Wrong Ideas About Evil

Now some of the Greeks, having wandered from the right way and not having known Christ, have held that evil is a real thing with an existence of its own. In this they make a double mistake. Either they deny that the Creator is the maker of all things, if evil has a real existence and being of its own; or else, if they mean that he is the maker of all things, they must of necessity admit that he is the maker of evil too. For by their account evil is counted among the things that exist. But this must appear absurd and impossible. For evil does not come from good, nor is it in good or produced by good, since in that case the good would not be good, being mixed in its nature, or a cause of evil. [a]

The sectarians, too, who have fallen away from the teaching of the church and have made shipwreck of the faith, wrongly think that evil has a real existence of its own. They make up at will another god besides the true one, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This other god, they say, was never made; he produces evil and is the head of wickedness, and he is also the maker of creation. But these men can easily be refuted, not only from the divine Scriptures, but also from human understanding itself, the very source of these insane imaginings of theirs. To begin with, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, confirming the words of Moses, says in his own Gospels, “The Lord God is one,” and, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” But if God is one, and is at the same time Lord of heaven and earth, how could there be another God besides him? What room will there be for the god they suppose, if the one true God fills everything within the circle of heaven and earth? Or how could there be another creator of that of which, by the Savior’s own words, the God and Father of Christ is himself Lord?

Unless, of course, they would say that the two are evenly balanced, so to speak, and that the evil god is able to get the better of the good God. But if they say this, see what depth of impiety they sink to. For when powers are equal, the stronger and better cannot be found. If the one exists even against the other’s will, both are equally strong and equally weak. They are equally strong, because the very existence of either is a defeat of the other’s will. They are equally weak, because what happens goes against the will of each. For the good God exists in spite of the evil one, and the evil god exists just as much in spite of the good.