Now, this is certainly not a cheery topic. Nevertheless, I believe it’s an essential topic and something I’ve definitely touched on before. Basically, what’s the deal with evil?

For starters, Evil (I will capitalize it when using it as a noun as opposed to an adjective) increasingly has a bad name. And, not a bad name because it’s a bad thing but because it’s seemingly so passé in modern sentimentalities. Much more so than, say, God or even Christianity. Many people who believe in God or Christianity are dismissive of Evil for all sorts of reasons. I don’t intend here to dig too deep into all of this, although I might at a later date. However, I do think it’s worthwhile for us not to ignore the thing, whatever that thing might or might not be.

I’ll start with a paraphrase of I think it was C.S. Lewis (couldn’t find it in a quick search and don’t want to be distracted by looking through all of my books) who said, “It would be a mistake to think either too much or too little of evil.” Feel free to enlighten me if one of you find the source and exact quote. I’ve always liked this in the last eight or ten years since I first heard it. In other words, the thing exists. We can either be consumed in focusing on it which would distract us from so many other worthy things or we can ignore it, which will only cloud our vision of what is real. So, we must confront the thing but not allow it to dominate our thoughts.

Yes.

In the modern mindset that says science is God and nature is Supreme, there can be no evil. Is a lion evil for slaughtering an antelope? Is a great white shark evil for attacking a surfer? Of course not. In the post-modern mindset that says truth is what each of us feels and no one truth is greater than another, evil is in the eye of the beholder. A terrible act committed by a vicious group or person can be justified if we only work backwards to socially construct the reality they’ve lived under that brought them to commit that act. It’s all explainable by conditions. There is no transcendent Evil in either the modern scientific/naturist view nor in the post modern relativist view.

They both have good arguments which is why so many people believe them and why the concept of Evil is not in vogue, at least in western societies. We’ve moved beyond that. Let’s talk, instead, about yoga and it’s cleansing properties. Now that’s worthy of normal conversation in social circles. But, a “What do y’all think about Evil?” as a conversation starter is tantamount to dropping you know what in the punch bowl.

Allow me to backtrack a bit. When I think of the grand questions that face or should face every person when it comes to trying to figure out reality, here are a few of the biggies:

1. Is there a supernatural that is beyond all bounds of what we can describe as natural?
2. If there is, is there such a thing as an all powerful, all knowing being that has some form of consciousness to know who I am?
3. Can I have a personal relationship with such a being?
4. What happens to me when I die?
5. If I’m not just particles and chemistry that merely cease to exist upon death, does my life here have any impact on my existence after I die? And, if so, what’s the deal with that?
6. Is there any sort of absolute truth that underlies what is good and just, as well as what is bad and unjust?
7. If the answer to 6 is either yes or I’m not sure, is it ok to consider the source of those two things? And, if so, is it possible that there is supernatural Evil?
8. If it’s possible that there is supernatural Evil, what do we make of it?

There are, of course, other questions but these are some starters.

Now, I’ve read a whole lot of books by some very bright people on this and related topics. I’ve read the scriptures of the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists, and the Jews. I’ve read the Romantics, the Transcendentalists, the Nihilists, the Pragmatists the Existentialists and the Atheists. I’ve read Hobbes, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Marx and Mao. I’ve taught more than a few. I’ve studied, in part, the histories of the ancients.  Of Chinese civilization. Indian civilization. Egyptian civilization. Japanese civilization. The Fertile Crescent. African civilization. The Greeks and the Romans. The Ottomans. Indigenous peoples in North and South America. Australia. I’ve studied the period in Europe we refer to as the Dark Ages and I’ve studied the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. I have a passing knowledge of Russian history, French history, British history, Germanic history and American history. I’ve studied the economies, political systems, social systems and important military events in many of these, especially in the last two hundred years. I’ve read numerous books on theology by current and former thinkers. I’m not saying this to boast. In fact, just the opposite. I feel relatively inadequate to comment on this topic as I lack tremendous expertise in any of these areas. For that, I defer to others. However, I’m trained as an observer of things, with an eye to find out what is going on behind the curtain. To discover meaning and essence when things are not particularly obvious on the surface.

With all of that out of the way, here are my comments.

I believe Evil is real. It’s powerful and insidious and personal. Evil is the opposite of Good and it’s not just a straw man by which we can look at and try to understand Good. I have seen it from a distance and I have seen it up close. I have felt Evil. In a world with no absolute truth or meaning, Evil is impossible as it carries great meaning. In the post-modern mind that says everything is just social construction: Good, Bad, Race, Gender, Behavior, Purpose, Meaning and so forth, values rest solely in the eyes of the beholder and disappear as mist apart from that. In fact, the only absolute truth (and, ironically, there is an absolute truth in this absolute-truth-defying mindset) is the charge that we must tolerate everyone else’s values. Of course, there is the single exception of the values of those declared intolerant, whatever this new religion determines intolerance to be. It is no small leap to understand that in the religion of Tolerance, it is an absolute truth that the rejection of relativism is Evil. Now, that’s a neat little trick.

With all of this out of the way, let’s cut to the chase. If there is absolute truth, which there is and if Good and Evil are opposite forces and each have a source, which they do, and if these things are important for us to consider (see the numbered points above), then we should stop avoiding the conversation. We should pay attention. We should consider the character of Evil. We should consider the objective of Evil. Oh, you might ask, how do we know that Evil has an objective? Well, that’s a very good question.

My answer is that for Good to be Good, it has to be rational. There has to be a source that makes sense. It comes from somewhere. If it doesn’t come from somewhere, then there is no such thing as absolute good and we’re back to the nihilists, the existentialists, the atheists, the post-modernists. Good luck with all of that. Likewise for Evil to be Evil, it has to be rational and have a source that makes sense.

Pick your poison, so to speak. Some folks just don’t want to go here for good reason. It requires a leap that can be, at a minimum, uncomfortable. At a maximum, mind-blowing.

I’ll cut to the chase. Others are welcome to disagree and arrive at different conclusions but I’m testifying that everything I’ve studied and observed … everything … points me to the same conclusion. And I only arrived at this conclusion through kicking and screaming and searching for any other possible alternative because I just didn’t want or like to believe it.

The source of all Good is our loving God. The source of all Evil is his Nemesis. Now, we can quibble about how it’s possible for an all-powerful or all-loving God to have a nemesis as in, “Why the heck can’t he/it just go ‘poof’ and the Nemesis is toast?” A good question, the answers to which are complicated and beyond my ability to address here. Suffice it to say, that it makes sense to me after all that inquiry I’ve conducted.

And, just as God has a purpose and we have a purpose, the Nemesis has a purpose and it’s worthy of us to consider it. It’s worthy to not let us overly dwell on it and it’s worth for us to not neglect it.

That’s enough for now.