The Paradox of Sin and Evil

The Bible teaches that Evil originated with the rebellion of Lucifer, and that Sin originated with Adam & Eve’s “fall” in the Garden of Eden. The consequent duality concept lies at the heart of Christian theology, yet it raises tremendous paradoxical questions about the nature of God.

God is omnipotent, we are told. That part is easy to follow. But God created us with free will – OK, still following. Then we are told that Lucifer utilized his free will by cuttin’ out and startin’ his own gig. Oops! Was that supposed to happen?

We are informed that God was pissed off by Lucifer’s impertinence. Oh, really? Define free will – doesn’t the scope include all possible choices? To restrict it to certain “acceptable” choices would turn it into a joke.

So, Adam & Eve followed Lucifer down the rat-hole and now the entire human race is locked into a “sinful” condition. This causes God to be very pissed at us, so we then get into the whole thing about blood sacrifice and redemption…but wait a minute! How could Lucifer do anything that wasn’t ordained by the Almighty, Omnipotent God? Either (1) Free will is a cruel hoax or (2) God is not Omnipotent. What gives?

So we are told that there is this great war in the heavens between Good and Evil, and we’d better align ourselves with the winning side. We know that God will win because He is Omnipotent, right? But where did rebellion come from? If Lucifer and his minions could defy the Almighty God, couldn’t it happen again? This is getting complicated.

Of course, there is a third possibility to consider: That God is really Pro-Choice!

I once heard a physicist remark that the universe seems to be biased in favor of choice and that life actually seems to thrive on choice. Choice means every possibility considered. Everything needs an opposite to define itself. Light cannot be defined without considering darkness and shadow. Even the statement “God is Love” has no meaning without considering the opposite. Opposites could not exist without freedom to choose them.