The origin of evil

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
21

I want to clarify that I realize that the story of Adam and Eve with the serpent is a myth, but this myth has transcended throughout the ages as being something of a truth. The truth being that we are inherently evil and NOT inherently good. We have to have God to be good. This, to me, is flawed. Especially when we consider ultimate origin theory relative to God.

I have no problem with God being good and evil. Actually, if we are going to consider God then it is a heck of a lot easier to rationalize God as being both. All of this “God created everything but is only good” insight is nothing more than confusion from a logical standpoint. It refutes itself throughout the argument. Sure we can rationalize it, but we can rationalize anything. People apply freewill losely in regards to evil, but no one deems that freewill itself is a creation of God. The creation of freewill is an abstract application because we understand that the capacity for evil is found within freewill itself. God creates freewill, then God creates the capacity for evil. Plain and simple.

Now if God is both good and evil and doesn’t need supernatural miracles to prove itself; then this, to me, is a rational God. All of this mumbo-jumbo about God only being good and this can be proven through miracles is a bunch scapegoating to cover up irrational propositions and augment former beliefs. It has however been done very poorly in my opinion.

God cannot be innocent of evil and create the universe alone. Something is wrong here. Freewill isn’t an answer. It is a vague rationalization to distort the point as opposed to exploring it.

22

Hi Enigma,

let’s diferentiate a little bit…

When I read back I find you sticking too close to the Myth yet not letting it speak to you. It is very convenient to have “an occurence” to pre-occupy yourself with instead of looking at the real issue. The myth is an observation explained as the people saw things in their time. The unique thing about this story is that it is timeless. That is probably why the story was included in the Hebrew writings. But it isn’t law.

The fact that the Bible says “And God saith, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” means that Mankind has the potential to be good - in accordance with his maker. Further the Bible states after the creation of man: “And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good…”

But Mankind by observation also has the potential to be “evil” (or turn good to bad). How can this be? It is explained in the fact that man is both animal and god. Flesh and Spirit. Body and Soul. He can aspire to the “higher ground” or sink to the abasement of the instinctive fight for survival.

The greek method was to say that the body must therefore be a prison of the spirit. This is also something that the later Church also adopted, but it isn’t biblical. The biblical attitude is that it is all “good”. It is good because that is the way it was meant to be.

Again you are using the term “evil” in a simplistic subjective manner. What you deem to be good may well be what is evil to God, and what you deem to be evil, may be just your own preference. It may differ from person to person. This is especially true if you consider that we yet do not have a real overlook of time and space and consequently cannot compare alternatives of existence.

Perhaps intelligent life must be lived under these circumstances - how could we possibly know otherwise? We may be able to imagine other circumstances, but doesn’t that just prove our dualist condition? It just shows how much we are made in the image, or according to the likeness of God, whilst having very much a material existence.

It doesn’t help either, to project our condition into the universe and assume that God has to have an opposite. We have the poles in ourselves and find them in creation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the “Creator” has the same condition!

Where do you get the basis of your logic? Logic is the study of the principles of reasoning, especially of the structure of propositions as distinguished from their content and of method and validity in deductive reasoning. But you have no basis for propositions. You have no evidence. You have subjective observations and intuitive explanations.

You are trying to do what the fundamentalists try to do - you are trying to prove God one way or the other. Sorry, it won’t work.

Shalom
Bob

23

Again, I appreciate your insights and perspective Bob. It is always welcome.

I really do not think “I” amd trying to really prove anything and that is not my intent. I realize that everything regarding God, good and evil has plenty of room for speculation and I accept this as such.

However, my argument stems from the premise that it is impossible for God to have association with evil. Now I cannot prove this, nor can I disprove. I can however take portions of the argument, which you seem to stand by sternly, that claims that God cannot be evil and put it into the fire and test it out.
Now I can understand why you have a problem with this. If you are convinced that God has to be good and have no association for evil, then I expect you to refute my argument because it defies your bias. My argument doesn’t “prove” anything nor was it intended to. My argument was intended to possibly “focus” on this notion that we can have a point of origin in which all derives from and yet turn around and claim that all “doesn’t” derive from it. This is very basic logical application, but to explain “evil” the argument gets very abstract intentionally.
I don’t like the argument because it doesn’t flow logically at all. My problem isn’t with “God,” it is with this zany notion that something can be created with the creator having complete control of the creation, then something goes wrong with the creation and creator is blameless? I can’t see it. If we can credit God with creating the universe, then certainly it is feasible that God deserves credit for ALL within the universe. Even the bad stuff.
I’m not here to twist your arm or trying to prove or disprove “God.” That is futile. I am just pointing out that the first cause sets off a chain reaction of results. Without that first cause, none of the results could be. Not the good; not the bad. Let’s look at this argument with reason as opposed to rose-colored glasses all to make the first cause look better than it can actually be. Just becaise we do not like evil, this doesn’t mean we can exclude it from having an origin. At some point evil had to have an origin. At some point the first cause had to allow it. To claim otherwise denies evil in itself. If the universe had a first cause, then when did evil start and how could it possibly get by God who started the whole ball of wax? Enlighten me.

