Good and Evil

For the past two weeks, I have been thinking about good and evil.   I was recently rereading a statement by St. Augustine that evil is not a creation in itself, but the absence of creation.

I know this sounds nerdy and philosophical but bear with me.  It has profound implications on how we view the world.  The way we understand good and evil affects the way we view ourselves and the world around us. 

Evil is a gap,  an absence in God's good creation.  Let's look at a couple of illustrations.

Imagine a new sweater with a prominent hole in the front.  It is a good sweater--the right color, the right material, and well assembled--except for the hole.  Most people would agree that the hole ruins the sweater, making it a "bad"  sweater not worthy of keeping.  Yet the sweater is a "good" sweater.  Only the hole makes it bad, and the hole is literally nothing.

Or imagine a car without working brakes.  It is a "good" car-- the engine works, the steering works, the air conditioning works.  Even so, it is a dangerous car, because of the absence of one part.  The fact that the rest of the car works is no help at all,  but  in fact makes the more dangerous.  Working engines and accelerators actually make it more dangerous, not less.  This is a "bad" car.  But the manufacturer did not make a bad car--they only left something "good" out.

People are the same.  God did not create "evil" people.  Only  the absence of something--a moral compass, perhaps, or clear senses or a sense of conscience--renders people evil or dangerous.  When people lack these things,  they are not redeemed by having intelligence, perseverance, or courage,  in fact those things only serve to make them more dangerous. They can be happy, healthy, and satisfied with life, and still lack these things. They can be good fathers,  kind friends,  and deeply religious. Yet if the wrong part of us is missing,  then we can and will do evil.  Our goodness only makes us more dangerous. 

I read in the papers about a man in his eighties who plowed his car into a school bus stop, killing several children.  He did not intend to do it, but he did it, nevertheless.  Was he evil?  Not  really.   He probably never did anything seriously bad in his life.  He may have lived an exemplary moral life. But was missing something--an accurate view of his own diminished capacity. He knew who he used to be, but lost sight of who he was. He was a good man, but because of this lack of self-awareness, innocent children died.

You don't have to be evil to do evil. You just have to have one small piece of you missing. In fact, it is easier for a man who is essentially good to do more damage when he is lacking one thing that it is for a man who was thoroughly evil. Our good qualities contribute to the evil we can do. 

Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."  Jesus is not saying that rich people are evil. Far from it--most of the Bible heroes were rich.  Jesus himself was greatly helped by people like Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and other rich people.  When he entered a town, it was only the rich people who could afford to have him and His entourage for dinner!  No,  what Jesus was saying were that in general, the rich were missing something--a knowledge of their own spiritual poverty. They lacked humility, and that's what kept them out of heaven.

All this has some far-reaching implications.

First,  that God is not the author of evil.  God did not create evil, because evil is not created.  God temporarily allows these gaps in the creation to exist.  Free choice needs the possibility of such holes in goodness to exist. But God did not create it.

My son-in-law works at a donut shop.  Over the years, he has made thousands of donuts.  He has however not made a single hole. He cannot make a hole, only make the donut around the hole. God can only create good things--things that are valuable, useful, and beautiful.

Second, all that is, is good.  From the tiny simplicity of the virus to the vast complexity of stars and planets,  everything is valuable, useful, and enjoyable.  Some ancient mystics believed that we live in a world that was created evil. What a wretched, terrible thought!  If we believe, however that everything God created is good, then the possibility of beauty and delight exists in everything and every one.  We can appreciate the beauty of the sunset and the hurricane. We can admire the mosquito and the shark, along with the lamb and the butterfly.  All things in their place are good. Only the flawed state of fallen creation that makes things appear ugly.  Yet there is nothing ugly in the world--only the gaps are bad.

Third, there are no evil people.  There are only flawed people.  The essential nature of us--the image of God--still exists.  This does not deliver us from the guilt associated with our free choices, but is does keep us from  discounting the value of our lives and others.

This explains two puzzles. First, how can a good man do evil? We do evil things, because there is a flaw in us.   We are still good generally, but our flaws render us dangerous. 

This causes problems for character witnesses in court.  If we think that because a man is generally good,  he could not perform an evil act,  then we fail to understand that evil is simply the condition of being flawed.  Anyone who is not absolutely perfect is capable of performing an act of evil.

Secondly, how can bad people do good things? This perplexed the Bible writers more than the first.

Al Capone ran soup kitchens.  Mussolini built a church in Israel, which is still used.  Hitler built the Volkswagon.  Bad men donate to charity,  act kindly at times to their neighbors because they are not bad. The stuff they are made of is goodness.  Nevertheless,  goodness becomes the instrument of evil, when pointed in the wrong direction. 

The thought of evil as something missing is actually an optimistic thought. It means that everything I see, and everyone I see, every day of my life is good. Satan cannot take the good out of anything. He can only twist it.  But if we look , in everything, every circumstance, and in every person,  there is the indelible stamp of God's love and beauty.  All of life is good, and worth rejoicing.  Instead of complaining about what is wrong with the world, we should be enjoying what is right with it.  When we enjoy what God has created, we are after all enjoying Him.