August 17, 2007
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A Brief Exploration of the Concepts of Good and Evil
Many Christians view good and evil as opposites on a sort of moral spectrum, with God on the good side and Satan on the evil side, and the rest of us somewhere between. Actions might be plotted along this spectrum as mostly good, just partly good, somewhat evil, etc. This, I believe, is an absolutely false understanding of morality and the nature of good and evil.
In the beginning, there was God. There was the Word. There was logic and order and absolute good. In the beginning, there was no evil. Why was there no evil? Because only God existed. This is important, because it helps us to get at the root of thing. Because only God eternally exists, from everlasting to everlasting, and there is no thing greater than God, God has the authority and essential ability to define all things. He defines and embodies what is good by His very nature — because if He did not, then morality would be independent of God, and God would not really be God. He would be servant to morality, which obviously cannot be the case. God, therefore, defines what is good — and passively through that, I think, defines what is evil.
Let’s look again at the beginning. If there was only God in the beginning, and no evil, where did evil come from? What was the first evil? It is generally accepted that the first evil was that of Lucifer, the bearer of light in heaven, highest of all the angels. What was his evil? He wanted to be like God — to take God’s place. Thus, he was cast from heaven to eternally be separated from the loving presence of God. Did Lucifer — now called Satan — invent evil? Did he suddenly create evil out of nothing? I think we must answer no to this, as no one can create from nothing but God alone. Lucifer did not create evil from nothing. He created evil from good.
Think about the second account of evil. In the garden, Eve and then Adam disobeyed God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, they didn’t simply eat the fruit to disobey God — they had other motives. The serpent, who is generally believed to be Satan in the form of a serpent, told Eve that she would be like God if she ate the fruit. So now we see that both the first and second sins (acts of evil) were the same. In both cases, the evil was wanting be like God.
Now, is the desire to be like God evil? Not in and of itself, no. God desires to be Himself, else He would be someone else. It isn’t a sin for God to wish to be God. The evil is that others, who are not God, wish to imitate Him. This isn’t something we have created, it is something we have distorted. We are not capable of creation; but we are amazingly skilled at distortion.
Look at the different forms evil takes. Murder, hatred, jealousy, lying, theft, and all the rest. These things are only evil for humans, not for God. If God kills, hates, is jealous, redefines reality, or takes away from us, it is not evil. He is justified in whatever He does. However, if we try to do those things — if we do what is only right for God to do — we are trying to be like God. We think we are like God, that we have the right to do as we desire. This is the heart of evil.
I’d like to return to the issue of the binary nature of good and evil. Something cannot be a mixture of good and evil; it is either good, or it is either. Never both. Anything good that is distorted becomes evil. If you take Helium and remove or add a part, or rearrange the parts, it is no longer Helium. It becomes non-Helium. The same rule applies to all things. If you change them, they are no longer what they were. When you change something good, or when you take elements of the good from their proper context and transplant them, that thing is no longer good. It has become un-good, something other than good. What is there besides good? There is evil. There is no mixture, no spectrum, no compatibility between good and evil. It is a pure binary dialectic.I wrote this in the car on the way to college. I’m at college now. Maybe I’ll post about life when I catch up with it.
I’m sure someone can make a good argument against some points I made. I haven’t had a good philosophical debate in a while. Thoughts, anyone?
Comments (10)
I agree…..hahaha….with most of what you said.
If something is good it can not be evil and if something is evil it can not be good.
But not everyone is evil in the same way. Let me see….
Someone who has been raised in the church and knows what Christ did for them and knows what God wants them to do or not to do, they are held to a higher standard. Higher compared to what? Well, to someone whos family has for generations lived off the land someplace in the middle of nowhere and has never heard of Jesus Christ and does not know the smallest part of God’s plan.
For the sake of distinction let us call the first person John and the second person Bob. And lets say that John is from Russia and Bob is from a small island off the coast of Brazil.
They both visit America one fine summer day. (They aren’t in Texas, Texas doesn’t have fine summer days.
)
They have both rented convertables and are driving down empty highways in the middle of nowhere. John knows it is wrong to speed but he feels like going fast so he speeds anyway. He gets pulled over and he doesn’t want to get a ticket so he decides to bribe the officer ever though he knows that is wrong as well. Bob is used to being in the middle of nowhere and has no idea what all the signs with numbers on them mean, he just steps on the gas peddle untill he feels like he is going fast enough. Well he gets pulled over too. The officer explains that he is going to get a ticket for going to fast and that he wil have to pay a fine. Bob asks him how much it will cost ans the officer tells him that it will be $342. So Bob pulls out his wallet and gives the officer $342.