24

Hi Enigma,

First of all, I think fullquoting doesn’t help us.

Secondly:

You really are missing my point. I am arguing that you are using a term “evil” which means:

  1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
  2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
  3. Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
  4. Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
    5 Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.

This dictionary meaning is coloured by the use of the word. I am saying that you have no basis upon which to say that God is either morally bad, causes ruin injury or pain, indicates future misfortune, blameworthy or charactised by anger or spite. You can only quote the Bible, which is an intuitive description of observations.

I am a friend of mysticism and avoid such blatant use of biblical assumptions, because I feel that God is best spoken of poetically, not as an object of study. Therefore you see, I can’t be said to claim that God cannot be evil.

You again assume that something has gone wrong. Why? I only have to look at the natural circulation in the food chain to see that things are not as harmonious and romantic as some Christians would like them to be. The claim of Creationists that nature changed when man fell ignores the fact that the world functions quite well when people don’t intervene.

It has long been proven a fact that rapists and child-molesters are sick. The problem is that we can’t heal them. Their psychology immediately throws the question up, why are they sick if the world is so good? Why do sick people keep being born, or why do terrible illnesses prevail? I think that is the level that you should be arguing on - not who’s to blame.

The answer that enters my mind is that we have reached the assumption that a certain condition is healthy and another is sick. We assume that sickness wasn’t in the Formula of the world - why? And if it was, on what basis can we claim that it was morally bad or wrong or even malicious? We can only observe from our standpoint and say we have questions that cry out to the heavens - in good biblical tradition.

Shalom
Bob

25

Wow, that makes great reading!

Does Evil exist? If so, is it a state of mind or an actual physical event? is it perceived differently by God than man? What is evil for a part may be a panacea for a whole.

26

I think it would be safe to say it doesn’t exist. Perhaps we have created evil to describe stuff or events that are not to our likeing. There is no true way to define evil because not everyone would agree that something is evil or bad.

It is a state of mind because we created it. We define what is evil and what is great. If a volcano erupts and kills thousands of people then we would with out doubt call that evil. If a volcano erupted and some how benefited man kind (example- created Hawaii) Then we would define it as beautiful and great.

What makes us think we can even understand how God thinks, we can’t. Think of an analogy I created: An ant builds an ant hill and thinks what the ant has accomplished is great and grand and the ant has it all figured out to what he can understand but the ant cannot even comprehend what is going on in the world around it. Wouldn’t it be safe to say that we could be like that in the universe? We cannot comprehend why what happens. In order to figure out why we do what we do we have to be greater then our self’s and we aren’t.

I think that is trying to say “what is evil to one may be a cure to another”
That is 100% true. Antibiotics are evil to bacteria; they give the bacteria little chance at all for survival. It is a sure end for them. But to us humans it is a cure, a great thing to have. That is why antibiotics are not evil to us, but instead evil to the bacteria. Well that all sounds smart to me; I can’t believe I thought all that up. Please do comment all you want!!

:unamused:

27

Thanks for your reply Bob.

I really don’t think I am assuming that something is “wrong” at all. I am jut giving God credit for everything in the universe. If God creates the universe and is the first cause, then all that follows the first cause has a relationship with the first cause. I don’t have a problem with this. However, I have a problem with claiming that something can be independant of the first cause. How can this be? Everything we experience is because of what preceeded it. We cannot just throw in variables like “evil” out of nowhere and claim that it has no origin it just “is.” I realize that this is what we do with God, but claiming that evil just “is” without explanation puts it at the same level of God.
I find problems with evil or anything for that matter being independant of the first cause. We twist this around so it is independant, but there is no rationalization for it. Is it too much to ask for everything including evil to be relative to everything from the first cause? I don’t think so, but this seems to be a painful idea to many. Is it not a perfectly functional hypothesis that the first cause included a plan for evil which is why we have evil (however you want to define it)?

28

“Evil” means:

  1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
  2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
  3. Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
  4. Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
    5 Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.

It is an adjective for me (or a “describing word”), not an Entity.

Satan or Beelzebub, the Devil or the Adversary, are archetypical mythical figures which stand for the opposition of God and which rhetorically questions all decisions. The opposition is something that we all have in ourselves and is representative of our own opposition. Effectively it is there, physically it is not.

