Did God Create Sin?

I have heard this question many times: “did God create sin?” This is a favorite among cynical unbelievers, and among many believers who just don’t fully understand God’s sovereignty. If God created sin, then how can He not be responsible for it; if He didn’t, then how can He be sovereign?

Most (if not all) Christians agree that God is not (and can not be) responsible for sin, so the only viable conclusion (using this logic) is that God is not sovereign. If something exists and functions outside of God’s control, He could not possibly be sovereign, right?

This is a classic straw-man approach that unbelievers love to throw at unsuspecting (and unprepared) believers. They pose this question well aware of Christian’s strong belief that God is Holy and, therefore, could not be responsible for sin. This paints many Christians into a corner of not being able to adequately defend the biblical position of God being Holy, sovereign, and completely un-responsible for the presence of sin in the world.

This is also a question many true believers ask because of a lack of understanding the sovereign nature of God.

Hopefully this article will assist Christians in understanding and defending the biblical position and will quiet those cynical unbelievers in a fallacious argument.

Definition

The first thing we need to do is to define sin. Sin is the act of transgressing (acting in violation of) or perverting (to interpret incorrectly; misconstrue or distort) the law of God.

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Genesis 3:1–6

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

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1 John 3:4

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

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Sin is not a creation; it has no substance; it is not being, spirit, or matter. This is a matter of semantics so I will address what I believe to be the heart of the issue. I believe the real question to be, “Did sin enter the world through God?” or “Is God responsible for sin in the world?” I will continue to address the question in this light.

Creation

Next, let’s look at God’s creation. At the conclusion of each stage of creation, God stated that what He had created was “good”. The Hebrew word used is tob, which means to be pleasing or good. This indicates that God was pleased with what He had created and that He found no fault in it. When God completed creation He looked at all He had created and stated that it was “very good”. The same Hebrew word is used here for good with the modifier meod, which means abundance. This indicates that God was pleased with all that He had created and that in it was nothing that displeased Him; that there was nothing evil or corrupt in His creation.

Can God Sin?

Next, let’s look at God’s nature in relation to sin. Can God sin? This is a question that must be addressed because sin could only have entered the world through a sinful act. I think that all Christians will agree that God can not sin. I also think, however, that it is well worth our time to take a look at why God can not sin. The essence of why God can’t sin is wrapped up in His nature as the creator, not because He is forbidden to sin or because He restrains Himself from sinning. Sin is disobedience or opposition to God. God can’t disobey or be in opposition to Himself; when God declares something, it simply “is”. Things exist through the thoughts, words, and breath of God. For God to sin against Himself is impossible not because He is bound by some arbitrary set of “natural laws” or even by a set of laws He has set in place, but because God’s actions are creative in nature. Things “are” or “become” because God declares them. God can not sin because if God did something evil it would not be evil, it would be good because God did it, since God Himself is the definition of good. In other words the concept of goodness is defined by God’s nature, not the other way around. God is not compared to an arbitrary standard called “goodness” and then deemed good because He measures up. There is no measuring stick with good on one side and evil on the other and when compared to it God is good. God is the measuring stick. In Philosophical terms, Godness is good and un-Godness is evil. Goodness is good because it reflects God’s nature. Anything that does not reflect God’s nature is evil.

God’s Creation Sinned

God created man in His image. This means that man shares, in a finite way, the communicable (capable of being transmitted from being to being) attributes of God (e.g., personality, spirituality, rationality, morality). This does not mean that man is exactly like God in every way. Man, being created in God’s image, is similar to a person viewing himself in a mirror. What he sees is an image of himself, but the image is not the substance. Likewise, man was not created with the same substance or capacity as God.

God does not have the capacity to sin (refer to Can God Sin). Adam was created in God’s image but because he was a creation he possessed the capacity to sin. Adam was like God in that he had personality, spirituality, rationality, and morality; he was different from God in that God is the creator and Adam was a creation. Because we are a creation, we have the capacity to disobey God (the creator). God does not have that capacity because He is the creator and what He says, thinks, or breathes, becomes (i.e., He is the measure of what is good and anything opposing Him is evil).

So, Through Whom Did Sin Enter the World?

God is sovereign but He did not create sin. He allows sin, He controls sin, He uses sin for good and causes good through sin in spite of itself. Adam was created with the capacity to sin or not to sin, and he freely chose to sin. Adam was like God (personal, spiritual, rational, moral); therefore, he could choose to obey God or disobey God. He was different from God (creation not creator); therefore, his choice could be sinful.

When Adam disobeyed God, he sinned and sin became part of his nature; all of his descendants inherited his fallen nature.

Conclusion

Sin entered the world through the sinful act of Adam disobeying God (transgressing God’s law).

Sin was conquered through the sinless life of Jesus fully and completely obeying God’s law.

—David S. Spaggiari