Does Evil Exist?
An Atheist University Professor challenged his students with this question.
"Did God create everything that exists?"
A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"
"God created everything?" The professor asked.
"Yes sir", the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything,
then God created evil, since evil exists, and
according to the principal that our works define who
we are, then God is evil."
The student became quiet before such an answer. The
professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the
students that he had proven once more that the
Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask
you a question professor?"
"Of course", replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold
exist?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists.!
Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at
the young man's question.
The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not
exist. According to the laws of physics, what we
consider cold is in reality the absence of heat.
Absolute zero (-460? F) is the total absence of heat; all matter
becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that
temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this
word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."
The student continued, "Professor, does darkness
exist?"
The professor thought about this for a few minutes to avoid another humiliation responded,
"Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir,
darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality
the absence of light. Light we can study, but not
darkness. In fact we can use Newton 's prism to break
white light into many colors and study the various
wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure
darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world
of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how
dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of
light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term
used by man to describe what happens when there is no
light present."
Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does
evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as
I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the
daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the
multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the
world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir,
or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is
simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness
and cold, a word that man has created to describe the
absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the
result of what happens when man does not have God's
love present in his heart. It's like the cold that
comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes
when there is no light."
The professor sat down.
By the end of the course the student had recieved a failing grade.
The young man's name -- Albert Einstein