The Problem of Evil
The so-called “problem of evil” is often viewed as the most formidable argument against the existence of an all-good God. Some have dubbed it “the one to rule them all.” Its origins can be traced all the way back to the third century BCE, when the Greek philosopher Epicurus put it this way:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?”
And so for centuries, we have wrestled with this “problem,” trying again and again to force it into submission—sometimes making progress, sometimes not. It’s no wonder that it has cut to our hearts and endured, as its core arguments echo our lived experiences. Nobody can deny the presence of tragedy in this world: seemingly random suffering at the hands of an unexpected illness, the pain of a loved one’s betrayal, atrocities committed for no other reason than racial or ideological hatred.
Yet to call this an “evil” world wouldn’t be quite fair. One need only look to the love of a tender mother to see that good coexists with the bad. A better way to put it: this is a world of dual tension—a tension between good and evil. Still, we arrive at the same conclusion. The presence of evil is undeniable—so how do we reconcile this with an all-good God?
For the Christian, however, this “problem” is not the poison-fanged, unconquerable beast that it may seem to be. Why? Because Scripture is clear: what we are living and experiencing is a work-in-progress, not the completed work of creation.
Let’s imagine you and I are taking a stroll together, and we walk past a home under construction. We observe the exposed studs, the scaffolding, tools and materials scattered about. Then I say to you, “That builder is a fool. Clearly that structure is unfit to live in. That roof can’t even keep out rainwater—just look at all the other hazards waiting to trip you.”
Of course, for me to make such a claim would prove that I am the fool. This is obvious when we’re talking about a building site. A reasonable observer doesn’t judge a work by its in-progress condition—it must be judged by its planned state of finality. This is the first shift we must make when discussing evil.
The second shift is more challenging, but just as necessary. The God of the Bible is the creator of all things. All means all—encompassing both the positive and the negative. By this, we mean that He is the creator of the potential for evil enacted—and we must emphasize this: God never commits evil. Never. Yet it appears he intended for its existence. Scripture clearly articulates a creation of duality: light and dark, good and evil, truth and lie.
Now, we must be very clear on what we mean by the term ‘evil.’ Throughout Scripture, it exists in distinct ways: as a potential (like the tree of knowledge of good and evil), as an actor (like the snake in Eden) and as a moral choice made in opposition to God (like the fall of man). When we discuss God as an originator, we strictly mean in the first sense—potential.
Another way to think of this: a ball at rest at the edge of a slope has stored energy called potential energy. However, the moment you nudge the ball toward the slope, the energy becomes kinetic—energy in action. Evil can be viewed in the same conceptual manner. God created the potential for evil within free-will beings. It is within the free-will of those beings—not God—that potential became kinetic. However, we cannot simply write-off its existence in the first place.
Now we must give another important clarification of terms. When speaking of duality, this is not a claim of divine dualism—as if good and evil are co-eternal, equally powerful forces locked in a stalemate. Evil is not equal to God—it is permitted by Him for a time, within limits. The tension I’m describing is not within God Himself, but within the creation He has chosen to unfold.
So then, we live in a world-in-progress—temporarily burdened by duality. And if God is truly all-good, we must believe there is an all-good reason for allowing this duality to exist. I believe that there is, and I believe that Scripture affirms it. A deep and thorough explanation is to come—but for now, let us simply state it plainly:
This world is incomplete, and it is headed toward a future perfected state. Duality exists as a temporary means to bring about that end. Why? Because free will, which demands choice, cannot exist without opposing options. And why would an all-good God desire free will? Because love cannot truly be love unless it is freely entered—not coerced. And this God is love. And it is love that shall bring about the perfected creation to come.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? No—God is the author of this creation, and He is bringing about something perfect.
Is he able, but not willing? For a time. To say this is malevolence is plainly false, for a perfect world is still being formed. And duality is a necessary ingredient.
Is he both able and willing? Able, yes. Willing—soon.
A Work in Progress
This claim that the world is incomplete shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the New Testament. Yet I understand our proclivity to forget it. After all, our happiness and our pain are felt today, not tomorrow. And to cling to future hope means enduring the tensions of the present. This is why Scripture returns to this hope again and again. It is essential.
Take, for instance, the words of Christ in Luke 6:21, 23: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh… Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” Jesus doesn’t shy away from the pain of the present— but he also assures us of the joy to come.
Paul, too, takes care to remind the church of this future hope. In Romans 8:18 he writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” And again, in 2 Corinthians 4:17–18: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…”
Pay close attention to his language: the present moment is preparing us. But what would be the point of preparation if the future simply mirrored the present? Clearly, Paul foresees a coming reality that is fundamentally different from our current. One that makes sense of the pain—not by erasing it here and now, but by using it to prepare for something greater.
Now let’s revisit the earlier analogy of the construction site. If we can agree that this world is incomplete—which we should, by acknowledging Scripture’s promise of a perfected future—then doesn’t it make better sense to judge the builder by the design, not the partly-built structure? Well, of course.
In fact, our endless tarrying about evil itself suggests the existence of the future world. Consider this: why does humanity—Christian or not—struggle so deeply with the reality of suffering and evil? If we were nothing more than our bodies, made from the same physical “stuff” that fills the world around us, shouldn’t we be more at peace with the natural order of a dualistic world?
I’ll never forget the look on my six-year-old daughter’s face the first time she wrestled with tragedy. After kindergarten one afternoon, she shared that a classmate said a helicopter had collided with a passenger plane, killing everyone on board. “They all died, Daddy!” she cried, tears welling. “Why?”
Over time, my daughter will grow to become more guarded against tragedy—as we all do. But seeing her unprotected emotion in that moment broke my heart. It reminded me of a vital fact: at the center of ourselves, not only do we desire a world without evil, but we expect that it ought not to exist at all. No child experiences shock when faced with something good. But when tragedy is introduced, their worldview shatters.
What if a child’s feeling that the world ought to be good is, in fact, the correct intuition?
Too often, my fellow Christians—with the best of intentions—try to explain away the darkness in this world as a “necessary evil” for the sake of free will and real agency. They suggest that the greatest evil would be the loss of agency, not the presence of evil itself. While I wholeheartedly agree that agency is of the utmost importance—especially in understanding the reason for duality—I cannot fully commit to the idea that a world with evil and agency is better than a world without evil altogether.
But a world with agency and without evil? That is something altogether different. Dare I say, perfect.
And according to the Bible, that is the world currently being formed. This present state is temporary—a cosmological chrysalis—birthing a reality in which we are not forced into union with God, but adopted sons and daughters by choice, through God’s mercy. One where we are both free, and without evil.
Without this present stage, it would have to be a forced world without evil. And that, to me, is incoherent. How could anyone argue that forcing a free-willed being is not a contradiction in terms? To make such a claim, one must abandon the idea of agency altogether. But wouldn’t we agree that agency is good—and that it belongs in a world of perfection?
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I believe now is a good moment to pause and ask a profound and difficult question. I hope we both now agree that it makes logical sense to evaluate a project by its planned state of finality, and not only by its work-in-progress condition. However, there is a very legitimate question here: Is whatever is coming truly worth the pain and suffering that exists now?
Let us not trivialize this.
If you’ve been the victim of abuse—your pain is real.
If you’ve been betrayed by those who were meant to love and protect you—your pain is real.
If you’ve been cast into the throes of war and witnessed the darkness in mankind—your pain is real.
If sickness has stolen the life you dreamed of—for yourself or for someone you love—your pain is real.
Take heart in this: in the world to come, your tears don’t simply vanish—as if they never meant anything. They are wiped away and held by the Almighty.
Revelation 21:1–4 (ESV): Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And so we see the plan—laid bare for our hope and consideration. It is now our choice to accept or reject it. For the sake of clarity, let’s walk through it together, point by point:
- A new heaven and new earth appear.
- The old heaven, the old earth, and the “sea” pass away.
- A prepared New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth.
- God and mankind dwell together and are no longer separated.
- Every tear is wiped away by God himself. Death, pain, and sorrow are gone.
Notice that the plan is not to simply revise and correct this world into a better state over time. According to the Bible, this world is meant to pass away entirely—to make room for a new one. But God remains. And we remain. Us—with our agency, and all the mess that comes along with it. If we choose, we are transformed along with the world: the old has gone, and the new has come.
Now take note of a subtle but striking detail—there is a new heaven and a new earth… but no new sea. Hold on to that. When we later explore the nature of duality, we’ll land the significance of this.
And then we reach the culmination of events: a union akin to a marriage between bride and groom. The imagery is vivid and intentional—and a whole essay could be written on the depth of this analogy. But for now, let us simply state this: the union between God and mankind is one in which the two become one. For mankind, made in God’s image, now fully bears his likeness—realized through the resurrection of Christ. And so, the eternal embrace can finally occur between the God of love, and the humanity that has so desperately longed for love. God will wipe away every tear and usher us into the perfect world our hearts have always known ought to be.
So we circle back to the question at hand: Is whatever is coming truly worth the pain and suffering that exists now? Now that we’ve glimpsed the world to come, I suppose we each must choose an answer for ourselves. Yet, I believe—if we could experience its glory even for a fleeting moment—we would answer unanimously. Yes.
But this leads us to another inescapable question: Why does this world to come require the present suffering to come about? Does this mean God is the creator of evil and suffering?
Duality by Design
Tracing back to even the second century, the early church fathers wrestled with this same question. Writers like Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Theophilus of Antioch all argued that evil was simply the result of humanity’s misuse of free will.
