To understand this question, first of all, you need to understand what’s wrong. “God is inaccessible to evil” (Tg 1.13). Therefore, evil is not a side of God, it is not another god or another divine strength, because the Lord has revealed himself as the only God to Israel in numerous situations. So, what would evil be? In fact, being bad is not a being, a thing or force, but a lack of good, just as the darkness is the absence of light. [So, evil only exists where God is not, as in one rejecting God and chooses not to be where he is. ]

The world was created good by God. It is remarkable and wonderful that the creation account in Genesis 1.1 -31, the end of the creation of each thing is said: “and God saw that it was good”.After all, in verse 31, the biblical author says: “God saw all he had done was very good”.Therefore, everything that God has created is “very good” and there was no harm in anything.

How evil entered the world?

The third chapter of the book of Genesis tells how evil entered the world. In a figurative language, we see the image of the snake that tempted Eve and, through her, Adam. The meaning of this text is that the man, who by then was living in intimacy and harmony with God, rebelled against him, seduced by a deceiver. Without God, man and the world are subject to moral harm (lack of purpose that the man should live, especially happiness and love) and physical  harm as well. (lack of something in the material plane as hunger and pain).

Who is being the attacker? A god of evil? Numerous biblical texts refer to fallen angels, that is, beings created by God which are pure spirit, which should serve God, but “radical and irrevocably rejected the God and his Kingdom” (CIC 392). Some texts of the Old Testament are interpreted by the Christian tradition as an account of the Chief fallen angel, Satan, who turns against God (cf. Is 14.13 -14; EZ 28.17). Especially Ap 12.7 -10 talking about the battle of the Dragon and his angels against Michael and his angels. The Dragon and the angels become temptors, or better still are those beings who are not gods, but identified as evil, try to get the man to choose evil. So, in this way, the evil comes into existence just like that by rejecting “God, who is love” (1 Jn 4.8).

The world could exist without evil

It is clear, then, that the world not only could exist without evil, as it already existed without evil.What’s more, the world will return to exist without evil: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth was gone, and the sea is now no more. And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people; and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat on the throne, said: Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me: Write, for these words are most faithful and true.And he said to me: It is done. I am Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end. To him that thirsts, I will give of the fountain of the water of life, freely. He that shall overcome shall possess these things, and I will be his God; and he shall be my son. Apocalypse 21.1-7).