About Evil

American Thinker ^ | October 16, 2007 | Selwyn Duke

[neverdem]

Man has long asked how a loving God could allow evil to exist in the world.  It's an age-old philosophical question that can cause those who want faith to doubt and those who want to doubt to mock faith.  A Christian's answer to this question is "free will," a concept critics may regard as something reduced to a convenient cliché.  The truth is, though, that this is a most fascinating subject to inquisitive minds.

The two qualities that make us like God are intellect and free will, despite the fact that the former can seem as lacking as the latter is abused.  Why intellect has prerequisite status is obvious, but why free will?  If God is omnipotent, He can prevent the immeasurable pain and suffering we inflict on one another with the blink of an eternal eye.  Why doesn't He do it?  Perhaps this problem is what caused people such as Thomas Jefferson to embrace deism, the belief that God set the Universe in motion but then receded into the background, indifferent to our plight.  So let's examine free will.

Imagine you have a child, and technology has advanced to a point where you can implant a computer chip in his brain, one that would ensure he never acted wrongly.  If everyone were thus controlled, we would have a world in which everyday transgressions were unknown.  Yet, would you view this as an acceptable remedy for your child's human frailty?

A good father certainly would not, for it would render the child something less than human.  He would then be nothing more than an organic robot, an automaton, controlled by an outside agency whose will has supplanted his own.  Just picture the Borg in Star Trek.

After all, what of love?  While a child thus controlled would behave in ways that may seem loving in a superficial sense, he would not be acting out of love at all.  We only exhibit love when we could be hateful,  but choose to be loving instead.

As to this, think about how much more we appreciate aid rendered voluntarily than that which is coerced.  When starving, we may certainly be happy to receive a meal from a man who has a gun to his head, but it sates our soul as well as stomach when he helps us with a happy heart and of his own accord.  Likewise, it's considered a mitigating circumstance when a person is coerced into committing a crime.  (Note: these examples involve incomplete consent of the will due to duress, not the elimination of free will, as my computer-chip hypothetical does.)  Or, think about dolphins trained by the military to detect mines in the ocean, attack enemy divers or plant explosives on ships.  While we certainly may appreciate what these animals can do, it cannot be compared to the conscious decision made when a man accepts the risk to life and limb on a bomb squad; the dolphin acts in accordance with his training -- or programming, as it were -- whereas the man has made a decision to risk his life with full knowledge and consent of the will.  Intellect and free will are what separate us from the animal kingdom.

Getting back to our hypothetical child, a good parent wants him to be more than just controlled.  Sure, when he is young, he may be watched continually and his life micromanaged, owing to his immature state.  As he grows, however, we can loosen the reins commensurate with his increasing capacity to govern himself from within.  And we look forward to the day when he will exercise his free will rightly, for only then will he have come to full flower as a human being.

If we fail in this task of moral formation and the child goes astray, he may end up in prison, a place where his ability to exercise his free will is limited.  From a moral standpoint, we then may consider him to be a malformed human being.  Were he to not have free will in the first place, however, he would be something less than a human being.

Then, when saying that we cannot believe in God because of the existence of evil, we accept a contradiction.  If God doesn't exist, how can we label a position evil with credibility?  If man is the author of what we call right and wrong, if morality is all a matter of opinion, then there is no evil in any real sense.  In other words, if we are judging some things to be good and others evil, we have to ask what standard we're using as a yardstick.  If the standard is simply consensus opinion, then what we call morality falls in the realm of taste.  And if 90 percent of the world liked chocolate ice cream and disliked vanilla, we wouldn't think this rendered chocolate good and vanilla evil; it's simply a preference.  So, should we think murder was evil simply because 90 percent of the people said they didn't like it?  If there is nothing outside of man and his emotions that deems it so -- if it is not objective reality -- then it also is simply a matter of taste. 