This same argument has more or less held strong—and if you are a Christian, or you’ve debated with a Christian on this topic, you’ve very likely heard it.
While free will does seem to be an essential component, I’ve always taken issue with it being used as a full explanation for evil’s origin. First, isn’t Scripture explicit that God is the creator of all things? Is it really safe for us to start picking and choosing features of creation we don’t prefer and suggesting God must not have created them? That line of reasoning doesn’t hold. If God didn’t create evil, but His created beings (humans) are responsible for it, doesn’t that still make Him the originator? Did He not create our nature? And if, as Augustine argued, evil is simply a “corruption of good,” then we’re stuck with the same problem: who created the “corruptible nature” of good things?
My second issue is this: where did the snake in the Garden of Eden come from? Was the serpent not evil? If evil isn’t supposed to exist until the moment mankind eats the forbidden fruit, how is this deceitful serpent already present? Further, doesn’t the presence of a tree of “the knowledge of good and evil” imply that evil already exists—at least as a preconceived feature of creation?
To my fellow Christians: this is not a cause for existential crisis. It’s time we let Scripture speak plainly. God can—and did—intend for pain, suffering, and even evil to be a temporary feature within His process of bringing about the perfected creation to come. It’s been present since the beginning. Let us accept it, learn from it, and trust that God is firmly in control of His divine plan. There are no accidental features of His creation.
It cannot be overstated: God never has, never does, and never will commit acts of evil. Period. By His very nature, God is goodness perfected. Evil, on the other hand, is the inverse of His nature. So when we say that God is the creator of evil, what we mean is that He permits the moral opposite of His nature to exist—for now. Yes, He created the potential through beings, conditions, and context—but every heinous act committed was born in the hearts of free-willed agents acting apart from Him.
In Scripture, this is best illustrated by God being the creator of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—for who else could be? And let us ponder this for a moment. If such a tree existed in the midst of Eden, then we simply must accept that evil as a conceptual potential must preexist the original sin of man. It would be nonsense to suggest that there was ‘forbidden fruit’ that held the knowing of evil, yet evil was not an existing concept at all.
Yet, this tree was not just a ‘knowing of evil,’ was it? It is a tree of the knowledge of both good and evil. Does this possibly imply that good is only knowable if it is a contrast to evil? Perhaps—but we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.
It would seem that that there existed a kind of ‘dual tension’ between good and evil before mankind ate of the fruit. Not tension within God—but tension within the creation in order to produce something from it.
And here’s what we can know—If God is the creator of evil as potential, then He created it with great purpose. Not unlike a master blacksmith who uses the flames of a furnace to expose flaws and reshape the metal into something stronger and more beautiful.
So does evil exist as a feature of creation before mankind eats the fruit? Well, the presence of the tree and the serpent should be enough to already answer that. But Scripture may even suggest this in the creation account itself:
Genesis 1:1–2 (ESV):
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The first two verses of Genesis have recently puzzled me. I couldn’t possibly count how many times I’ve heard or read them—between endless sermons and my many youthful attempts to read the whole Bible from cover to cover. For most of my life, they simply felt like an on-ramp to verse three: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” That’s the real start of creation, right? Verse two is just “nothingness” setting the stage for the “light” of verse three.
Well—no. A closer look may reveal much more than ‘nothingness.’
Take a breath and prepare yourself—we’re about to go on a bit of an exegetical ride.
The Waters of Genesis
Now, if close textual analysis isn’t usually your cup of tea, you might be tempted to skim ahead. But I encourage you—stick with me. Roll up your sleeves, and let’s do some heavy lifting together. Allowing the Scriptures to challenge our conventions and intuitions can be one of the most enlightening parts of the journey.
Let us examine these first two verses of Genesis closely:
Verse one is the original act of creation: the formation of “the heavens” (distantly plural in the Hebrew) and “the earth” (singular).
Verse two then gives us a description of what has been created. First, there’s the singular earth—formless and void at this point. But then we’re shown two oceanic spaces that seem to constitute “the heavens” at this stage. If the earth is “void,” and creation consists of only heaven and earth, then these two watery bodies must represent the “heavens” in an initial, spiritual state.
Now if your conception of the heavens only allows room for God and His angels, keep in mind that for the ancient Hebrews, “the heavens” encompassed both positive and negative spiritual forces. This reading is consistent with Paul’s language in Ephesians 6:12, where both good and evil powers reside in the “heavenly places.”
Put plainly, we see three distinct features of creation: the earth, the deep, and the waters. We also see two powers: darkness, and the Spirit of God.[1]
It’s easy to gloss over, but from the very first moment of creation, the Spirit of God already has a counterpart: the darkness. And its domain—the deep (Hebrew, tehom)—carries a consistent image throughout Scripture of being a place of divine chaos and terror, where great and powerful beings that oppose God exist.
