Is evil a real power? What's its origin? Why is evil? These are the questions that have troubled people for centuries—if not collectively then individually through personal misfortune. How often has thought revolved around the questions: Why does God permit evil? Can't He control it?
If this material world is basically all there is, and is the solid reality it appears to be, then it makes sense to conclude: "Yes, evil is a power. We're all shackled to it or can be victimized by it." In such a world a God who's eternal good, immortal Spirit, can look like an untouchable, incommunicable anomaly, a myth having little relation to humanity and its needs. Within those parameters godlessness might actually appear reasonable, materialism could be the wisest course, a starting point for coping with the "fact" that evil must certainly be a power—even the power.
Within those same parameters of a solid, matter-based world-reality, Christ Jesus' life would have been either a myth or a miracle and from either standpoint would have been impractical or irrelevant to the great needs of the human race.
