Does evil exist? Did God
create evil?
The University professor 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", the student
replied. The professor answered,
"If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil
exists, and according to the principal
that our works define
who we are, then God is evil." The student became
quiet before such an answer. 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
and said, "Can 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
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.
Every body or object is
susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and
heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy.
Absolute zero (-460? F)
is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and
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 and study the various wavelengths of each
color.
You cannot measure
darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and
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 example of
man's inhumanity to man.
It is in the multitude of crime and 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
and 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