Now, I should point out that this reading of three distinct features is an alternative to the traditional interpretation which has been held for centuries. The traditional view holds that evil arrives only after mankind’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit. Therefore, the common reading does not view the waters and the deep in verse two as distinct objects of creation—but rather as one and the same. This reading assumes what’s known as synthetic parallelism—a common literary device in which a second line reiterates or expands upon the idea in the first. This is particularly common in Hebrew poetry, which Genesis 1 is.
For example, in Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
This view has consistently been applied, as it cleanly locates the origin of evil in the human choice made in Genesis 3—avoiding any implication of a dualistic design originally. Darkness is simply the absence of light, and the water and deep are one in the same.
But applying that same reading to Genesis 1:2 raises problems. Synthetic parallelism typically reinforces a unified idea or image. In this case, the terms waters (mayim) and deep (tehom) can both refer to oceanic waters—but they carry different allegorical meanings. More significantly, the presences associated with them are clearly not compatible. Over the waters hovers the Spirit of God (ruach elohim), while over the deep rests darkness (choshekh).
The verse does not simply state that “it was dark,” but rather it puts “darkness” in a position of authority by saying it “was over” the deep. This language is used to denote dominion, not to simply describe how something appears. And these are not complementary images—they are contrasting. As John states plainly in 1 John 1:5: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” It seems quite odd—impossible, even—to suggest that the Spirit of the God of light and darkness co-rule the same space. In Scripture, divine presence and darkness are never pictured as peacefully cohabiting. When divine light enters, it always drives out the darkness.
Okay—so hopefully you and I can intuitively agree that darkness and the Spirit of God are at odds with one another. But what about the deep and the waters? Aren’t they just two ways of saying the same thing—the ocean?
Well, not exactly. But it’s a bit less intuitive, since we don’t have the luxury of being literate in ancient Hebrew.
While both words can be translated as “ocean” or “sea,” they carry different symbolic weight throughout the Hebrew Bible. Tehom (translated “the deep”) appears thirty-six times and is consistently associated with images of chaos and unrest: the floodwaters of Noah’s day, the great oceans from which terrifying creatures emerge, and the Red (or Reed) Sea that God parts to deliver Israel from Egypt—conquering the tehom to make a path for His people.
Mayim (translated “waters”), on the other hand, appears far more frequently—five hundred and seventy-one times. Why? Because it doesn’t carry the same symbolic weight. It simply means what it says—water. You could offer your friend a glass of mayim, go swimming in the mayim, or look up to the skies and feel mayim fall on your face.
Still, while mayim is used more broadly, we’d be remiss to ignore how water carries deep symbolic meaning throughout the Scriptures. Water represents life. When Moses struck the rock in the wilderness, it sustained the Israelites. When they washed in the temple basin, the water cleansed them of impurity and death. When Christians are baptized, water becomes the symbol of transformation—from death to life. Christ Himself says He gives living water, a spring welling up to eternal life.
So are tehom and mayim the same in verse two? I don’t believe so. Tehom is the water of chaos, ruled by darkness. Mayim is the water of peace, ruled by the Spirit of God.
A second, simpler objection to the parallelism view is found in verse six: “And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’” Here we undeniably see two bodies of water. And notably, we’re not told that God created these waters during this phase—they’re already there. The implication is that they must have been formed earlier, which points us back to verse two, where the deep and the waters are introduced. Unless tehom and mayim refer to two distinct bodies, this verse becomes incoherent.
Therefore, I believe it to be more harmonious to view the waters and the deep in verse two as distinct realms—each associated with opposing forces. One is ruled by the Spirit of God—His animating power and presence over creation. The other is ruled by darkness—chaos and distortion. Even before the earth takes shape, the original design included a structured tension, where good and evil were prepared to exist in contrast. Not as equals in power or essence, but as opposing forces within the created order.
One Plan from the Beginning
I understand that this statement pushes up against conventional Christian thought. What I was taught as a child was this: Eden was a perfect utopia that mankind ruined by breaking God’s one rule—do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, darkness and gloom came into existence, and God had to initiate His “backup plan” to fix our mess. Everything else in the Bible—all the covenants, redemptions, and struggles leading up to the ultimate climax in Christ’s resurrection—was there to restore the perfection of Eden.
Does this sound familiar to you as well? I’m not saying these doctrinal statements are entirely false—but I do believe they’re miscalibrated. As if the microscope we’re using to examine these mysteries of the past is slightly out of focus.
So how does this narrative shift when we apply the interpretive lens of Genesis 1 that we’ve just explored?