In a perfect world John would be in much more trouble than Bob because didn’t know the rules in America, he didn’t know that you had to be careful how fast you went or that you don’t give officers money to pay your tickets. So the office would be more forgiving the first time Bob was caught speeding. However Bob would still have to pay the fine, but it might be less than the origanal amount it might not, I don’t know. John on the other hand knew it was wrong to speed and to bribe so in order to try and get John to change and not to do these things again he might have to pay a bigger fine or go to jail he might not, I don’t know.
Everyone has a gut feeling that murder is wrong, so both John and Bob would recive the same punishment for it, but not everyone knows that it is wrong to take the Lord’s name in vain, so two different people might recive different degrees of punishment, they might not, I don’t know. But I think so.
Hbr 10:16 “This [is] the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;”
I think there is a verse somewhere that says something like what I said about holding some people more accountable but I can’t find it. (I might be mixing two verses together I’ve done that once before.) Oh, and not the verses about teachers being held more accountable.
That’s all I have to say ’bout that….unless someone would like to point something out, then I might say more.
Caleb, I just had a long response all written out to many of the points you tried to make and right when I went to submit it, my computer froze and I lost everything I wrote, and I’m not going to re-write it all. Lucky for you. You don’t have to respond to all the crtiques I made. So, I will just sum it up with this. Either God created evil or Lucifer did. Which is it? You say that Lucifer distorted it, but HOW did he distort it? By using the freewill that God gave him in CHOOSING to be like God. You even say it yourself, that imitating God is evil. The only way that Lucifer could imitate God was through his own freewill in choosing.
larry
You also said – “If we do what is only right for God to do — we are trying to be like God. We think we are like God, that we have the right to do as we desire. This is the HEART OF EVIL.”
(emphasis mine)
Again, this “heart of evil” was created when Lucifer chose to rebel against God and be like God, or imitate God in which you said was evil. The bible doesn’t say that Lucifer “distorted” anything. It does say that Lucifer was perfect in his ways UNTIL iniquity was found in him. You are using a word, distort, that the bible doesn’t use, and incorrectly using it to come up with your OWN theory.
RYC – “I’m not using Biblical terminology in that, and my arguments really have nothing at all to do with free will vs. predestination. It’s about how evil can exist when everything was created by God.”
That’s my point. In talking about how evil can exist when everything was created by God, you can’t ignore the connection that freewill plays in that. I maintain that everything was NOT created by God, especially evil. It’s impossible for that to be true. Not only does it completely contradict scripture, but the very character of God’s righteousness and holiness. It does no good to do a post like this and then say that it’s not about freewill. It has to be about freewill. Again, EITHER God created evil, or Lucifer did. Which is it?
So God can be a spiteful, sadistic, hypocritical megalomaniac…and it’s cool, because it’s His job and His creation and He can do as he pleases.
But when a person does it, well, shame. Shame.
…actually that makes a kind of sense.
No one would agree 100% of everything you said. Nor should you agree 100% everything someone else says. Our uniqueness is part of what makes us human.
That haveing been said I did enjoy the post and agreed with much of what you said.
Caleb, I always like hearing what you have to say. I wanted you to know that I’m so excited that you are finally at Covenant, and that I am praying for you. I hope it’s wonderful for you! Also, I’d like your address so I can correspond with you from time to time. I still have a small contribution for you toward your mission expenses, but never have seemed to have the right time to give it to you. Just know that we believe in you and are praying for you. In reference to your post, I heard a guy on the radio today talking about the moral relativism so pervasive in our culture today, and I thought it was very interesting. Go to faithandfamily.com for more info on that. The researcher states that this present generation, called the Mosaics, are the most right-brained thinkers ever. The ability to persuade through the use of logic has decreased to such an alarming level, largely due to the immediacy of the digital age and the randomness associated with moral relativism. For this reason, many in our culture today take issue with the idea of moral truth or knowable truth from a purely analytical, linear logic. They need right brain “proof” so to speak, and the researcher seems to indicate, at least from theinterview, that right brain speaker will be better equipped to reach this generation. I’m not sure what the implication of this really means, but I do find it fascinating. Also, there is one more item: the change in thought from the Boomers to the Mosaics (two generations) is so radical that it corresponds with the difference between the Middle Ages and twentieth century thinking! hmmm…
Oh, and about your post–I forgot where I was for a minute–sorry–perhaps the greates sin was that Eve and then Adam wanted to to try to usurp God. He’s sovereign, but they, and Satan, wanted to try to be sovereign over their own lives. Isn’t this the exact same sin we see in the modern world? Not thy will, but mine? I think sin is anything that misses the mark of what God calls us to do. It could be anything: failure to forgive, harch criticism, rejection, failure to focus on ourselves rather than on God…all of these can constitute sin. The Bible refers to Satan as a liar, a murderer, the father of lies, a lion roaming the earth seeking to destroy. If these are true, then where did that evil come from but a distortion of God’s perfection? And does God allow that? Well, apparently, He did. Why do you suppose He did?
You know I’m on the highway to hell, so it really doesn’t matter what I say.
so there.