God is good and has no capacity for evil. When He made the world God saw that everything in it was “very good.” Gen 1:31; there was nothing evil in the things He had created. However, evil entered the world at the point of man’s failure to obey God. But it is not the role or responsibility of God to see to it that bad things do not happen; it is ours. God made a covenant with our ancestor Adam and told him not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ( Genesis 2: 15 – 17), “For the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” We know that Adam failed to obey.

That one act of disobedience brought sin into the world. Evil has its root in sin, 'bad things' happen because of sin, and the originator of sin is the devil - mankind’s arch enemy. Having succeeded in enticing the first man to sin, he introduced a code of behaviour for all of Adam’s descendants, and by default took the position in man’s life that rightly belongs to God. The Bible calls the devil “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in those who are disobedient”. Ephesians 2:2.

This shows that occurrences of bad things depend on the conduct of man and not God. It is man’s failure to deal with the presence of sin that has allowed the devil’s influence to rob him of the capacity to do good continually. Furthermore, man is predisposed towards evil and it takes the grace of God through faith in Jesus to change his heart to be like God in his nature.If evil is the decision of man, why does God allow bad things to happen? God did not intervene to prevent Adam from disobeying Him, and neither did Jesus act to prevent Judas from betraying Him, or the Romans from crucifying Him.

Things, whether good or bad are 'allowed' to happen because God has given us free will to make conscious decisions and make choices on how to conduct ourselves. If it were not so, we would be like robots, or like creatures of instincts who have no choice in the matter of self-conduct. But God has been kind and merciful to allow us to be able to choose how to behave. God does not over-ride your will. That is why scripture says “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”, (1 Corinthians 6 : 12). And that is why there is punishment for disobedience and rewards for obedience. (Deuteronomy 11 :  26- 28). Because God is perfectly just, he does not act to prevent the will of those who do not want obey him by removing his right to choose. He did not act to prevent the rebellion of those angels who chose to follow Satan. But He has set a day when all things will cease, and the conduct of all transgressors judged and punished accordingly (John 5 : 28 – 29).

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