Ted Dekker Quotes

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.

The world of evil is only as evil as we allow it to be.

The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.

Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.

I think God gives every one of us our own will, and unfortunately, some people choose to do evil things with it.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

There is no rational creature which is not capable both of good and evil

If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.

Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.

The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not.

To choose evil is to choose freedom, emancipation from all restraint.

Wrong is wrong only when you are at liberty to choose.

Here in St. Cloud’s,” Dr. Larch wrote, “ I have been given the choice of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. It is my experience that practically everything is left up to chance much of the time; men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God – we should seize those moments. There won’t be may

Good and evil have nothing to do with gods. It has to do with us.

Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

No intelligent man believes that anybody ever willingly errs or willingly does base and evil deeds; they are well aware that all who do base and evil things do them unwillingly.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.