This article is not a study of the word evil as substantive, adjective, or adverb in the two senses of bad and hurtful, for which the use of a concordance may suffice; but of the conception of evil in the apostolic writings. Three senses of the term have been distinguished by Leibniz: metaphysical-the necessary imperfection of the creature as compared with the Creator; physical-pain, suffering, sorrow, death; and moral-sin. Although the NT does assert the difference between God and the world and man, and the inferiority of the made to the Maker, it does not conceive creatureliness as itself evil, but expresses its limitation and impotence in the term flesh, For this aspect see article Flesh. The article Sin deals with the third sense of the word evil. It is thus with physical evil alone that we are here concerned. Its existence in manifold forms is assumed by all the apostolic writers; but generally it is with the sufferings of Christian believers, including persecution, that they are concerned, in order to encourage patience, offer comfort, or assure deliverance.<\/p>\n
What these sorrows were, Pauls account of his own experience shows (Act 20:18-35, 2Co 1:3-11; 2Co 6:4-10; 2Co 11:23-33; cf. Rom 8:35-36). This experience is regarded as a sharing of Christs sufferings (2Co 1:5, 1Pe 4:13), and even as a completion of that suffering for the good of the Church (Col 1:24). Paul does not claim to fill up the defects in Christs earthly suffering or in the sufferings of the Church, but in the sufferings which he has to endure in his flesh, which are Christs sufferings, because he and Christ are one (Peake, Expositors Greek Testament , Col., 1903, p. 515). Suffering is a means of entering into closer fellowship with Christ (Php 3:10). As suffering was a condition of perfecting Christ Himself for His work (Heb 2:10; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; Heb 5:8-9; Heb 7:28), so also it perfects Christian character if properly endured (Rom 5:3, 1Th 1:3, Heb 10:36, 1Pe 5:10). It is to be regarded not as penal, but as chastening (Heb 12:7-11, Jam 1:2-4; Jam 5:11). It cannot separate from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39), and it prepares for, and secures, the glory hereafter (Eph 3:13, Rev 7:14), with which it is not worthy to be compared (Rom 8:18), since the companions of Christs sufferings will also be the partners of His reign (Rom 8:17, 2Co 1:5, Php 3:10, 2Ti 2:11-13, 1Pe 4:13). Of all evils death is regarded as the greatest, and in Paul we find a painful shrinking from it (2Co 5:1-8); accordingly, it is evident how precious a comfort was the Christian hope of immortality and resurrection (Rom 8:23-25). Since death is regarded as the penalty of sin (Rom 5:12-21; Rom 6:21-23, 1Co 15:21-22; 1Co 15:56), the salvation in Christ includes deliverance from death for the believer, and finally the abolition of death (1Co 15:24-28, 2Ti 1:10) and all other evils (Rev 21:4). Behind death, sin, and all evil, the Apostolic Church saw the devil and other powers of wickedness (Eph 4:27, 1Th 3:5, Heb 2:14, Jam 4:7, 1Pe 5:8, 1Jn 5:19, Rev 12:9), and accordingly Christs work, especially His death (Col 2:15), was regarded as a victory over all evil powers (1Jn 3:8).<\/p>\n
This teaching is for the most part experimental and practical, and can still minister comfort and encouragement to the Christian believer. There are two speculative elements in it which modern Christian faith cannot unquestioningly accept-the connexion of death with sin as its penalty, and the existence of the devil and other evil powers. As regards the first point, the writer ventures to repeat a few sentences he has written elsewhere. It is generally admitted that death is a natural necessity for animal organisms such as mans, and that before man was in the world death prevailed. It seems vain to justify Paul by speculations such as these: that God anticipating sin introduced death into the natural order as a. penalty already prepared for sin, or that, had man preserved his innocence, he might have risen above this natural necessity. Pauls interest is primarily in the moral character and the religious consciousness. What he was concerned with was mans sense of the mystery and dread of the desolation of death, mans looking for judgment after death. In such totality, including what man thinks of, and feels about, death, surely Pauls view of the connexion between sin and death is not altogether false. It is mans sense of guilt that invests death with its terror (1Co 15:56). Nor are we warranted in saying that conscience here is playing tricks on man, frightening him with illusions. If there he indeed a moral order in the world, an antagonism of God to sin, and if, as there is reason to believe, there is a moral continuity between this life and the next, such a change as death is may he conceived as fraught with moral significance, as introducing the soul into such conditions as have been determined by the judgment of God on the moral character of this life (Studies of Paul and his Gospel, 1911, pp. 146-7). As regards the second point, one sentence regarding Paul will suffice. In his cosmology, angelology, and demonology, as well as his eschatology, he remains essentially Jewish (op. cit. p. 17); and this is equally true of the whole Apostolic Church. Christian faith need not burden itself with this load of Jewish beliefs.<\/p>\n
