Does evil actually exist?
Why did God create evil?
A professor at the university asked his students the following question:
- Everything that exists was created by God, yes or no?
One student bravely answered:
- Yes, created by God.
- Did God create everything? - The professor asked.
"Yes, sir," replied the student.
The professor asked :
- If God created everything, then God created evil, since it exists. And according to the principle that our deeds define us, then God is evil.
The student became silent after hearing such an answer. The professor was very pleased with himself. He boasted to students for proving once again that faith in God is a myth.
Suddenly, a student raised his hand and said:
- Can I ask you a question, professor?
"Of course," replied the professor.
The student got up and asked:
- Professor, is cold a thing?
- What kind of question is that? Of course it exists. Have you ever been cold?
Students laughed at the young man's question. The young man answered:
- Actually, sir, cold doesn't exist.
According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is actually the absence of heat. A person or object can be studied on whether it has or transmits energy.
Absolute zero (-460 degrees
Fahrenheit) is a complete absence of heat. All matter becomes inert and unable to react at this temperature.
Cold does not exist. We created this word to describe what we feel in the absence of heat.
The student continued:
- Professor, does darkness exist?
— Of course it exists.
- You're wrong again, sir. Darkness also does not exist. Darkness is actually the absence of light. We can study the light but not the darkness.
We can use Newton's prism to spread white light across multiple colors and explore the different wavelengths of each color. You can't measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into the world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you tell how dark a certain space is? You measure how much light is present. Isn't it so? Darkness is a term man uses to describe what happens in the absence of light.
In the end, the young man asked the professor:
- Sir. Does evil exist?
This time, it was uncertain. The professor answered:
- Of course, as I said before. We see him every day. Cruelty, numerous crimes, and violence throughout the world. These examples are nothing but a manifestation of evil.
To this, the student answered:
- Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist for itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is like darkness and cold—a man-made word to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not faith or love, which exist as light and warmth. Evil is the result of the absence of Divine love in the human heart. It's the kind of cold that comes when there is no heat, or the kind of darkness that comes when there's no light.
The student's name was Albert Einstein.
The above story is usually attributed to Albert Einstein, in which he presented the philosophical idea that “evil doesn’t exist on its own, it is the absence of God.” However, it is not found in Einstein’s actual speeches, writings, or interviews. That is, it is a popular anecdote or urban legend, often associated with him because it seems to be consistent with his philosophy or scientific ideas.
Key points:
In the story, cold and darkness are shown as the ‘absence of heat and light’.
Evil or Satan is explained as the ‘absence of God.’
In reality, Einstein never directly gave a speech like this; it is a story created to imitate Einstein’s philosophical ideas.
Einstein made some clear statements that could be used in support of atheism, in which he rejected the idea of a religious God. Below are some important statements (with sources)—
1️Rejection of personal God
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”
— Letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, 3 January 1954 (famous “God Letter”)
Bengali meaning:
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”
2️About the Bible and religious scriptures
“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
— Same letter to Eric Gutkind, 1954
Bengali meaning:
“The word ‘God’ is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
3️Criticism of the anthropocentric God
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation.”
— Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, The Saturday Evening Post, 1929
Bengali meaning:
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards or punishes the objects of his creation.”
4️Direct on atheism
“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.”
— Letter to Hans Muehsam, 1954
Bengali meaning:
“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.”
(Here he says that he finds a kind of “cosmic religious feeling” in the logic and beauty of the universe, but not belief in a Creator.)
In short
Einstein did not accept a personal Creator or a miraculously intervening God.
He described the laws, logic, and wonder of the universe as a “cosmic religious sense”—which, for atheists and secular thinkers, is closely associated with atheism.
Religion and Science (1930)
Published in: The New York Times Magazine (November 9, 1930).
Here, Einstein explains the evolution of religion in three stages—
fear-based religion (the belief in God from fear of natural disasters),
moral religion (the belief in God to maintain morality),
cosmic religion (a deep fascination with the mysterious balance and logic of nature).
According to Einstein, his own belief is essentially this cosmic religion, in which there is no personal god, but rather awe at the mysterious order of the universe.
I don't know whether the above story is attributed to Einstein. Even if it were the case, the above discussion is mostly reliant on evil as the absence of god violating God's allegedly held omnipresence. Einstein, however, claimed otherwise elsewhere. He was a subscriber to Spinoza's God, which is pantheistic. Einstein wrote: My religion consists of a humble admiration of an illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in slight details which we can perceive in our frail and fragile mind.
For me, Einstein seems to have been quite less updated about various other positions regarding this issue. I have never found any support or criticism of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer in any of his writings.
If God is illimitable, his absence, as the above student allegedly claimed, is purportedly antithetical to Einstein's claim.
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