize unless someone bakes it.

But when you're a Divine Being, your desires create reality. With G-d, just wanting something makes it exist. After all, He is all-powerful; if He wants it, what can possibly stop it from being? He wanted a world, so it was. He wanted goodness, so it was.

Now the same applies to G-d not wanting something: it too becomes reality. If G-d decides He doesn't want something, then that decision itself makes that thing exist. G-d's all-powerfulness means that even His not-wanting creates. Evil is what G-d doesn't want. So it exists.

But evil doesn't exist in the same way that goodness exists. G-d wants goodness, so its existence is true and everlasting. Evil exists as a negative, something G-d doesn't want, so its existence is flimsy and temporal. Evil is no more than an undesirable non-entity, a path not to be taken. By doing evil acts, we give evil more credit than it deserves. Our bad choices make evil into a truer existence than it really is.

In the end, evil can't prevail. It is an unwanted ghost, a temporary illusion, a thin facade. Over time evil dissipates, no matter how menacing it may seem. Wicked empires crumble, rotten ideas become exposed, and goodness eventually shines through. That's what G-d wanted all along, but He leaves it to us to achieve.

The only way to banish the ghost of evil is to turn on the light of good.