Food for the Soul
Some say that God doesn’t know evil, because they can’t explain why a God who is good allows robberies, murders, disease, poverty and other terrible happenings that are going on constantly on this earth. These misfortunes are certainly evil to us; but are they evil to God? If they are, why would God permit such evil? And if the evil did not come from Him who is the Supreme Creator of all things, where did it come from? Who created greed? Who created hate? Who created jealousy and anger? Who created harmful bacteria? Who created sex temptation and the temptation of greed? These were not the intervention of human beings. Man could never have experienced them if they had not first been created.
Some people try to explain that evil does not exist, or that it is merely a psychological factor. But this is not so. The evidence of evil is here in the world. You cannot deny it. If there is no evil, why would Jesus pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”? He is saying plainly that evil does exist.
So the truth is, we do find evil in the world. And where did it come from? God. Evil provides the contrast that enables us to recognise and experience goodness. Evil had to be, if there was to be any creation. If you wrote a message with white chalk on a white board, no one would see it. So without the blackboard of evil, the good things in the world could not be magnified at all. Judas was Jesus best publicity agent. By his evil act, Judas made Christ eternally famous. Jesus knew the role he had to play, and all that was going to happen to him in order that he might demonstrate the love and greatness of God; and a vilain was necessary to this enactment. But it was not good for Judas that he chose to be the one whose dark deed, by contrast, extolled the glories of Christ’s triumph over evil.
Extract from the book ” The Divine Romance” by Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