Eden was very good. There was no death. No pain or toil. Whatever your quintessential image of paradise looks like—that was Eden. But its most essential feature was this: God and mankind dwelled together. God Himself walked through the garden in the cool of the day. How was this possible? Because mankind had not yet been corrupted by sin.
However, was Eden perfect? No—it was not. How can I say that so boldly? Because the crafty serpent was present—already poised to deceive mankind and turn our hearts against God. Scripture is largely silent on this serpent’s origin. We do know that God created it—yet the serpent exists in active rebellion against God’s goodness. The details of how such rebellion first came to be remain beyond our knowledge. Was this serpent a fallen being? A test permitted by God? The text does not explicitly say. But one thing is certain: the reality of its presence as a deceiver is inescapable—and it reinforces the larger point that evil, at least in potential, was already embedded into the creation from the beginning.
And further driving this point—right there within Adam and Eve’s reach was the knowledge of both good and evil—in the form of a tree.
Before humanity drew its first breath, the darkness that hovers over the tehom was already present within creation—a feature set in opposition to God’s goodness. This was intentional, not accidental. God desired to give mankind a real choice:
Will you remain in My presence and My goodness by your own volition? Or will the crafty temptations of evil seduce you away from Me?
And we know how the story unfolds: mankind is deceived, cursed, and banished from Eden. A cherubim wielding a flaming sword now guards the gate between our fallen reality and Eden’s lost goodness.
And this curse brought upon the promise of its tree: a world in which both good and evil are in action.
Not only is mankind cursed, but the soil of the earth itself: bringing about the challenges and pain of sickness, famine, natural disasters, and all other calamity that this world can unexpectedly bring upon us. These are the painful consequences of our fallen, present reality.
So how do we reconcile God calling creation “very good” in Genesis 1:31 with the inescapable fact that an evil snake—and the very means to know its craft—already existed within it? Clearly, God did not mean that creation was perfect, as if it were in its final form.
Whether you believe dual tension was part of God’s design from the beginning or see it as a consequence of the fall, one truth remains: the destiny of the “very good” creation was the corruption of mankind, spurred by a deceiver who was present before original sin.
Therefore, “very good” must mean that God’s creation was exactly as it needed to be to fulfill His ultimate purpose. Eden was not the perfect garden—it was the fertile seedbed of what was, and still is, to come.
I must admit to you a juvenile fear I once held. If we’re living in God’s “plan B,” and Eden was supposed to be perfect—what if we simply sinned all over again at the end of days? If mankind is capable of ruining perfection, are we doomed to an endless cycle of suffering?
Well, now—with this shift in view—I can tell you with all certainty: no.
What we are experiencing is God’s “plan A.” We are not living out the cosmological consequences of a backup plan. God was, and always has been, in complete control. This world, with all its pain and tension, is not an accident. Our redemption through Christ is not merely a response to our failure—it is the essential means by which God is bringing about something infinitely greater than Eden.
Prepare yourself for something astonishingly beautiful. Watch what God does at the end of days.
The book of Revelation tells us that in the New Jerusalem, that ancient serpent will be no more:
“…the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur…” (Revelation 20:10, ESV)
And do you remember that odd little detail in Revelation 21 I asked you to hold onto earlier?
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” (Revelation 21:1)
Has it clicked?
The three features of Genesis 1:2 are right here: heaven, earth, and sea. But in the new creation, only heaven and earth remain.
Duality to Love
At last, the pieces fall into place, and the portrait of a far greater design begins to emerge—more vast and more beautiful than we first imagined:
God is the Creator of all things. That includes evil—not as action, but as potential. This is revealed in the darkness over the deep, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in the serpent of old. Yet creation was very good, not because it was perfected, but because it was perfectly suited for what God intended all along: a new creation in which we will dwell with God, and the deep shall be no more. Eden had only the former, not the latter.
And now we are faced with the obvious question that can be delayed no longer: Why is the potential for evil necessary to bring about the new creation?
In a word: love. But this, of course, merits a far deeper exploration.
God holds deep desires. Perhaps that sounds like a simple statement on the surface, but it’s actually quite counterintuitive when you stop to consider it. How could a God who can will His imagination into existence desire anything at all? And yet, Scripture is laced with the heavy emotions of God—including sorrow and dismay—when His people choose something else over Him. Have you ever noticed the pattern in God’s anger? Not once does He grow upset unless humanity chooses an alternative over Him. This is why Scripture calls Him jealous: because He truly desires to be chosen. And His jealousy is righteous—because He ought to be chosen, yet most often is not.
This may be the clearest proof that free-will does exist according to the Bible. For how could God desire anything if He did not allow His creation to really choose on their own?
Now, whether we like it or not, this is His creation and His plan unfolding around us. So when we ask why the story plays out the way it does, we would do well to pay close attention to what God Himself desires.
God desires union with a creation that chooses Him. Had He simply wanted puppets, there would have been no need for the tree in Eden. No risk, no fall, no sorrow. Evil never had to be conceptually possible at all. But clearly, such a world would not have been perfect—or else it would have come to pass.
We know God wanted humanity to have choice—not only because Scripture tells us He desires it, but because the very structure of reality reflects it. As Alvin Plantinga puts it:
“Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all.” (God, Freedom, and Evil)
And if God cannot both force His creation to do only what is right and still call them truly free, then He must allow the existence of an alternative—evil.
So let’s tease this out for a moment: what would we lose in a world without moral choice?
Well, the New Testament highlights three enduring virtues: faith, hope, and love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Could we truly have faith? No—faith is the act of choosing to place your trust in something. But what need is there to trust anything if there’s no real risk, no alternative, no uncertainty? Without the possibility of danger or failure, faith is meaningless.
What about hope? Hope only exists when we stand in the midst of darkness and believe the light is still to come. If there is no shadow, no waiting, no pain—then there is nothing to hope for.
And would we truly have love? Paul reminds us that love “does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5, ESV). So is a creation without choice even capable of love? It seems not. Forced love is not love at all—it is, at best, an artificial facsimile, and at worst—coercion.
As difficult as the pain and darkness of this world are, we must admit: a world without them may not be truly alive. It would be a sterilized, manufactured existence—peaceful, perhaps, but void of purpose, love, and meaning.
This is often where the debate gets stuck. We find ourselves asking: Must we choose between a world with no evil and a world with no choice?
But that’s the wrong question altogether. This is why understanding this world as a creation-in-progress is so essential. The Gospel does not make us choose between the two.
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, a new world is being formed—one that has it all: perfect goodness and genuine choice. A world absent of suffering, yet full of meaning. A world where love remains, but evil is no more. This is why the Gospel asks for only one thing: your choice. Because love can only live if the choice is genuine.
And if there is one thing that holds meaning in our present state, it is this: our choosing Christ over ourselves. For in doing so, we freely surrender our flawed will that struggles in the tension between good and evil, and trade it for His will—one steadfast in perfect good. Therefore, our freedom in the new creation is no longer about choosing between good and evil. It is freely living in the joy brought about by the choice already made—love that has already been won.
The Bible is not the story of Eden regained.
It is Christ’s story—His victory over evil through suffering, to bring about the true, perfect creation: the fulfillment of God’s plan from the very beginning. Plan A all along.
Colossians 1:15-20 (ESV): [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Love Incarnate
Before the foundation of the world, Christ was foreknown. The beauty, the weight, and the peril of His sacrifice were not adjustments—they were the design. This was always about Christ. John calls Him the Word—the Logos—through whom all things were made. In Genesis, God speaks, and creation unfolds. This is no coincidence. The Father creates by the Word. All things were made through Christ, and in Him all things hold together.
God then breathed a dangerous but precious gift into this creation: free will. The Almighty chose to create a world in which His creatures could choose—where love would be genuine, even if costly. To embody this choice, He placed a tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree represented the great question: would humanity give allegiance to their Maker and live—or follow their own desires and die?
In the garden stood another tree—the tree of life. God never forbade mankind from eating it. In fact, it held the greatest gift: whoever eats of it shall live forever. Yet it was not chosen.
Mankind made a different choice. They wanted to become like God rather than live under God. And so they reached for the knowledge of both good and evil. Because of this, we were exiled from God’s presence, cut off from the tree of life, and fell under the curse. This curse remains our lived experience—a world marred by duality, where evil is no longer dormant, but active.
Yet none of this surprised God. His will remained ultimate. This was always the plan.
Humanity carried forward and multiplied, but its state remained unchanged—fallen, fractured, unworthy. No man could reclaim what was lost. Yet unless a man could rise above the curse, there would be no way back. And so, God prepared what He had always intended to do: The Word would become flesh.
God chose a people through whom this promise would come. However, He did not align with the wise or the mighty—He chose the slave. This decision—among countless other acts, laws, and prophecies—foreshadowed the plan to come: He would set all of humanity free from the bondage of sin.
So Israel—“the one who wrestles with God”—was set free from slavery in Egypt and formed into a nation. They were given the law and sacrifices as a framework to dwell with God once again. But time and again, the law simply exposed their inability to meet its standard. And the sacrifices were never sufficient in covering the whole of their sin.
Yet they clung to the hope of a coming hero—the Messiah. The one who would break the cycle of oppression and truly set them free. One who, according to their prophecies, would conquer—yet was also destined to suffer. Israel failed to grasp how both could be true. So they waited for a war hero.
And so, in a time when they were once more under the yoke of foreign rule—this time, Rome—the Word finally arrived.
