The Nature of Evil

Having talked a little about God, maybe I need to say a word about the Devil, or more accurately, evil in the world. There is a philosophy growing in popularity that states that there is no such thing as good or evil, only actions and consequences. It further states that people, all people, act in their own best interest and according to their knowledge and abilities. The bottom lines seems to be that people aren’t wholly accountable for their actions and that their parents, society, the government, whatever, has messed them up and they are just doing the best they know how. So, rather than judge them and apply labels of good or bad, we should just try to understand them and fix the situation that made them like they are.

Well, I will admit that people are complex. What’s more, most of us do act in our best interest, whatever that interest is. I’ll even go so far as to say that we are influenced by the environment and people that surround us. Then again, not all people who are abused, abuse others. Not every poor person stays poor and not every rich person stays rich. Not everybody in a riot or natural disaster turns to looting. The bottom line is that regardless of our situation, education, or environment, we retain the ability and responsibility to choose how we will react and what actions we will take. And while the degree of culpability may vary, we remain accountable for our actions. It is that accountability that brings us to a definition of evil.

While I won’t quote him or give him full credit for my definition (he might disagree with me on particulars), I do owe gratitude to Dr. Scott Peck and his books, especially The People of the Lie, for one of the best secular discussions of evil. I admitted that we all act in our best interest, but evil comes in with how we choose to see our interests. The goodness of our existence comes when we see ourselves as not just individuals, but citizens and fellow citizens in a world outside ourselves. That world can be as narrow as with a spouse or a friend, and as broad as fellow residents of planet earth. Goodness demands that we recognize those external people and communities and consciously weigh the affects upon others of the decisions we make. Further, it demand that we do so without justifying pain or lose to another so that we can experience pleasure or gain. Evil, then, is taking action without considering others. Pure evil is taking action which we know will cause harm to others, or even ourselves, but we do so anyway because of what we think to feel or gain. And, the purest form of evil are the actions which not only recognize the destruction our actions may cause, but actions with that destruction as a goal.

Take a character like Hitler. People with the no-evil philosophy would say that Hitler’s persecution of the Jews was a result of a Jewish person criticizing his paintings and of being raised in a culture that saw Jewish gains as loses to the good people like himself. Maybe he was even told that Jews were bad because the crucified Christ. They would go on to say that Hitler’s actions were then justified, in his own mind, and not any type of evil intent on his part. Finally, they would say that if we can just destroy discrimination from our society and teach children to not result to violence or hate, that all the little Hitler’s would instantly be fixed. I believe that while such a view is appealing, it is unrealistic and ignores human nature. While a person who didn’t grow up surrounded by discrimination and hate might have less of a chance of turning out like Hitler, it still can and does happen because individuals are free to choose to give in to evil and to let evil govern their actions.

So how will evil be overcome? Here is the controversial opinion. I don’t think it ever will be in life’s present manifestation. I believe that it is the nature of our existence that some will always choose evil. I also believe that evil has been introduced or allowed into this life with the purpose of giving our probation here a choice. This goes back to my beliefs on the nature of life and our relationship to God, so I won’t go further at this time. I will say this. In terms of offering and making choices to not pursue or accept evil, we need to be governed by something akin to Asimov’s laws of robotics, adjusted to fit the situation. First, we should never do anything which causes pain or lose to another unless failing to do so would cause even more lose and pain. Even then, extreme caution should be taken since we can’t see the future or know all the ramifications. Second, when we can reasonably act to decrease pain or lose, we should do so. Failure to do so can be construed as allowing or promoting evil. Obviously there is a lot of evil out there and there is only so much we can do, but for most of us, we could do more. Third, we should not do that which results in evil to ourselves, unless failing to do so breaks the first two laws. Taking care of ourselves when it isn’t in conflict with the first law is almost never evil and the third law must be balanced with the second—life is not in need of many martyrs. There is, of course, a single word for the three laws. It is Love.