How Do You Create Evil?

Let no one say when he is tempted,

 “I am tempted by God”;

for God cannot be tempted with evil 

and He himself tempts no one.

 James 1:13

If God created "evil" - what exactly did He create?  A puff of smoke?  A black cloud? A talking serpent?  A sinful being?  We are explicitly told that both Lucifer (angel) and Adam (human) were perfect and morally spotless at their creation.  So God did not create "evil" in either of these beings.  The serpents in the Garden of Eden were not "evil" either - they were a part of the sixth day of creation when God  proclaimed all created things as "good."  Further, in order to create something - anything - one must have experience with its components.  Our verse in James today proclaims that God has nothing to do with evil.  He is not tempted by evil, nor does He tempt any other being with evil.  God does not deal in iniquity, evil, sin and darkness.  His realm is one of truth, purity, life and light.

I was taught as a child that sin cannot exist in the presence of a perfectly holy God. If God had created "evil," it would have been incinerated at the very moment of its creation.  I will say it again - sin cannot exist in the presence of perfect holiness. That is why we do not have the face-to-face access to the Father that Adam and Eve had.  Now we "see through a glass darkly" but someday will return to being "face to face" when Christ comes again and makes all things new.    

Perhaps if we read a bit further in the first chapter of the book of James, we might discover fresh answers to this age-old quandary.