Jesus came into the world as you and I—born of a mother and with all the humble faculties and frailties of any human infant. He was raised in the insignificant town of Nazareth, in the modest home of a carpenter. Yet He was different. Unlike all who came before Him, Jesus upheld the entire law and remained in perfect unity with God the Father. And He did not merely uphold the law—He would fulfill it.
Christ was not shielded from the darkness of this world. He was born into the same curse and faced the same temptations to turn from God. Yet He was immovable. Even when face-to-face with Satan—in a state of great hunger and weakness—offered everything this world could give, He refused. For Christ knew His purpose on the earth.
He came to conquer the curse—and conquer death itself.
So Christ began to demonstrate that He had the power to reverse the curse. He forgave sins. Healed the sick. Gave sight to the blind. Restored strength to the lame. These miracles were not only for those who received them—they were also for us. They are signs. A foretaste of what is to come—proof that suffering will not last forever. If we are in Christ, it will one day be removed—if not in this life, then certainly in the next.
Christ also revealed to us the true nature of God. Because of mankind’s disobedience, we were unable to dwell fully in His presence. What we knew of God came filtered through shadows—through law, through sacrifice, through tradition. We glimpsed His mercy, but bore the weight of His justice.
Then we encountered Emmanuel—God with us. In Christ, we saw what it truly means to be in union with God: a life filled with love, joy, and peace.
But then came one of His strangest teachings—one that shocked and offended many. He said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life.” He would soon reveal its meaning.
For Christ then willfully took up His cross. He carried it up the hill. And He was hung upon it. His cry—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—revealed a suffering far deeper than physical pain. It was the suffering of separation. On that cross, He bore the full weight of the curse: alienation from God and the sting of death. Our curse became His curse—and He alone did not deserve to bear its sentence.
When Christ breathed His last, a cosmological shift occurred. In Eden, the tree of life was guarded by a flaming sword. But now, suspended between earth and heaven, the true bread of life was lifted up for all to see.
Here, in the midst of the cursed world, Christ became the tree of life for us.
And just as the first tree offered life to those who would eat, so too does this one.
If we eat of Him—if we receive His body broken and His blood poured out—we shall live forever.
On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead in a heavenly body, yet still bearing the scars of His suffering. To the believer, the resurrection is the ultimate assurance: death has truly been defeated. Christ has made a way to reconciliation with the Father. And an eternal life, filled with genuine love and absent of all evil, is free to all.
From His sacrifice, the new creation begins. One where mankind freely chooses love, and is not a predetermined puppet. One where goodness is known in full through its victory over evil. One where we have wrestled with our deepest longings—and found their answer in reunion with the God of Love.
And perfect love is revealed in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So why does evil exist?
Because perfection requires it.
Without struggle, there is no choice.
Without choice, there is no love.
Without love, there is no perfection.
And a world born through that struggle—through the suffering and blood and resurrection of Christ—is greater than Eden.
In Eden, we made the wrong choice because we didn’t yet know how good God’s presence truly was.
In Christ, we are given the opportunity to choose again—to return to the loving embrace of the Father. And this time, it shall never end—as the choice has already been made, and the sea is no more.
And that is how a perfect world is formed.
Eternal Freedom
Now, earlier we made a fairly large claim: that the duality of the world was necessary for bringing about our ability to choose God—or not to. The case was made that a world without evil would be stale and manufactured—one in which love could not truly be love, as love can only be willingly entered, not coerced. From there, we explored how, through Christ, we can make the decision for love, enter into his holy presence, and live in a perfected world where we are free — but evil is no more.
This brings us to our next logical question: if duality is necessary for free will now, how can we still be free in the perfected world without evil? Will we still be ourselves, and have our own free will?
In short, yes. But it’s worth unpacking the nuance—and reflecting deeper yet on what awaits for us in eternity.
First, we need to make a clarification regarding free will. This should be a somewhat obvious statement, but free will is not without its natural constraints in our present state. Despite how hard I might try, I cannot will a beautiful new sports car into existence, nor can I will myself to teleport to the beach or read my friend’s mind.
On a more serious note: we cannot even will our own happiness—and many of us recognize our powerlessness in wrestling with anxieties and depressions.
Our free will today is already quite limited—but this is not: we have the ability to choose to surrender to the love of Christ, or not to.
And once we have chosen to surrender to Christ’s love, evil is no longer necessary. Because love freely entered becomes love fulfilled by the blood of Christ—“and neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39 ESV).
Now, it must be made clear that this love covenant does not come without some personal sacrifice. The New Testament makes it clear that we must surrender our “flesh”—that is, the part of us that yearns for the fulfillments this world brings (or lack thereof) over the fulfillment that God brings. And through this surrender, we receive new, transformed life. We give up our flesh’s desires to inherit what Christ both desires and achieved—eternal righteousness. This is what the ritual of baptism itself means: we begin a sinner, willingly submerge into the waters, which represent the living water of Christ, and emerge as a new creation—one who is in Christ’s righteousness.
