God is Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Perfect; he creates a world that contains evil, yet he is not the cause of evil because evil is not a thing. Even though God has created the universe, He also gave us free will which means we can do whatever we want. God has also taught us what is wrong and right. Thus; humans decided to do wrong because they are not good learners. Remember the story of Adam and Eve? God told them to not eat from a tree which described as the apple tree. However, a serpent came to talk to Eve to convince her to eat the fruit. She decided to eat the apple and bring some for Adam. I can certainly say that they had free will, but they did not use it wisely. There is not one cause for evil; it exists due to human’s behavior. God rewards the ones who do the right things and punishes those who do wrong(On Free Choice of The Will Book I, 2). However, as it also shows in The Book of Job, sufferance does not mean one has done wrong; instead, it is a test to see how big is one’s faith (1&2).

Evil has two senses; someone does evil, and someone suffers from evil. (One Free Choice of The Will,1). Someone does evil while seeking for something that does not provide to the person, while the person suffers from evil when they either get punished for doing something wrong, or for being tested by faith, or even condemned for refusing to conform. Job was a blameless man of God; he feared God until Satan gave him some tests, and he cursed his existence(Job 1&2). Nowadays, we come across many punishments to test our faith and intelligence, such as exam to earn credit, from your parents before they can trust you or feel more confident, etc. Condemnation can also be a result of an action that does not seem right or is not acceptable by others. For example, the Apostles and the Martyrs got punished for trusting in God which was not acceptable by the masters (On Free Choice of The Will, 19).

God created us, not evil.We were nothing before God took us out of nothing and made us something. Since evil is also not a thing, I believe we created evil within us. I interpret the formation of us from dirt to form, then when we die we will be buried in the earth as a way of showing us that dirt is what symbolizes “nothing”. God blew on us life so we could follow his orders and once we do not listen to him, we will receive our punishments by returning through the process of death, and if we obey him we will go through both the process of dying and being buried in the earth so we shall live forever. Those methods are also the result of desire and fear of doing evil.

As it stated clearly,God is not the cause of evil (On Free Choice of The Will, 1). After reading The Book of Job, I doubt Satan may be the cause of evil, for he was the one who went and took away everything that belonged to Job and put him through a lot of pain. God does not do wrong to His children because God was never in charge to test. After Satan told God Job has never disobeyed him only because God gave Job everything, God answered to prove Him what he said without doing wrong to Job physically. Perhaps, Job passed the first test by remaining faithful in God (Job 1). Satan went once more; God blamed him for harming Job innocently. Satan responded to God that Job let go of everything only to save his life. Secondly, God allowed Satan to test Job without sparing his life. Satan put Job through a lot of pain until he lost faith in God (Job 2).When God answered Job, He merely asked Job if Job knew anything about the creation of Heaven and earth, and all the right things he had done for him to be talking in such manner about him (Job 38). I think God gave this response in a way to show Job that He does not do evil.

Since God is known for Good, it is impossible for Him to do evil. God makes people suffer from evil as a punishment for disobedience. Evil is the absence of God’s will. God asks to have one man or one woman in our lives; then we chose to go against His will which is a result of lust. Lust is defined as having a strong desire to do something unfamiliar. Lust is the evil in all the things against God’s will (On Free Choice of The Will,20) because we have a desire to experience by curiosity or by lack of strength and faith to know it is not worth doing what God does not like. As humans, it is essential to have a fear of God to avoid doing things against his will and avoid all the desires that others may be seeking.

“ More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it's not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it” (The Problem of Evil). In the Book of Job, after the second test of faith towards Job; he lost his faith and started to curse the day he was born. Job did not know what Satan had told God in order to prove God that Job was not strong enough to remain faithful. This is a way to show even though we all have strong faith when things are going well; the best way to approve our faith is to watch ourselves when things start going bad. For example, how many times do you curse your existence? “I wish I was not born.” “I hate my life.” Etc... Those are all examples of losing faith due to the cause of evil. Most of the times we say them because something terrible happened.

To conclude, God does not create evil. Evil comes from us humans through our desire to do what we should have feared. Since evil is nothing, evil already existed before God created everything. God has taken what He saw was able to create something or needed to be a thing and transformed them into something. Evil is also the absence of obedience. If we disobey God’s will, we automatically do evil. I also want to leave you with one advice. Your faith should remain constant through bad or good.

Works Cited

1. Augustine, et al. “Book I.” On Free Choice of The Will, Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.

2. “The Book of Job.” Job 1-2 & 38 (New International Version), www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/spirituality/job.ht....

3. “The Problem of Evil.” The Problem of Evil by Peter Kreeft, Peter Kreeft, www.peterkreeft.com/topics/evil.htm.