God did not create evil, which exists from all eternity.

This argument is used in the debate Does God exist?.

This argument is an objection to There is too much suffering and injustice for there to be a god.

Keywords: God

Summary

Evil is a proven reality not only in human beings, but in the universe itself. You only have to look at insects devouring each other and the suffering in nature to know this. Evil is not a subjective phenomenon; it is one of the aspects of reality, just like good. Reality is dual, both beautiful and frightening. This duality is found in nature, in human beings, and so on. But the duality we see everywhere derives from an ontological duality: our universe is a blend of two distinct and eternal realities, Evil and Good (or Spirit and Matter in Plato: see Simone Pétrement, "Le dualisme chez Platon").

Dualism is a doctrine professed by the Manichaeans over several millennia (see, for example, Amin Maalouf, "Les jardins de Lumière"), the Gnostics of the 2nd and 3rd centuries (see Jacques Lacarrière, "Les gnostiques"), Plato... Saint-Augustin was a Manichaean for a long time; Bayle, in his "Dictionnaire Historique et Critique", devotes several entries to Manichaean or related doctrines.

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Justifications

Objections

No two substances are coterminous
Good and evil mix
Evil is an illusion
According to religious texts, God is the creator of all things.

Parent debate