Why Did God Create People Who Would Do Evil? A Comparative Religious Answer

Jewish tradition doesn't shy away from the tension. Proverbs states plainly that God made everything for a purpose, even the wicked for an evil day Proverbs 16:4, which sounds troubling until you read it alongside the broader rabbinic framework. The Talmudic concept of the yetzer ha-ra (the evil inclination) holds that God deliberately built a capacity for wrongdoing into human nature — not to doom people, but because without it there'd be no genuine moral choice, no real virtue, and arguably no civilization (the rabbis of the Gemara, around 3rd–5th century CE, noted that the yetzer ha-ra drives ambition, procreation, and commerce).

Genesis 6:5 records God's own grief at the outcome: God saw how great was human wickedness on earth — how every plan devised by the human mind was nothing but evil all the time Genesis 6:5. This verse is crucial. It shows divine sorrow, not indifference — God didn't create evil people robotically; He created free agents whose freedom went catastrophically wrong. The Flood narrative that follows is a corrective, not a vindication of evil.

The Joseph story offers perhaps the most elegant Jewish answer. Joseph tells his brothers: ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good Genesis 50:20. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (20th century) and earlier medieval commentator Nachmanides both emphasized this providential reversal: God doesn't author evil acts, but He weaves them into a redemptive pattern. Evil-doers bear full moral responsibility — Proverbs 24:8 calls the schemer a mischievous person Proverbs 24:8 — yet God's purposes aren't thwarted by them. There's real disagreement within Judaism, though: Maimonides (12th century) argued evil is largely privative, an absence of good, while Kabbalistic thinkers like the Zohar's authors saw evil as a necessary cosmic force that must exist for holiness to have meaning.

Christian theology has produced some of its richest — and most contested — thinking on this exact question. The dominant answer, articulated by Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century and refined by Aquinas in the 13th, is that God created beings with genuine free will, and evil is the result of that freedom being misused. God didn't create evil; He created the capacity for choice, which logically includes the capacity to choose wrongly.

The Joseph narrative, shared with Judaism, is foundational here too: ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive Genesis 50:20. Christian theologians read this as a foreshadowing of the cross itself — the greatest evil in Christian thought (the execution of the innocent Son of God) becomes the mechanism of universal redemption. This is sometimes called the felix culpa argument: the "happy fault" that occasioned so great a salvation.

Proverbs 14:22 reinforces moral accountability: Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good Proverbs 14:22. Evil-doers aren't puppets; they err. Reformed theologians like John Calvin (16th century) pushed further, arguing God sovereignly ordains all events including evil acts, while Arminian theologians like Jacob Arminius countered that genuine human freedom requires God to permit rather than ordain evil. This remains one of Christianity's sharpest internal debates. Open Theism, a minority 20th-century position associated with Gregory Boyd, argues God genuinely doesn't foreknow all free choices — which sidesteps the problem but strikes most classical theologians as diminishing divine sovereignty.

What virtually all Christian traditions agree on is that God's response to evil — incarnation, suffering, resurrection — transforms the question from a philosophical puzzle into a narrative of redemption.

Islam approaches this question with characteristic directness. Surah Al-Falaq opens with the command to seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak from the evil of that which He created Quran 113:2, a verse that's theologically striking: it acknowledges that creation itself contains evil potential, and that God is simultaneously the Creator of that potential and the refuge from it. Classical commentators like Ibn Kathir (14th century) interpreted this as affirming God's absolute sovereignty — nothing exists outside His creative act — while insisting that evil acts are chosen by humans and jinn, not authored by God.

The Ash'ari school of Islamic theology (dominant in Sunni Islam, systematized by al-Ash'ari in the 10th century) holds that God creates all things including human acts, but humans "acquire" those acts and bear moral responsibility for them — a nuanced position called kasb (acquisition). The Mu'tazilite school, by contrast, argued that God cannot create evil acts, since that would be unjust, and so humans must be genuinely free and self-determining. This debate mirrors the Calvinist-Arminian split in Christianity and the Maimonidean-Kabbalistic divide in Judaism.

Quran 2:90 illustrates the moral gravity of choosing evil: Evil is that for which they sell their souls: that they should disbelieve in that which Allah hath revealed... They have incurred anger upon anger. For disbelievers is a shameful doom Quran 2:90. The emphasis here is on human agency — they sell their souls, an active, chosen transaction. Islam's answer to why God created such people tends to center on the purpose of creation itself: the Quran (51:56) states humans and jinn were created to worship God, and meaningful worship requires the genuine possibility of refusal. Evil, then, is the shadow cast by real freedom.

Proverbs states: “GOD made everything for a purpose, Even the wicked for an evil day,” directly connecting creation with purpose that includes the reality of wicked persons and their day of reckoning Proverbs 16:4. Genesis reports that “GOD saw how great was human wickedness on earth,” describing the ubiquity of evil in human devising Genesis 6:5. Ezekiel adds that calamity wasn’t “without cause,” presenting divine judgment as warranted response Ezekiel 6:10. Together, these passages place evil within God’s purposeful order while emphasizing that human wickedness is real and that judgment is just Proverbs 16:4Genesis 6:5Ezekiel 6:10.

Genesis records Joseph saying, “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good,” pairing human evil intent with God’s good purpose to save many lives Genesis 50:20. Proverbs warns that one who “deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person,” and that those who devise evil err, while mercy and truth attend those who devise good, highlighting moral responsibility and outcomes Proverbs 24:8Proverbs 14:22. These texts show that evil actions arise from human intent, yet God can sovereignly bring good through and beyond them Genesis 50:20Proverbs 24:8Proverbs 14:22.

Surat al-Falaq teaches seeking refuge “From the evil of that which He created,” acknowledging that created reality includes things from which one seeks God’s protection Quran 113:2Quran 113:2. The Qur’an also condemns trading the soul for disbelief in God’s revelation, speaking of anger and disgrace as consequences, thus linking human choice, moral evil, and accountability Quran 2:90. These verses present creation’s breadth alongside a call to seek refuge in God and to avoid the evil of rejecting revealed truth Quran 113:2Quran 113:2Quran 2:90.