"Oh, but it involves death, not dessert.  C'mon, it's morality!" say the critics?  Sure, your feelings may tell you this distinction is significant, but if it doesn't accord with external reality, those feelings are in error.  They are then simply biases, ones powerful enough to evoke passion, but biases nonetheless.  And those very different terms, taste and morality, would be nothing but semantics.

So, for "good" and "evil" to truly be reckoned as such, the standard we use cannot merely be taste masquerading as "values."  And since man is being judged (we are, after all, talking about our actions), he cannot be the standard, for a standard cannot judge itself any more than a board can be used to measure itself for a carpentry project.  For a standard to judge what is good and evil, it must be both outside and above them, in which case that standard starts to sound an awful lot like God.

So it's ironic: Some find the existence of evil to be convincing proof God doesn't exist, but the Truth is that the existence of evil would prove God does exist.

When we look around us at man's inhumanity to man, it may seem a high price to pay for free will.  Yet, when pondering how much we value freedom and have often sacrificed for it, the matter is illuminated.  Our Founding Fathers and many others were willing to shed blood, both theirs and others, and risk their wealth, land and status for that cherished value.  If in our finer moments we are willing to endure hardship and misery so that we will not be puppets of the worldly, it should surprise us not that He who has only fine moments would allow us to endure same so that we would not be puppets of the divine.  The difference is that what man offers his brother only when there is a full flowering of the human spirit, He grants without reservation so that the spirit may be truly human.

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[Bommer]

Man has long asked how a loving God could allow evil to exist in the world.

He had no choice. Everything ever created has a polar opposite.

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[Responsibility2nd]

After all, what of love? While a child thus controlled would behave in ways that may seem loving in a superficial sense, he would not be acting out of love at all. We only exhibit love when we could be hateful, but choose to be loving instead.

Much more should be said regarding the great contrast between love and goodness verses hate and evil.

Why ask the question, "Why does God allow evil"? Why not ask instead, "Why does God allow love?"

As much as I hate and detest evil (pardox, eh?), I would not know the beauty and wonder of love if evil were not present.

[Psycho_Bunny]

If God doesn't exist, how can we label a position evil with credibility?

I don't have to believe in God to know that raping and murdering a 10 year old is evil.

The author is an philosophical lightweight.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think you need two points that would need to be examined more closely.

First, animals do exhibit a measure of response to others' needs, one that sometimes (very rarely, but sometimes) exhibits outside of immediate kinship structures, such as the herd or the pack. You'll occasionally have the dolphin which boosts the sinking child up to the surface of the sea, or the nanny goat which suckles an orphan puppy. (I find such examples touching and very interesting, actually.)

But --- correct me if I'm wrong--- you never see animals exhort each other to be courageous or fair, or train their young to be self-controlled, or take responsibility for the well-being of an endangered species other than their own, or find one another of their kind innocent or guilty. They can be trained by us, but they do not train themselves. To even speak thus is plainly anthropomorphism, is it not?

My thought is that animals are acting on the basis of sensation and instinct only: the mother dolphin boosts her own babies up to the surface to breathe, and will react similarly to any small, flailing mammal. The nanny goat experiences pleasure and relief when her milk is sucked (that's true of all of us mammals) and would not kick away any little creature that suckles nicely. No conscious benevolence: just relief.

Second point: you are assuming that the motivation moving the moral theist is fear of punishment from divine disciplinarian. That such an element exists cannot be denied. But far more often, the motivation is not fear, but filial piety, gratitude: thankfulness for having been brought into existence, and a desire to please God, our ultimate maker and provider.

And it is filial imitation--- telling truth as you have learned that God tells truth, working beautifully as you believe God works beautifully, loving as you understand God loves.

Anyone at all familiar with the Lives of the Saints would have seen that: not fear, but gratitude and the kind of love that casts out fear.

[metmom]

You put it much better than I could have. Thanks.