Our own polarity plays games with us when we’re in situations that appeal to our moral understanding. A good example is what could be said of most drivers: The action we have just criticised, we do ourselves after we’ve turned the corner. The behaviour we most loudly criticise is often a mirror of our own. The people with which we have most difficulty getting on with are those who are most like us.

Evil is a description of this behaviour - especially when it prevails. Such behaviour primarily prevails in people who have no cultural roots or basis for morality. Therefore the people who oppose a society with a (religious) basis of morality are deemed evil and followers of some archetypical mythical adversary.

Jesus even used the term to describe people who, by his standards, were no longer Jews, but rather uprooted and devoid of the Torah and having no moral standards.

Shalom
Bob

29

Inonothing stated:

I disagree in that i think evil exists. Even if it is a state of mind. But the relative aspect of evil (or perhaps people’s perceptions thereof) that you allude to (“…not everyone would agree that something is evil or bad.”) is a fact.

Inonothing continued:

It is almost as if you are equating good/evil with pleasure/pain, which to an extent is true. I also think it important to distinguish between Nature and the acts of men. Vesuvius erupts and kills people: A lot of philosophers would not call that evil. A mad scientist causes Vesuvius to erupt: Most philosophers would call that evil. Ayn Rand somewhere distinguished between the natural and the man-made. But i perceive your point that it is a state of mind that we create. I would say that this is correct. The state of mind is the cause which eventually manifests itself in the physical environment.

Inonothing also said:

If God’s perception is different (maybe even more all-encompassing [God is to man as man is to ants]) than ours then i would say his perception of evil is probably different from ours too. And even if we can’t understand something, that should in no way deter us from trying. Look at all of the advances which have occurred as a result of trying to find other intelligent life in the universe. We still haven’t found it (unless the Government is hiding something) but we still have all of the advances.

Inonothing said:

I think we pretty much agree on this one. If bacteria could think there would be anti-lysol protests going on in my bathroom right now. :laughing: As in most things in life how you view something depends in large degree on where you are viewing it from. Lysol is good to me but bad for the bacteria. This is also an additional argument in favor of evil being perceived differently by God than us.

Bob said:

Evil is not a physical entity, but nevertheless, manifests itself in physical entities (i.e. evil tyrant).

Bob continued:

Are you saying that we each carry our own devil with us? And that the devilish part of our existence is opposed to the devilish nature of others? (you go into this later in your post, Bob). Jiddu Krishnamurti talked about this dissonance [my word], this ‘opposition’, this ‘polarity’ that you talk about. His basic premise is that a house divided against itself can not stand. But he understands the phenomena better and is better able to describe it than my poor words can. Many have called Krishnamurti the modern day Buddha.

30

Hi Marshall,

“But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?” Luke 11:17-18

Shalom
Bob

31

Yes Bob, all the answers are there if you know where to look. Thank you. What used to be pure wisdom has now become a forgotten cliche in my mouth.

Here is a website about Krishnamurti. He spoke extensively about conflict. You might call him my favorite mystic.

    Shalom,

Marshall

32

Excellent definitions of “evil” Bob and I appreciate the insight.

However, I am really intereted in one point you have: "The opposition is something that we all have in ourselves and is representative of our own opposition. "
Now, realize that opposition is something that is within ourselves, but does the creator get credit for this “opposition” or not? I think we mix up all of these concepts to rationalize our desires, but sometimes are reluctant to weigh them out. Especially if they counter our desire.
You obviouly desire God, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. You also desire a good and ONLY good God. And again, there is nothing wrong with this, but it is still not clear on my end how you can impose that evil can be independant of God if God is the first cause? Do you believe that God is the first cause? Do you believe evil (however you want to define it) came after the first cause? Is it possible that something can be independent of the first cause, and how is that functionally possible? Thanks

33

Of course. Our Dualism or Polarity is part of our make up and necessary (in my mind) for intelligent life. The point that I would make is that this in itself is nothing that could be deemed evil.

I don’t actually know what is good when we are talking about the Mystery of God. I can only say that my experiences with God have led me to see goodness. I don’t even know if we can talk in these categories when we are considering God.

If you are asking whether “evil” came about after creation, well of course - it isn’t an entity for itself. If you ask whether God made “evil” - he allowed for it and didn’t rule the possibility out. If you ask whether “evil” is “bad” for us, I hesitate. Something occurred to me whilst listening to an interview with Peter Jackson, that Mankind sometimes needs to struggle to occaisionally appreciate what it has.

