How do religions explain evil?
Evil is one of the oldest puzzles a conscious mind can sit with — and the world's traditions have been sitting with it for millennia, arriving at answers that are stranger and more various than any single answer deserves to be. Some find evil in a rebellious being who refused to bow; others in the illusion the Creator itself wove into existence; others still in the simple, devastating fact of forgetting. What strikes the attentive observer is that almost no tradition is content to leave evil as brute fact — every one of them insists it can be traced, named, and ultimately overcome.
Where does evil originate in the created world?
Something remarkable emerges here: evil's origin is traced to rebellion, divine architecture, and the very fabric of illusion — and sometimes, strikingly, to God's own hand.
God originates illusion and the delusion that follows it.
The divine itself fashioned the spell of Maya.
God the creator embedded the evil inclination in human nature.
The Creator is the author of Maya's universal fire.
Human creation and the angelic test set the stage for evil's entry.
Human forgetfulness and Iblis's pride together inaugurate evil.
Is evil a real force or merely an absence?
Several traditions converge on a startling claim: evil has no substance of its own — it is the shadow cast when goodness is absent, darkness without a source of its own.
Evil is absence — of good, of knowledge — not a real thing.
Evil is relational, not absolute; creation itself is good.
Evil has no existence of its own; only good truly is.
What role does ignorance play in producing evil?
Whether called Maya, delusion, or the three unwholesome roots, the diagnosis is consistent: evil grows where clear seeing has failed.
Maya produces forgetting of God and clinging to duality.
Delusion by Maya directly produces sinful behaviour.
Desire born of darkness is the internal enemy that obscures the self.
Maya's fascination produces perpetual spiritual wandering and doubt.
Greed, hatred, and delusion are the three roots of all evil.
Wilful self-harm and cruelty spring from the darkest quality of being.
Ignorance leads the procession; wrong view follows directly from it.
Emotional turbulence leads the soul away from the Tao.
Ignorance is the darkness that leads deeper into darkness.
Sensory craving disorders perception and corrupts human nature.
Does past action shape the soul's future suffering?
Across Hindu and Buddhist thought, the mechanism is precise: suffering is not random, it is the exact weight of what was freely chosen before.
Karma explains why suffering appears unequal and unjust.
Past evil karma binds the soul but can be expiated.
Karma binds the soul and shapes its entire future destiny.
Intentional action through body, speech, or mind produces suffering.
Intentional karma through body, speech, and mind determines what is felt.
Evil action returns precisely and burns its own originator.
Is a rebellious cosmic figure the agent of evil?
From the Quranic Iblis to Satan in Jewish legend, the figure of a being who refused to bow — and then made humanity pay for it — carries enormous explanatory power across traditions.
Satan actively seeks the destruction of the human soul.
Forces of the dark side actively seduce humans into impurity.
The evil inclination and dark forces are temporary, cosmically necessary.
Fallen angels are the imprisoned source of evil in the world.
Iblis refused to bow and became humanity's declared enemy.
Iblis's refusal to honour Adam is the origin point of cosmic opposition.
What path leads the soul out of evil's grip?
Every tradition examined here refuses to leave evil as the final word — there is always a door: the Shabad, repentance, liberation from karma, the abandonment of delusion.
The divine Word dissolves ego and breaks Maya's hold.
Repentance, prayer, and seeking forgiveness wash away sin.
The Buddha's teaching names suffering, its cause, and its cessation.
Forgiveness and consequence coexist; repentance is never too late.
Mindful renunciation of sensuality, even painfully, is liberation's path.
True insight sees suffering's emptiness at the root, not just its surface.
Freedom from self-will and desire dissolves karma and sorrow together.