The nature of evil and God’spossible involvement in its creation

[Blackmarch]

On 10/25/2016 at 9:58 AM, askandanswer said:

 

This questions occurred to me while reading the post by curious_mormon about who tempted Satan.

Is there any such thing as absolute evil, or does evil only exist in relation to God’s will? If God has no particular will or preference for how many angels can be allowed to dance on the head of a pin, then perhaps it is no evil if 1 or 1000 angels dance on the head of a pin. However, if God suddenly decides and declares that only 2 angels may dance on the head of a pin then all of a sudden it becomes evil for any other number of angels, other than two, to dance on the head of a pin. Is there any evil in relation to matters on which God has no particular will? By having a will on a particular matter, is it only at that point that the possibility of evil in relation to that matter comes into existence? Taking things a step further, if this is true – that the possibility of evil comes into existence only once God has stated His will on a particular matter – then I guess it would also be true to say that that evil does not become a reality, or no evil is actually committed, until God’s will on that particular matter is violated.

If this is true, and I’m inclined to think that there is reason to believe that it may be, then by creating the possibility of evil, and by giving, or allowing us the opportunity to choose and act, then this might point to the (for me) unexpected conclusion that God has been intimately involved in the creation of evil. This does not in any way detract from the fact that we are all individually responsible for any evil choices we make. (And I would never presume that any one on this forum would ever make such choices)  

when you turn off a light do you create dark or do you remove light?