Evil intentions must come from somewhere. Is God indirectly to blame? The Bible answers: “When under trial, let no one say: ‘I am being tried by God.’ For with evil things God cannot be tried nor does he himself try anyone.” If God is not responsible, who is? The following verses give the answer: “Each one is tried by being drawn out and enticed by his own desire. Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin.” (James 1:13-15) Thus an evil deed is born when an evil desire is nurtured rather than rejected. However, that is not the whole picture.

The Scriptures explain that evil desires arise because humanity has a fundamental flaw​—inherent imperfection. The apostle Paul wrote: “Just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) Because of inherited sin, selfishness may well overrule kindness in our thinking, and cruelty may override compassion.

Of course, most people know instinctively that certain behavior is wrong. Their conscience​—or ‘law written in their hearts’ as Paul calls it—​dissuades them from committing an evil deed. (Romans 2:15) Still, a cruel environment can suppress such feelings, and a conscience can become deadened if it is repeatedly ignored.a​—Compare 1 Timothy 4:2.

Can human imperfection alone explain the orchestrated evil of our time? Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell observed: “It is true that there is evil in each of us, but adding together even large numbers of individual evils does not explain an Auschwitz . . . Evil on this scale seems to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively different.” It was none other than Jesus Christ who pinpointed this qualitatively different source of evil.

Not long before his death, Jesus explained that the men who were planning to kill him were not acting entirely of their own volition. An unseen force guided them. Jesus told them: “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth.” (John 8:44) The Devil, whom Jesus called “the ruler of this world,” clearly has a prominent role in fomenting evil.​—John 16:11; 1 John 5:19.