When was the last time you heard that question? What was your answer? Or 
did you have a deer-in-the-headlights look on your face? The question is normally NOT asked in search of information, but either to strengthen the emotional barrier that blocks God out of a person’s life, or to hide some deep-seated hurts he is bearing. And he asks the question, knowing that he can shoot down most answers that people usually give. He’s done it many times and is good at it.
So, what IS the answer? You probably already know, but I’ll put it in a way that you can get a better handle on it. For starters, the following is a real interaction I heard back in California.
Challenger: “Did God make everything?” Christian: “Yes.”
Challenger: “That means God also made evil?” Christian: “No.”
Challenger: “Then God didn’t make everything?” Christian: “Well, uh …”
And the challenger was happy that he, once again, defeated a hapless Christian in a worthy debate.
But allow me to give you food for thought. I’ll ask several questions, but will also provide the answers since you’re not here to answer them for me.
Is there such a thing as cold? No, there is not. But we do have the concept of temperature where:
1) Absolute zero (absolutely no heat) is 459.67 degrees below zero F., minus 273.15 Celsius, and 0 on the Kelvin scale.
2) Fresh water freezes at sea level at 32 F, 0 C, and 273.15 Kelvin;
3) The average human temperature is around 98.6 F, 37 C, and 310.15 K;
4) 78 F in the house is 25.55 C, and 298.71 K. 
So we cannot turn the cold up or down – we remove or add heat. And for the record, outer space (far away from stars and planets) is around 3 degrees Kelvin. If that makes you feel cold, put on a sweater or a jacket.
Is there such a thing as dark? Again, no. But we do have various intensities of light. Partial darkness (if it can be called that) is a 
reduction of the intensity of light, and total darkness is the total absence of light. The closest I have ever come to being in total darkness was in the big room of the Carlsbad Caverns – 700 feet below ground. They could not turn on the dark, but they did off the lights. And it was DARK!
Now we ask: Is there such a thing as evil? The answer once again is, no. Where cold is a reference to the reduction of heat, and dark is the reduction or absence of light, evil is the absence of or the rejection of the holiness of God. Evil is not a thing or a cause: evil is a result.
You may ask, “What about murder, rape, robbery, sexual deviancy, hatred, etc.?” I can tell you, on authority of Scripture, that none of that is in heaven where the pure holiness of God prevails.
The lower we set the temperature, the colder it gets. The lower the light setting, the darker it gets. So the lower the level of Godliness in our lives and in society, the higher will be the intensity of evil – murder, rape, sexual deviancy, drug abuse, etc.
Billy Graham never said, “If you will just stop living like you are, if you will 
just stop your sinning, you will become holy!” But he often said: “If you will come to Jesus and ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, if you ask Jesus to come into your life, you can become a new person and learn to live for the Lord!”
We do not stop doing evil to become holy; but we come to Jesus and become holy and the result is that we stop doing evil. But learning to live for the Lord is a process: we do not become a mature Christian overnight.
If I trip and drop my coffee cup, I would not create a broken cup. Rather, the broken cup would be a result of my carelessness. Likewise, evil is not a thing or something created; rather, evil is the result of rejecting God – a lack of Godliness.
Our holy God did not create the devil, nor did he create evil. He created the angel Lucifer. But Lucifer – of his own free will – disobeyed, and evil is the result. Likewise, God did not create all the mess of humanity in this world. The mess is the result of rejecting a holy God.
If you want to see a reduction of evil, turn to the Lord and begin living for Him.
Gene Linzey 