Did God "create" evil? Thoughts from a Christian Skeptic...

Natural "evil" and sin "evil" are 2 different things - Natural is a result of sin, since no natural calamity could affect us, pre-Fall.

Also - sin and evil is not good, therefore is not-God or not-of-God. It is the state of absence (willfully on the part of the created or Creator) of God's immediate sustaining loving influence and abiding loving presence. This state is only possible in the natural creation (temporally) and Hell (eternally).

The introduction of this state to the natural Creation has a pervasive and corruptive influence, initiated by the creature and allowed by the Creator to serve the greater good, namely to glorify God through glorifying the Son as Judge, Savior and Redeemer.

Evil, while not-of-God, is still bounded and directed by God to serve the purpose of God's plan for creation. Remove His constraining loving presence and the Creation would be as Hell.

This, to me, explains how Christ was still God, even when the Father forsook Him. Christ was God in the sense He was still connected to the Godhead by the presence of God's justice, but removed from the presence of the Father's love. Christ "bore the brunt" of this absence though suffering - the temporal effect was the death of His mortal body - the eternal effect was the suffering of the eternal uncreated Son for the redemption of the created elect.

All that to say, God does not "create" evil anymore than an absence of light "creates" darkness, but both states are under His sovereign control, like an artist controls the effects of light and darkness to create a work of art.