Evil The idea of evil has several meanings and different types of arguments try to explain its existence.
Some materialists and scientists scoff at the notion of evil as if it were an antiquated legacy from a superstitious past.
Violent criminals are usually explained away on the evening news in medico-psychiatric terms. Murderers are often reported as ‘mentally-ill’ rather than ‘possessed by the devil.’
Sometimes attempts are made to integrate these two perspectives and other times not. Meanwhile, tyrants and warmongerers are often viewed through a historical or perhaps political lens.
A basic theological distinction exists between natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil includes “acts of God” such as floods, earthquakes and avalanches. Moral evil is a conscious human choice to turn away from God’s will and participate in some action harmful to self and possibly others.
Duns Scotus classified “intrinsic evil” as acts that are inherently evil and accordingly prohibited. But intrinsically evil acts are not evil because they are prohibited.
In Christian theology evil is often seen as a necessary component of God’s plan of salvation. Here one accepts as an article of faith that God permits evil for some greater good, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals (see Isaiah 55:8-9).
One school of thought, begun by Irenaeus and popularized by John Hick, argues that evil is permitted but not caused by God.
Why, one might ask, would a good and all-powerful God permit evil?
According to the Irenian school the answer lies with the idea of ’soul making.’ A soul freely choosing to abstain from evil is of greater value than one that automatically avoids evil like a robot. The free soul apparently better glorifies God than a sinless automaton.
Although evil may ravage, test and torment good souls living on earth, the true goal of our finite, earthly life is to be made worthy of eternal heavenly life.
According to this perspective the evils of the world act as a crucible. Souls not succumbing to but resisting evil are purified and strengthened towards the good. Evil, then, is necessary. It acts as a kind of ‘hammer’ that pounds out the soul’s impurities.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in keeping with the final winnowing of the Apocalypse (Luke 3:17, Matthew 3:12), writes that
God permits some evils lest the good things should be obstructed.
Another argument, influenced by Plato’s idea of the Forms, is forwarded by St. Augustine. Augustine sees evil as a privatio boni–the absence of good. According to this view, since God is good, evil must be where God is not present. Therefore God doesn’t create evil. It’s a choice.
The theological debates get complicated here and some ask whether Augustine’s theodicy holds up for both natural and moral evil.
Different branches of Christianity hold different views about the afterlife condition of the evil soul. Some damn sinners eternally. Martin Luther, for instance, believed that some souls are predestined for hell.
Meanwhile many contemporary religious persons pray for the liberation of souls in hell. And the Catholic Purgatory is neither heaven nor hell but a difficult preparation for heaven.
Evil in Islam is similar to that of Christianity. But for Muslims it is evil to suggest that Christ is one with God (John 10:30). And the prohibitions in the Koran differ from those of the New Testament. Notably, killing is permitted in the Koran in some circumstances (see http://www.yoel.info/koranwarpassages.htm and http://www.islamreview.com/articles/jihadholywarversesinthekoran.shtml), whereas the very thought of killing is denounced in the New Testament.
Many branches of Christianity do, however, entertain the idea of a Just War.
In Hinduism a different view of evil is presented. Evil is permitted to maintain a proper balance of sacred heat or power (tapas) within the universe.
Aspects of Hinduism speak to the reality of hell for evildoers. But evil in Hinduism is mostly viewed in terms of ignorance and spiritual evolution, making punishment temporary instead of eternal.
According to this perspective, the evil soul reincarnates on earth until it is cleansed of the ignorance that influenced it to commit bad deeds.
The Hindu aspires to transcend relative ideas about good and evil through an experiential knowledge of universal truth.
Accordingly, the goal of Hinduism differs from both Christianity and Islam. For the Hindu, heaven is akin to a halfway house on the road to ultimate realization. The reincarnating soul may enjoy periodic visits to different heavens but though the round of rebirth it eventually transcends all heavens and ultimately achieves the greatest good of the Brahman.
A similar but in some ways different view of evil is presented in Taoism. It remains uncertain as to whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu heavens and hells are identical in character.
Mircea Eliade notes that heavens and hells are described differently among world religions. And it seems that we cannot know if these are experientially equivalent across the board.
Most global cultures at some point in history have seen evil as a cause of mental or physical illness. This view is prevalent in Shamanism. And some religious writers, such as the Catholic Michael Brown, claim to feel the presence of evil almost anywhere.
On the inferiority of evil as compared to good, W. H. Auden writes in A Certain World:
Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.
» Determinism, Free-will, Shamanism, Siva, Suffering, Trickster
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