Question: Isaiah 45:7 indicates that God may have created evil. "I am the one who creates the light and the darkness. I am the one who sends good times and bad" (New Living). Did God create evil? Also where in scripture is found the story of the fall of Lucifer?

Diane

Answer: Dear Diane,

The Bible tells us that God is morally perfect, holy and that it is impossible for him to sin (Deut. 32:4; Matt. 5:48; Heb. 6:18). God punishes sin and evil, as he is perfectly just. However, there is a sense in which God is involved in moral evil. God created male and female with choices – God made evil possible when he gave his human creation the power of choice. God permits evil, but he does not promote it, in fact he judges it.

God is not the author of evil in the sense of sin, evil, depravity – he is not the moving cause of evil – but he is the "author" of evil in the sense of calamity, and indirectly is involved with evil because he created humans with free choice.

The "fall" of Lucifer is recorded in Isaiah 14:12-17 (in allegory), Ezekiel 28:12-19 (a comparison of the King of Tyre to Lucifer), and Luke 10:18.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht