If God is the source of all things doesn't that make him the source of evil too?

Someone, somewhere, said that \"Love isn't love until you give it away.\", i.e., it doesn't seek a return on its investment. Now if God is, in point of fact, all that love is, then God had no other recourse in creating mankind, than to provide 'freewill' as an option. Yes I am made to love God; but, that love is not its purest if it is demanded without an option. I am then an automaton, a robot. Remember the words of the Apostle Paul \"Love suffers all things....\", including the pain of rejection inherent in the gift of freewill.

Sandblasted is right. Love is an energy from God to all of creation. By definition Love cannot seek itself, or it's own self interest-Love must be sacrificial or it is fake. It is the Love from God that created the cosmos, the world, and everything encompassed by that Love. Evil is a vagary of perception. St. Gregory Palamas has some excellent writings on \"evil\" and sin; i would suggest reading some of his writings. Sin is done of a persons own freewill, and not of God's will. In fact sin is in direct opposition to the will of God so cannot come from God at all-God does not do the opposite of His own will. St. Marcarius said it best that our freewill is proof of how far we have fallen. In the Garden we did the will of God out of Love. Our ancestors sin created an opposition to the will of God through their own will. Evil, in and of itself, does not exist, nor can anything embody it. God declared everything in the cosmos good therefore there can be no \"evil\". There is only sin which is an \"evil\" against God. Sin is transitory and not a permanent condition according to the Fathers. Blessed Augustine is an exception to this rule with his theology of Inherent Sin making everyone culpable for the first sin of humanity-essentially making everyone a sinner before birth. Of course it begs the question of what, if anything, Christ accomplished on the Cross and His resurrection which is why the Orthodox east never adopted this ideology. Evil is a verb-not a noun. It is something done, not someone or an object, according to the Fathers. Some consider sickness evil, to others something as malignant as weeds can be evil, or bugs can be evil. As i said in the beginning-a vagary of perception depending on the conditions of the individual and whether they consider something evil.

This kind of thinking is what is known as an \"old saw\", and is alien to the very mindset of the mystical theology of the Orthodox Christian Church. It would be easy to get caught up in that tar baby by failing to point out that these questions are simply not the fruit of an Orthodox paradigm. Blind theologizing here won't do any of us any good, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, as I am not a teacher but simply a fellow traveler. I can only offer an analogy, but to me, it's a powerful one: Evil is not in any way to be compared with love as one would compare apples and oranges, or as one would develop a mathematical equation. The uncreated God defines Love through His very existence. God was Love and God Loved and God Loves and is Loving and God will Love and God will be Love \"from ages to ages\". This thing WE call free will is not some fork in the road we can read on a map. Yes, the teachings and canons of The Church DO help us get a finite grasp on what is infinitely good for us, buy providing clear guidance as to what should and should not be done. But even the very canons of The Church are administered by Grace through The Bishop. It's not simply the job of The Bishop to be a traffic cop and ticket us for our transgressions. Quite the opposite. The Bishop is compelled to administer the Grace of our Lord in the face of that which is \"evil\". And why is that? Because \"evil\" is not the opposite pole of love. Fully impure evil is a vacuum of Love. Evil does not share the same sort of definition as does Love, for evil is NOT \"from ages to ages\". Every evil thought and deed is in itself a creation of a vacuum of Love. Yet God is Gracious, and The Church is compelled to administer Grace In doing so, The Church provides us a way to escape the inexorable pull of the evil singularities which we, ourselves, construct and embrace at the encouragement of the father of lies. God is not proving Himself to be schizophrenic. Rather, we prove ourselves to be spiritually and mentally and emotionally schizophrenic every time we embark on the creation of a new vacuum of Love--an evil black hole--and thus make the choice to follow the great deceiver, who also made the same choice, which resulted in lucifer's fall from grace. \"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner!\"

Part Duex; Freewill: Yes Virginia, there are absolutes! As a Church, and in the world we near the annual celebration of The Incarnation! This is an undeniable \"absolute\" The reason for which celebration, again undeniably so, is the sin stained separation of mankind from his Creator. This separation we all know as the result of the fall from the grace due to a \"bad choice\" in The Garden of Eden. The Fall was again the result of a bad decision by an archangel, Lucifer! Lucifer wanted to be equal to God. Just as sin severed the relationship of mankind and God in the Garden, Lucifer's \"choice\" sired evil into God's creation. Again, God: about whose energies we can only speculate without having a clue as how to describe His Essence, allows action and reaction to flow on with no \"do overs\", providing in the fullness of His plan as prophesied in the Garden, a Redeemer, Jesus Christ Our Lord! By The Redeemer's Incarnation, Passion, burial and Resurrection and Ascension (\"...I have done what you have sent me to do...It is finished....), the father/sire of evil, was defeated by the weapon he himself had crafted, death! The first and most principal thing however to consider, is not so much \"Where did evil come from?\", but our individual responses to the gift of God's grace. Answering that question has a more significant outcome on our future. (Not that yous is of no importance) If no one answers to your minds satisfaction, you should not withhold embracing God; for, with all our mental faculties we will never be able to embrace even the least of what we know about God who created, and loves us!

Here's a story: A teacher asked his students, Is the Bible true? A boy stood up and said, Yes, it is. The teacher replied, The bible says God created everything. If God created everything then God also created evil. Therefore, God is evil and so Christianity is a false religion. The boy did not know what to say so he sat down. Another boy stood up. Teacher, does darkness exist? \"Of course it does\" \"No, darkness is the absence of light. You can study light rays but you cannot study Darkness.\" \"does cold exist?\" \"yes\" \"Cold is merely the absence of warmth\" \"So, does evil exist\" \"Yes, we see it everyday. Kidnapping, theft, murder. Of course evil exists\" \"No, evil is the absence of God. When God's love does not abide in someone, then there is darkness\" The boy was Albert Einstein. coes this answer your question?