Posted on 08/29/2016 7:54:32 AM PDT by Salvation
We human beings are inclined to thinking categorically and absolutely. But not all (or even most) categories are absolute. Is there such a thing as absolute goodness, with no error admixed? Yes, most assuredly. God is so, as are the saints He has perfected in Heaven. But is there such a thing as absolute evil, in which there is no admixture of goodness? St. Thomas Aquinas and others say that there is not.
On one level, this is because evil is a privation, the absence of something that should be there. Hence if someone (or something) were wholly evil, he (it) would not exist at all. There would be no “there” there.
St. Thomas says,
Now in things it is impossible to find one that is wholly devoid of good. Wherefore it is also impossible for any knowledge to be wholly false, without some mixture of truth. Hence Bede says that “no teaching is so false that it never mingles truth with falsehood.” Hence even the teaching of demons, with which they instruct their prophets, contains some truths whereby it is rendered acceptable. For the intellect is led astray to falsehood by the semblance of truth, even as the will is seduced to evil by the semblance of goodness (Summa Theologica II, IIae, Q. 172, Art. 6).
Jesus warned us, Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits (Matt 7:15-16). The essence of temptation is including or alluding to something that is good or true. It is the good and the true that attract and serve as the lure. A fish would not be tempted by a rock attached to a hook. The bait is designed to attract the fish; it hides the hook. Similarly, we are not attracted by what is evil, ugly, and awful.
Scripture describes Eve’s temptation to partake of the forbidden fruit as follows: The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom (Gen 3:6). Food, beauty, and wisdom are all good. Thus even in the archetypal temptation, good things were proffered. But these concealed and were admixed with terrible ingratitude, disobedience, pride, and lack of trust in God.
Though the good can be absolute and categorical, evil cannot. Why is this important?
1 – It helps to make our battle with temptation and evil more informed, more prudent. It helps us to recognize the sly tactics of those who tempt us to evil by way of something good (but it is only apparently—not actually—good for us, due to the evil wrapped up in it).
This helps us to discern more carefully. We learn to distinguish what seems good (or as St. Thomas says, has the semblance of good) from what is truly good. Because nothing is absolutely evil, we can note what is good within any proposal, but also look beyond it to grasp the evil lurking there.
2 – It teaches that evil has no good of its own. Whatever good it has is stolen from what is truly good. Evil steals the good by misappropriating, misapplying, exaggerating, or deforming it in some way. Evil in itself appeals to no one, so it must steal from the good and dress itself up, luring us with what is good and cloaking its true emptiness.
Evil in itself is unappealing and devoid of anything it can claim as its own. It lives like a parasite on the good and must take something good in order to be anything at all.
So, while evil may appear powerful and enticing, in itself it has nothing to offer. Though evil scoffs at the good, it ultimately depends upon it.
3 – It helps us to avoid hatred and disdain of human persons, even those deeply wounded by sin and marked by rebellion or arrogance. There remain in them things that are good. They still have existence (from God). They still have intelligence and will, and not everything they do or desire is evil. Thus good can still be found in them; we can hope to appeal to those still good qualities as a basis for conversion before it is too late.
4 – It helps us find what is true even in false doctrines and philosophies. Heresy and error usually involve some exaggeration of what is true, but they fail to regard other truths that balance and distinguish them. Hence it is usually imprudent to wholly dismiss erroneous teachings as lunacy or to ridicule their proponents. A time-tested method is to find what is true, meet the proponent there, and then disclose the error by showing how it fails to account for other truths meant to balance it. St. Thomas Aquinas was a master at this.
5 – It teaches us patience and fortitude. The Lord told the parable of the wheat and the tares. Having sown good wheat in his field, the owner (God) acknowledges that an enemy sowed the tares. What is interesting is that the wheat and the tares look very much alike until just before the harvest. Nevertheless, an impatient field hand proposes to the owner that all the tares be removed immediately. The owner (God) urges caution, saying, No, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may harm the wheat with them (Mat 13:29).
While it is true that wheat cannot become tares and tares cannot become wheat, the same is not so with us. Too easily can we who would be wheat become tares. Yet also we who are tares can become more and more like wheat.
Thus in our battle against evil we must show care not to destroy what is good in us or in others. Even in evil people, some good can be found and nourished. This does not mean that strong medicine is never required, but the goal is to preserve what is good and to expose clearly what is evil.
So there will be a day of judgment, but not yet. God permits time so that we and others may repent. He seeks to grow what is good from within otherwise bad situations.
