A university professor challenged his students with this question: “Did God create everything that exists?” One student replied bravely: Yes, he did.
“Did God create everything?”, the professor asked again. “Yes, sir”, replied the young man.
The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God did evil, for evil exists, and under the precept that our works are a reflection of ourselves, then God is evil.”
The student remained silent at such an answer and the professor, happy, boasted of having proved once again that faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask a question, professor?” Of course, the professor replied. The young man stood up and asked: “Professor, is there such a thing as cold?”
“What question is that? Of course it is, haven’t you been cold?”
The boy replied, “In fact, sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is actually the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, heat is what makes that body have or transmit energy. Absolute zero is the total and absolute absence of heat, all bodies become inert, unable to react, but cold does not exist. We’ve created that term to describe how we feel if we’re not hot.”
“And, is there darkness?” The student continued. The professor replied: “Of course.”
The student replied: “Again you are wrong, sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is actually the absence of light.”
“Light can be studied, darkness cannot, there is even the Nichols prism to break down white light into the various colors in which it is composed, with their different wavelengths. Darkness does not. A simple beam of light tears through the darkness and illuminates the surface where the beam of light ends. How can you tell how dark a given space is? Based on the amount of light present in that space, isn’t it? Darkness is a term that man has developed to describe what happens when there is no light present.”
Finally, the young man asked the professor: “Lord, is there evil?”
The professor replied: “Of course there is, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see rape, crime and violence all over the world, those things are evil.”
To which the student replied: “Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist by itself. Evil is simply the absence of God, it is, like the previous cases, a term that man has created to describe that absence of God.”
“God did not create evil. It is not like faith or love, which exist as there is heat and light. Evil is the result of mankind not having God present in their hearts. It is like cold when there is no heat, or darkness when there is no light.”
Then the professor, after nodding his head, fell silent.
Photo by Paul Torres on Unsplash