Shalom
Bob

34

Interesting insights into “evil” which it seems you do not believe is an entity itself, but then you turn around and claim that “good” IS an entity into itself and credit you experiences with God as “goodness.”
I understand your position on polarity and I agree with it, but I find it interesting that you see “good” as an entity and you do not see “evil” as an entity and just a deviation of an entity you claim is “good.”
Your position, in my opinion, seems contradictory. You seem to claim that this entity you claim is “good” is and this nonentity “evil” isn’t except in contrast to “good.” That, at least to me, DOES make evil an entity. The absence of “good” is still a capacity. But of course this is just my opinion.

I think we are merging together in thought and am thankful for your time and consideration. I think we both agree that evil or non-good had to come about AFTER the point of creation and God accepted this as part of God’s plan. This, to me, gives God all the credit for “evil” however you want to define just because whatever is (due to the first cause) is because of the first cause. We cannot just sneak “evil” into the back door and claim that it is irrelevant to the first cause like is commonly done with the “serpent in Eden,” “Satan,” and “freewill.” Those creations still DERIVED from God. God, in essence, created what is evil or non-good the moment God allows it. It could not be otherwise through the first cause.

35

Hi,

Great thread. Just a short note to Enigma that there is no need to quote the entirety of a person’s thread, we can always reference it if we need to by scrolling up. If there are specific lines in the thread you wish to refer to then that is what the quote tag is for. If you need help with using the quote function feel free to PM me.

cheers

  • ben
36

Hi Enigma,

No, “goodness” is an attribute (a quality or characteristic inherent in or ascribed to someone or something), not an entity (something that exists as a particular and discrete unit).

I see what I regard as goodness in people, in nature, in the arrangement of the cosmos - things that I would otherwise regarded as coincidences or banal. Things have a deeper meaning when I see them through the revelation that I am mysteriously disclosed. I don’t see “goodness” for itself, something independant of people, but clearly as an option.

Shalom
Bob

37

Good and evil, creation and destruction, all cannot exist without the other. Is that way god, super benevolent being just happened to create the archetype of all evil? Or wait a minute, how do we really know who created who? Or was anything really created? Are we really here? Who am I? Who are you? Chaos and destruction rain supreme, I think everyone I know has a mental illness, what about you? Some people live their whole lives without ever knowing who they are. Are you one of them? Am I? What about that guy who dreamed he was a butterfly who woke to wonder was he a guy dreaming he was a butterfly, or was he a butterfly now dreaming he was a guy? Once comprehended, that is a horrible position indeed! Though that’s the position we are all in. Everybody is drowning in this vast wasteland of want and need and it is only in philosophy that people can examine this predicament.

Or can it? Is it too presumptuous too state that I am happy to be Godless and exist within the perfectly predictable framework of physical laws? When I make mistakes it’s my fault, but I know that I made the best decision given the known datum; and when I succeed I know that no one deserves credit except myself! Fate is merely the events that occur beyond my control and I see no need to attribute those events to any supernatural being. Why do so many people seek out the most complicated and convoluted explanations for everyday life? To many abstract concepts.

I’m happy to be me, the sum of both functional and dysfunctional. Who needs God except the coward that wants to deny fault? “We do not see the world for what it is, we see the world for what we are.”

38

Wow, i didnt read the post in its entirety. Good discusion. Please delete or turn a blind eye.

39

I think it is also of interest to look at what we define as “evil” now and compare it with what was “evil” in the past. Evil inevitably ties with what is good. They are inseperable dichomoties.

This raises an interesting question:
Has God changed “God’s” opinion about what is evil or have we? Evil certainly is not the same as it was 1000 years ago and it could be argued that evil probably wasn’t the same as it was five minutes ago.

Now if we claim God changed God’s opinion about “evil” then this means that God could possibly change God’s opinion about evil again.

If we claim that it is our opinion about evil that has been changed, then why can we not insist that it was just our opinion from the start?

We also have to account for the alterations to “evil” which have taken place over the years. I’m sure some claim that “evil” hasn’t changed at all since Eden and that is really a stretch in my opinion. Evil has evolved and been altered with everything else. Good as well as evolved and been altered with everything else.

Can we honestly claim that what is “evil” has been consistent and unmoved throughout history? I don’t think so. I think evil is subjective in that sense, but that also makes “good” a suspect for subjectivity just as equally because what is “good” has been altered throughout history due to it’s inevitable relationship with evil.

40

Greetings Enigma,

I don’t see the question! You suggest we look at what we define as “evil” and compare it with what was “evil” in the past. OK, bring on the examples to be compared before we dash off to the next assumption that God may have changed his mind.

I think that many discuss in leaps and bounds instead of concentrating on the subject at hand. It may be convenient for the “light entertainment” people get from the Forum, but it doesn’t do the quality of discussion any good. If you want to compare, then please do so. Otherwise I may have to say I can’t follow you.

Shalom
Bob