This often requires patience, admixed with resolve to expose evil for what it is. To be patient is not necessarily to be quiet. The word patience is rooted in the concept of suffering (patior = I suffer, I endure). To be patient is to stay at the work of preaching and calling to repentance until the very day of the harvest. To be patient involves suffering and endurance, because evil is stubborn and hides, pretending to be good.
The virtue of fortitude helps us to be courageous and to persistently stay at this work in spite of obstacles, disappointments, and setbacks.
6 – It provides us with insight as we endure suffering. God permits evil so that something good and better can come from it. There are hidden and paradoxical gifts in suffering and enduring evil. We are taught patience and humility. We learn to thirst for justice and the paradise of Heaven. Error can help us to better understand truth and hone our skills in apologetics as we seek to refute error. Because evil is not absolute, God can draw good from it; in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).
7 – It teaches us a subtlety about God’s justice in relation to Hell and the damned. While Heaven is perfection and pure goodness, Hell is not pure evil. St. Thomas teaches,
It is impossible for evil to be pure and without the admixture of good …. [So]those who will be thrust into hell will not be free from all good … [And even] those who are in hell can receive the reward of their goods, in so far as their past goods avail for the mitigation of their punishment (Summa Theologica, Supplement 69.7).
This can assist us in understanding that God’s punishments are just and that the damned are neither devoid of all good nor lacking in any experience of good. Even though a soul does not wish to dwell in God’s Kingdom due to that person’s rejection of God or the values of the Kingdom, the nature of suffering apart from God in Hell is commensurate with the sin(s) that excluded the person.
This would seem to be true even of demons. In the Rite of Exorcism, the exorcist warns the possessing demons, “The longer you delay your departure, the worse your punishment shall be.”
In his Inferno, Dante wrote of levels within Hell and that not all the damned experience identical sufferings. Thus, an unrepentant adulterer might not experience the same suffering in kind or degree as a genocidal and atheistic head of state directly responsible for the death of millions. Both have rejected key values of the Kingdom: one rejected chastity, the other rejected the worship due to God and the sacredness of human life. But the degree of their sin and the consequences of that sin are very different.
So Heaven is a place of absolute perfection, a work accomplished by God for those who say yes. But Hell, though a place of great evil, is not a place of absolute evil. It cannot be, because God continues to sustain human and angelic persons in existence there (despite their final rejection of what He offers), and existence itself is good. He also judges them according to their deeds. Their good deeds may ameliorate their sufferings; this, too, is good and allows for good in varying degrees there. Hell is not in any way pleasant, but it is not equally bad for all. And thus God’s justice, which is good, reaches even Hell.
In summary, good can be perfect and whole, but evil can never be pure and total. The implications to this are many. Pray carefully over the insights presented above and apply them well, for the days are evil. Thanks be to God that total evil is not to be found. Our job is to find what is good and, by God’s grace, to grow it.
Another good one Msgr. Charles Pope, Thanks
I have to disagree with Pope here. I think Jesus used those terms knowing full well their connotation. Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.
Now, a sheep can be raggedy, lazy and disobedient but he will always BE a sheep. Wheat can get rancid, moldy or stale but it is STILL wheat. A goat can be pretty, sweet natured and tame but he remains a goat. Jesus is teaching about eternal judgment and not how we can change our make up by our outward acts. Our eternal salvation is based upon what Christ has done for us and not what we do for Him. We receive the gift of eternal life by faith.
I think this is a good way to see it:
"A prince, while he is a little child, is presumably as willful and as ignorant as other little children. Sometimes he may be very obedient and teachable and affectionate, and then he is happy and approved. At other times he may be unruly, self-willed, and disobedient, and then he is unhappy, and perhaps is chastised—but he is just as much a prince on the one day as on the other. It may be hoped that, as time goes on, he will learn to bring himself into willing and affectionate subjection to every right way, and then he will be more princely, but not more really a prince. He was born a prince" (C.I. Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth).
I think the answer is every person has the free the will to choose good over evil. God’s law is written in the heart of every man. At any particular moment, a person can choose to respond to God’s law and calling, and do good.
If man is not free to commit the greatest sins, then there would be no need for God’s infinite mercy.
Sure sounds to me like the fallen, carnal heart of man is certainly capable of great evil. We've seen the evidence in our own lifetimes - recently, even. Could it be a "pure" evil? Maybe.
The term “Pure Evil” is an oxymoron.
If it contains evil, it is not pure.
In order to know thy Father, you must be like a child. Children are still pure as they reflect the Love from God in their eyes. (The eyes truly are the windows to the soul). It is not until an obstacle to that pure Love in the child is created in their soul, that the sparkle in the eyes of the child diminishes. ( I find it interesting that recently scientists discovered that there is “Light” generated when the sperm penetrates the ovum)
All human beings were children at one time and therefor contain that Light of God in them. Thus all human beings have goodness and purity at their core. However, there are certain human behaviors and characteristics that create obstacles to that Love within us thus allowing a formerly pure soul to be vulnerable to the external influence of evil.
