In light of junk like this, which makes my skin crawl and blood boil, I offer you this statement from Mr. Koukl:
Evil is not some thing. Evil is a word that describes something missing, a privation, like donut holes and shadows. If evil isn’t some thing, then it wasn’t created and therefore didn’t need a creator, making possible and alternate explanation for its “existence”.
What say you?
I say this will take more time than I have right now.
Two things for background though:
1. Koukl wrote a piece titled A Good Reason for Evil that elaborates on that quote.
2. It’s not Koukl’s argument — it was Augustine’s.
Here’s another one: Augustine on Evil.
I’ve never been a fan of the donut hole idea.
Did God wonder into a dark situation and say “Let there be light” or did He create the darkness as well? Did God create space? Or just the things in that space?
One of the best lines from Bruce Almighty was in a cut scene. God said something to the effect of, “To make a painting you have to use dark colors.”
Here is a blog post that got my attention.
Here is a PDF by this guy on the problem of evil. It’s a relatively quick read.