Consider also how Christ says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27 ESV). In the same chapter, he goes on to say, “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33 ESV).
And so what should we make of all of this?
Scripture speaks of an ongoing battle that wages within each of us. We discussed our “flesh” earlier, and this is the part of us that wages war with the “spirit”—that core, deep aspect of ourselves that expects that we, and the world, ought to be better, and mourns that it is not. And so we are locked into a very strange enslavement: one in which we do not do the things we believe we ought to do. We are constantly disappointed in ourselves, our loved ones, and the world around us.
This is what the Scriptures call “enslavement to sin.” And this is what Christ has set us free from.
However, in order to take on the new life found in Christ—in which the spirit is set free—we also must be willing to put to death the desires of the flesh. Paul puts it this way: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22–23 ESV).
Do you catch this interesting phrasing? In Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin—which leads to death. However, we become slaves of God, or slaves to righteousness—which leads to eternal life. This is also why Paul says in Galatians that he has been crucified with Christ, and he no longer lives—but it is Christ who lives in him. Being in Christ is to put to death the old things to allow the new—just as God puts to death the old earth to make way for a New Jerusalem.
And so when we enter new life in Christ, there are significant differences from the life we know today. Evil will be no more—and with it, our ability to choose the alternative to God will be taken away. But will this be to our detriment? Of course not. For we will have already freely entered into the love of God through Christ. This does not mean that our free will has been overwritten, but rather it has been fulfilled. The decision of love has already been made, and our endurance of present sufferings grants us the opportunity to make this choice. And we shall remain in that love for all eternity. This is why love in eternity will be genuine, though it could not have been without our present reality.
And despite our current yearnings for the desires of the flesh, we must recognize the meaninglessness that lies in nihilism—the philosophy of chasing our own selfish desires. I believe most of us know this deep down: that when we live only for ourselves—chasing wealth, popularity, or power—we fail to find lasting joy. These pursuits, and the accolades they bring, simply fade into insignificance upon our death. That is, in fact, their end: death. Much of our anxiety and depression is born out of this pursuit.
We long to find something real — something significant. Meaningful. And yet at the end of these pursuits, we find nothing but lost hope.
But in Christ, we put these longings of the flesh to death. When we are raised with him into eternity, we will know the true fulfillment of our hearts—the love of Christ. We will finally understand that we are perfectly and wonderfully made, and that we were created to dwell in the rest and peace of the Father.
We are deceived into believing that “success” will bring us joy, when in truth, it is Love.
And so our free will in eternity becomes limited by our surrender—yet it is still truly free. That does not mean we lose our identity. On the contrary, we finally become who we were always meant to be. The New Testament calls us the “body of Christ,” made up of many parts with different functions and abilities—yet together forming one body. This is a beautiful image of what our relationship with one another will be like in eternity. We will be “perfectly one,” yet still fulfilling our individual purpose. We will have traded the will of the flesh for the will of Christ—and in that, we will coexist in perfect love, joy, and peace with one another.
This I assure you: In the eternal love of the Father, we will not mourn the loss of evil. On the contrary, we will rejoice in finally being made whole in the perfected world we had longed for all along.
Choosing Love
And now, if I may, I’d like to speak to you personally, dear reader.
I know I haven’t answered every question you may have. Some of what I’ve said—and what the Scriptures say—may feel counterintuitive or incomplete. And yes, I’m aware there’s still much more to explore: natural suffering, the nature of hell, and other difficult topics that fall beyond the scope of this essay. I promise to continue writing more. But for now, please understand this:
There comes a point where the long, winding road of reason gives way to something else—faith.
And without faith, we will never find ourselves truly in Christ. It is inescapable.
So I want to invite you into that leap with me. I want you to know the joy I feel in my heart as I sit here with the Lord now, praying for the right words to leave with you.
It is a joy so deep, and yet still just a glimpse of the fullness to come in the perfected world.
And so, I believe this is the purpose of all we experience in this life: that we may choose love.
Let us choose to live as a blessing to others, rather than chasing after selfish ambitions.
Let us walk together—each of us unique, yet made one—for all eternity.
Let us be transformed.
Let us be made whole.
Let us forever rest in His Love.
[1] A quick syntactical note: in my Bible translation of choice (the English Standard Version), the translators chose to put a period in verse two after “face of the deep,” and before “And the Spirit of God.” This punctuation may give the impression that the phrases “the earth was without form and void,” and “darkness was over the face of the deep,” stand apart from “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” However, it should be understood that ancient Hebrew—the language of the original manuscripts of Genesis—does not contain punctuation, uppercase and lowercase letters, or even vowels. The verse could just as legitimately have been translated: “And the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”