(In many ways, life is about finding and removing those obstacles to Love that exist within us.) That is the reason for Jesus second commandment of “Loving thy neighbor as thyself. It is our fellow humans that assist us in finding the hatred, anger and fear that are our obstacles to Love within us. In many ways, when someone brings out our anger, we should thank them for helping us to locate the impurity within us in order that we may remove it and fill the void with Love.
(Remember 1 John 4)
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
“This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”
God provides the life that makes us human. In many ways, all life is of God and in God. If we remember that “evil” is “live” spelled backwards, we could define evil as that which takes away or suppresses the “live” or “life” in us. In short, God provides life and evil takes it away. Yes, sin causes death.
Since God is omnipresent, evil exists within God, or God allows evil as it has a higher purpose. Remember if we have a closed box sitting in the sun on our picnic table, that closed box contains darkness. When we open the box, the light fills the box. The darkness in the box does not fill the exterior around us. So it is with evil and darkness existing within God.
Just as the difficult experiences we encounter as a child growing up help us to become a better adult, evil serves a purpose and assists us in becoming stronger in our Love for God. Many people completely forget about God in their lives until they encounter evil. Often, evil destroys us and makes us an empty vessel in order than we are no longer full of ourselves and have room for God. (Remember, we can’t put new wine in an old vessel. We must first get rid of the old.”) Evil helps us to get rid of the old and thus serves a purpose. God is in control and often we view evil as the parent who is disciplining us when we were a young child. When actually, the parent is disciplining us because they Love us and want us to grow to become a healthy adult.
I have encountered satan while doing exorcisms. He is the closest thing I have met that resembles pure evil. The room became freezing cold as though I was in a blast freezer, even though it was a very warm summer night. It’s as though satan tries to suck the life out of you. The only way to counter satan is to be connected to God where there is more life (and Love) flowing into you than satan is taking from you. This is why it is necessary to Love thy enemies, as to hate thy enemies you lower yourself to their level and you lose. To truly Love satan is to destroy him with God’s Love as satan realizes that the Light of God will destroy his darkness. This is the secret to performing exorcisms and depossessions. Love all at all times.
“At my now 64 years of age I have never met or come across anything in life scarier, more dangerous,or more evil.”
If that fear generated by evil caused you to turn to God to be rescued by His Love, it served a good purpose. If you just held on to the fear, then it did not.
I’ve seen people such as you describe meeting in the prison fall to the ground and snarl, hiss and growl in the presence of God’s Love. They are afraid of it. If you fill yourself with God’s Love, then they are afraid of that Love overflowing from you.
Excellent tagline.
(Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
Is not nothingness the same thing you achieve by dying daily and becoming an empty vessel? Enlightenment is not the tree realizing it is in the forest. Enlightenment is the tree awakening to realize that it is one with the forest. Unless we as an individual become nothingness, we will never realize that we exist within Jesus, and God that exists within Jesus also exists within us.
(John 17)
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
I remember my own father often saying as I was growing up, “I can find the good in everyone. However, in some people I have to look a might bit harder than others to find it!”
“Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.”
Remember at the end of Matthew 13 when the disciples came to Jesus and asked for the parable of the tares in the wheat to be explained?
The earth is the field, Mankind are the good seeds, and satan planted the weeds.
Humans are not weeds. However, just as the weeds in a field can take the sunlight and nutrients from your good crop, the weeds can stunt the spiritual growth of humans. As a farmer, it is my experience that constantly pulling the weeds in my own garden or fields resulted in the highest yield of the best quality harvest.
Remember, the weeds Jesus spoke of cannot stand the sunlight. All we need to do is rise above the weeds and they will perish as we flourish in God’s Love while they perish..
“If man is not free to commit the greatest sins, then there would be no need for God’s infinite mercy.”
And thus the “School of Hard Knocks” with the class colors of black and blue. What an education life provides us if we don’t read the assembly instructions ahead of time.. i.e The Bible.
Our time, and the time of those we know who have so far refused to know Jesus’ Salvation is very limited and we should never give up our hope for them. Pope is right that we should see the good in others, even those who “seem” purely evil, and patiently work to grow that good while teaching the danger of our evil qualities.
As for Hell having some good, that is objective perhaps, in that Hell will be eternal separation form God, and God being love, the place will be completely devoid of love. Hard to find good in that. Maybe “good” like describing a delicious meal to someone who is starving to death...?
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