Why did God create a sin-filled world?
From the traditional Christianity viewpoint, at least for the most part, evil exists because God allowed us to have freewill,. The argument goes along the lines of, God not wanting 'robots to serve him' and so He allowed us to be able to choose even if our choices were evil. In other words, God created a world which allows for the absence of good. Others blame this on Adam and Eve. They disobeyed God and thus brough evil into the world.
This explanation does not sit well with me my inner Self. I do better with the Rilke saying to his correspondent, that sometimes we have to 'live the questions.' I am quite comfortable with not having answers to all of life's questions while in the 3-D matrix that we live in. But for the sake of a spiritual exercise, my logical mind considered some of the possibilities.
God did not create the 3-D world we live in
God created the world with both good and evil for reasons we cannot understand as mortal beings
God created the world and allowed both good and evil so that we could choose good over evil
There are a few options that I am not including because they feel totally foreign to me. These include that:
There is no God
God doesn't care
God is evil
Everything I have known through my life affirms to me the existence of a benevolent God. Of the three options, the one which resonates the most with me is option 1. While option 2 is a possibility, understanding the presence of good and evil are so germane to living a purposeful life that I can't imagine God wants to keep that a mystery till we die. Option 3 does not resonate because I believe that God is all good-ness and that He hurts whenever evil happens.
I had been sitting with the question of whether God created this sinned-filled word for many months, when I had an aha moment. I had created a beautiful rock garden just outside my bedroom window, which had a bird bath and bird water bowl. The garden boasts beautiful succulents such as Delosperma and sedums as well as a few perennial shrubs such as salvia. I watched the garden mature over the summer with many hummingbird visits as well as bluebirds and finches. Soon, it became clear I had a problem. I noticed that chipmunks were also visiting my rock garden and drinking from the bird's bowl. That would have been fine if that was all they did but they also began to decimate the succulents. I tried every humane way to dissuade them from my garden without success. I watched every YouTube video on how to deter chipmunks including using pepper powder and garlic. These were not successful but I violently resisted trapping them or drowning them.
This is my microcosm of creation. I created this little garden of paradise to grow beautiful plants and see birds coming in as welcome; in other words good. By contrast, the chipmunks were not welcome in the garden. I don’t see them as evil as they dig their holes on other parts of my property. However, in my little garden, they are the placeholder for what would be ‘evil.,” ie. Undesirables. I did not make the choice to obliterate their presence on my property.
That would not be in keeping with the spirit of live and let live which I subscribe to. After all, we humans have invaded their habitat in so many ways. One fall day, I decided to empty the water bowl and bird bath when I saw the chipmunks helping themselves to the water. The YouTubes had suggested that having water freely available encouraged these chipmunks. I told myself the birds could fly and would find an alternative source till next summer. An hour later I watched multiple birds sitting on the overturned bird bath and the drinking bowl, chattering to each other. I sat it out for one more hour and then gave up. There were hoards of birds sitting on the fence disheartened.
I approached the fence with the water hose and they flew away but I had hardly finished replenishing the water when they approached for garden for their drink. I watched from a distance with content as they bathed and drank to their heart's content. I was thinking, this must be why God sits the sidelines and watches us misuse the power He gave us.
So God made us in His own image. Thus God gave our Spirit forms creative powers and so we created the world we have known. Our Spirit form ancestors wanting a different experience created earth and water which sourced evolutionary forms that we find in the world today including living things such as humans, trees, shrubs, chipmunks; as well as seemingly inanimate biological forms such as rocks, sand, and minerals. This evolved into a world which contains the good and evil and all the shades in between. But God provided us with the means to discern good and evil and the capacity to choose good. I chose to accept the chipmunks have access to my beautiful garden, while doing the best I could to protect vulnerable plants as best I could.
In my microcosm of creation, I am allowing good and evil to coexist. Similarly, God allowed Source’s children to create a world which God knew would ultimately contain good and evil. God gave us free will to make good or evil choices including the free will to accept what we cannot change.
This is my interpretation and it makes sense to my being. What is yours?