[goldstategop]

Evil is a necessary condition of free will. For morality to exist, one must be able to freely choose what one will do. We can decide to commit murder but God says there are serious consequences that will befall us if we act on that choice. The present of the choice itself says we are not puppets and they we respond to God is communicated through our own conduct. He loves so much that although He is truly omnipotent, He restrains Himself from asserting His power over us to make sure we have free will. The righteous love God because they use the freedom He grants human beings for ends that uplift the condition of both body and soul. If evil did not exist, then none of us could see the nobility of the good.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Rutles4Ever]

I don't have to believe in God to know that raping and murdering a 10 year old is evil.

Without God you wouldn't have an inclination one way or another, because you would have no rational soul. You would survive on an animal-instinct. And as there are certain species that eat their young, kill their mates, devour cubs, etc., without the constant moral compass of properly formed, rational soul, raping and murdering a 10 year old may seem "good" in your eyes. Perversion of the soul is what leads one to murder and rape 10-year olds - it's a distorted "good" to the killer.

You don't have to believe in God for any reason. But discernment of evil is proof that its opposite also exists. And the source of that constant good cannot come from beings who are not constant with it.

[Rutles4Ever]

Ethics, morality and the concept of fair play are based in empathy, a quality that even some animals apparently share.

Which ones? There's a wide chasm between instinctively prolonging the species and discursively reasoning that there are choices to be made with various outcomes. Does the black widow reason that her mate has a right to be alive? Does the tiger play "fair" with the antelope he sneaks up on in the night? Does he leave a memorial for his prey or feel guilt in the aftermath?

If the common ape could be proven to be 99.999999% alike to a human being, it is infinitely sub-human by the fact it cannot have an emotion that responds to intellect. That is the origin of empathy. Not protecting the brood or nuzzling with a mate. An animal, insect, etc., cannot apprehend the emotion or condition of another as its own. A pack(?) of cheetahs doesn't share its prey because they decide to share. They share it because if they don't, the cheetah next to them will kill them to get what it needs to survive.

Compassion is not the same thing as acting under fear of punishment by some divine disciplinarian looking over your shoulder.

Who said they're the same? Acting under fear of punishment is anxiety. Some are rightfully anxious because they persist in sin and know it. Others simply have weak faith. Most of us fall into category one, which leads to category two. No one is compelled but to love God and his neighbor. Anything short of that results in the rightful fear of punishment from the constant good that resists evil - whether its corporal punishment of the law, or spiritual (and accidentally corporal) punishment of God.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Without God you wouldn't have an inclination one way or another, because you would have no rational soul.

Really?  How would you know?

You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God so your conclusion is inherently unarguable.

[Rutles4Ever]

Really? How would you know?

Everything has an origin except That which has always been. If you believe you have a rationale, please point to its physiological origin.

The intellect is not corporeal. If nothing which is non-corporeal exists, then you have no intellect. Agree or disagree? If you agree that the intellect does exist, then it must have an origin and it must reside somewhere in our being. Where it resides is our soul. What put it there is God ("made in His image"). There is no other possible answer since there is nothing which cannot logically exist without a first mover. God is that mover - and no one created God, thus His existence is a mystery to man. But by apprehending your intellect, I am apprehending the existence of God.

You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God so your conclusion is inherently unarguable.

I cannot prove or disprove the existence of God to you, perhaps, if you choose to ignore logic. In the same vein, you can't prove or disprove that I exist, either, so why are you responding to my post?

[rwfromkansas]

Only most Christians believe in free will. The rest of us understand we are all enslaved by sin until the Holy Spirit drags us to Christ.

Besides, answering “free will” is simplistic and too easy of an answer.

[Psycho_Bunny]

You're not the first to postulate the Prime Mover argument but even still, it doesn't prove or disprove anything.  It's an argument in circles because it's ultimate nature is incomprehensible.

And exactly how is the intellect non-corporeal?

 

[GreenOgre]

Why does every civilization have a religion? If there was one true God wouldn’t everybody have the same religion? Shouldn’t these religions have something in common?