Where Did Evil Come From?

There is evil in the world. Everywhere. A biblical Christian would even say that there is a cabal of unseen conspirators promoting it. Where did it come from, and how did it manage to sprout like weeds under the eye of an omniscient, omnipotent God? To answer "the Devil" is too facile and actually leaves the question intact, unanswered. The Devil is evil, why it's in his very name! He certainly is the source of much that is evil, but then, where did his evil come from?

The Bible tells us that mankind is inherently evil-- an uncomfortable thought when applying it to oneself, yet readily understandable when applying it to others. Nonetheless, they are, and I attribute their evil to the same source as the Devil's. It wasn't God, for he is inherently good, at least it wasn't him directly. God is the ultimate free moral agent: he is conscious, rational, with powers of will and choice. 

That God made mankind and angels with similar powers as he possessed and set them free in creation with is the root of all evil.

How can those abilities which so distinguish humans from the plethora of the living be responsible for evil? A definition would be helpful before proceeding: evil  is that which is not good, and most fundamentally, that which is out of harmony with the ultimate good, which is God. Evil is the "un-God." When choice and will were expressed by man or angel independently of, and in opposition to God, evil was born. 

Evil, then, is the risk inherent in freedom.

All that was made was made as a home for mankind, the crowning achievement  of God's creation. When humans embraced evil and thereby shattered the crystal of that pristine environment, they alienated both the creation and the creature from God and what was good. As a result, sin, death and evil, which are the fruit of such a choice, have spattered everything in the universe with their rot, alive or  inanimate. Man, beast and the environment we live in have all been tainted by evil. 

Creation still bears the fingerprints of God, but its smudges betray, all too clearly the cost of image bearers going their own way instead of God's.