Doctrine of Evil

Tod Kennedy, April 2, 2001

1.       Evil has resulted from the fall of Satan and the fall mankind. Evil sums up the worldview which Satan, the evil one (John 17:15; Ephesians 6:16; 1 John 3:12), has sponsored.

2.       Evil refers to the ungodly presuppositions, mind-set, attitudes, plans, sayings, actions, and goals of life that stand apart from God’s will, direction, and influence because of a rejection of and a lack of God’s Word. Evil includes liberal theology, the social gospel, salvation by works, preoccupation with self, one-world government apart from the physical rule of Christ, ecumenism and one-world religion, moral relativity, rejection of absolute truth and the ability to know absolute truth, emotional control of the soul, rejection of authority, self-esteem based upon human good, the redistribution of wealth, the theory of evolution, post-modernism, naturalism-materialism, do-it-yourself spirituality, and many others ideas, projects, programs, and activities that Satan and fallen man believe and promote. Rebellion against proper authority is evil; laziness is evil; self-centeredness is evil; religion, defined as human works to gain something from God, is evil; emotionalism is evil; crime is evil; some wars are evil; and human good activity that ignores or seeks to replace God’s will is evil.

3.       Evil includes human viewpoint, human good, and sin. Evil is sometimes a synonym for sin, but evil is more comprehensive than sin (Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:5; Proverbs 6:14; Proverbs 8:13 Ecclesiastics 5:13-14; Matthew 15:19; Romans 7:21; 12:9, 21; 2 Corinthians 6:8; Galatians 1:4; Hebrews 5:14).

4.       The love of money is, in the human realm, a root or beginning of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:8-10).

5.       What do we do about evil? Proverbs 3:7 advises us to fear the Lord and turn away from evil; Hebrews 5:14 teaches that by learning and practicing the Word of God we are able to discern good from evil; Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:22, tells us to stay away from every kind of evil; Peter, in 1 Peter 3:11, tells us to shun evil and, in its place, do divine good; we learn in Romans 12:21, that divine love, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, overcomes evil, and in 1 Corinthians 13:5, divine love does not think evil. Therefore in answer to the question of what to do about evil, we need to grow up in the Word of God so that we take possession of Bible doctrine and the biblical worldview. As we do this we will recognize evil as that which contradicts Bible doctrine and the biblical worldview and be able replace it with God’s word, God’s thinking, and God’s way of life. In short, we make biblical choices—choices for God and his Word and against evil.

6.       There are a number of biblical words that are translated “evil”: the Old Testament often uses the adjective [r' (bad, evil, unpleasant, harmful, wicked; Genesis 6:5; Deuteronomy 9:18), the noun [r' (evil, distress, injury, misery, calamity; Job 28:28; Proverbs 12:20; Strong 7451b), the noun h[;r; (evil misery, distress, injury; Psalm 35:12;  Strong 7463a), and the verb [['r; (be evil, bad, be displeasing, do wickedly; Isaiah 1:16; Strong 7489a).

7.       Evil in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek adjective, kakov" (unserviceable, incapable, morally evil, bad, weak, ruinous; Matthew 24:48; 1 Peter 3:9; Strong 2556) and the noun, kakia; (depravity, wickedness, vice, malice, ill-will, malignity, trouble, misfortune; Romans 1:29; 1 Peter 2:16; Strong 2549). Another Greek word for evil is ponhrov" (in the physical sense poor, sick, painful and in the ethical sense wicked, bad, evil, base, worthless, degenerate, viscious; Acts 17:5; Hebrews 10:22; Strong 4190).