When we begin to see freedom as part of humanity’s design, a natural question follows: But what about evil?
Because whatever else we say, we cannot ignore it. Evil is not theoretical. It is experienced, personally, relationally. We feel it in betrayal. In injustice. In violence. In the muted ways we wound one another and ourselves.
So how do we account for this?
One way is to see evil not as something created, but as something that emerges. Not a substance in itself, but rather a distortion of the true, a loss of alignment with what is real and good. Like darkness is the absence of light, evil does not stand on its own. It depends on what actually exists, even as it distorts it.
So, where freedom exists, the possibility of distortion also exists. And when distortion takes hold, not just momentarily, but repeatedly, it begins to take on weight. It compounds. It spreads. What begins as a misaligned perception becomes a pattern. What then becomes a pattern evolves into a way of life. And then, collectively, ways of life begin to shape the world around us.
And over time, it becomes like a beast poised to devour. This does not make evil less serious.
If anything, it makes it more so. Because it is not easily erased. It is lived, reinforced, and passed along by us, embedded in our relationships, cultures, and structures.
And yet, this is precisely where the biblical story becomes so compelling.
God does not stand at a distance. God enters into humanity.
In Jesus, God steps into the full weight of human experience, not to bypass evil, but to confront it from within. Not with force that mirrors it. But with a different kind of power. A power that absorbs rather than retaliates. That exposes rather than hides. That remains aligned with what is true, even when surrounded by what is not.
And in doing so, something is revealed.
Evil is real. But it is not an independent agency. It cannot sustain itself if it is not fed. And at the cross, the lie that feeds evil was exposed and its supply was cut off.
So the question is not whether evil exists. It does. The question is what kind of power actually overcomes it.