There are two passages in which Paul attempts a theodicy (Rom 8:18-25; Rom 8:9-11), the first dealing with Nature and the second with human history. In the first passage he attributes to Nature consciousness of, and a dissatisfaction with, its present imperfection-a desire for, and an expectation of, its completion. He includes Nature in mans grievous disaster, but also in his glorious destiny. As by the sin he has committed he has brought misery, so by the grace he will receive he will impart blessing. We are unable to accept Pauls account of the origin of physical evil as altogether due to mans sin. There can, however, be no doubt that man has a vital, organic relation to his environment. The evolution of the world and the development of humanity are not independent but connected processes. If we are warranted in believing in the progress of the race, we are justified in hoping for a correspondent and consequent transformation of the universe, For the perfect man we may expect the perfect home (Romans [Century Bible, 1901], p. 193). In the second passage we are not here concerned with the argument as a whole, but only with Pauls conclusion, that, as the unbelief of the Jews has opened the door for the faith of the Gentiles, so the gathering in of the Gentiles will lead to the restoration of the Jews. For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all (Rom 11:32). Without ascribing to Paul on the ground of this and similar passages a dogmatic universalism, against which there is contrary evidence throughout the NT, we may assign to the Apostolic Church the hope of the final victory of Christ over all evil. The apostolic attitude towards the problem of evil cannot be described as optimism, for the reality of sin and pain is too seriously and sympathetically recognized, nor as pessimism, for the possibility of redemption is too confidently and persuasively urged, but it may be spoken of as meliorism, for it has the faith which claims a present salvation for every believer, and the hope of a final fulfilment of Gods purpose of grace, and both are linked with a love that sees in human need and pain an opportunity for service and sacrifice, in which man can regard himself as a fellow-worker with God in the solution of the problem of evil. To revert to the distinctions made in the beginning of this article, the apostolic view recognizes no metaphysical evil, for to be the creature, subject, and child of God, is for man only good; it links physical with moral evil, and makes deliverance from pain dependent on salvation from sin; and it throws all the emphasis on moral evil; for it is concerned not with the speculative intellect, but only with the moral conscience and religions consciousness of man.<\/p>\n
Literature.-W. Beyschlag, NT Theology, Eng. translation , 1895, i. 228, ii. 107; G. B. Stevens, Theology of the NT, 1899, pp. 187, 375; T. v. Haering, The Christian Faith, Eng. translation , 1913, ii. 562-577; J. Martineau, A Study of Religion2, 1889, ii. 49-132; A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 1892, p. 63; A. M. Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, 1902, pp. 94-168; G. W. Leibniz, Essais de Thodice sur la Bont de Dieu, la Libert de lhomme et lOrigins du mal, 1710.<\/p>\n
Alfred E. Garvie.<\/p>\n
Is distinguished into natural and moral. Natural evil is whatever destroys or any way disturbs the perfection of natural beings; such as blindness, diseases, death, &c. Moral evil is the disagreement between the actions of a moral agent, and the rule of those actions, whatever it is. Applied to a choice, or acting contrary to the moral or revealed laws of the Deity, it is termed wickedness or sin. Applied to acting contrary to the mere rule of fitness, a fault. <\/p>\n
See article SIN.<\/p>\n
A condition resulting from some imperfection, which may be structural (constitutional) or functional. Structural looks to the possession and integrity of being; functional to fitting and well-ordered action. To possess beingln imperfection is the lot of all created natures; in this sense all created natures are evil, when considered in relation to God, Who is absolute perfection of being. Integrity of being looks chiefly to the absence of any substantive or accidental defect of constitution. Such integrity is wanting in congenital feeble-mindedness, in traumatic insanity, in the deformed, the malformed and the maimed. Functional imperfection is found in non-traumatic insanity, in ignorance and error, in the diseased, the perverted, and in those who are anti-socially disposed. It will be seen from this analysis of what is admittedly evil in fact, that evil is of its nature a negative entity-an absence, a want, a defect, a perversion-a denial of good. Moral evil is properly a functional defect, a free and deliberate defection from a known standard of moral goodness. In this proper sense it applies only to action, and is called sin. In a wider sense it means any condition that tends to evoke sinful action. <\/p>\n
Evil, in a large sense, may be described as the sum of the opposition, which experience shows to exist in the universe, to the desires and needs of individuals; whence arises, among humans beings at least, the sufferings in which life abounds. Thus evil, from the point of view of human welfare, is what ought not to exist. Nevertheless, there is no department of human life in which its presence is not felt; and the discrepancy between what is and what ought to be has always called for explanation in the account which mankind has sought to give of itself and its surroundings. For this purpose it is necessary (1) to define the precise nature of the principle that imparts the character of evil to so great a variety of circumstances, and (2) to ascertain, as far as may be possible, to source from which it arises.<\/p>\n
With regard to the nature of evil, it should be observed that evil is of three kinds — physical, moral, and metaphysical. Physical evil includes all that causes harm to man, whether by bodily injury, by thwarting his natural desires, or by preventing the full development of his powers, either in the order of nature directly, or through the various social conditions under which mankind naturally exists. Physical evils directly due to nature are sickness, accident, death, etc. Poverty, oppression, and some forms of disease are instances of evil arising from imperfect social organization. Mental suffering, such as anxiety, disappointment, and remorse, and the limitation of intelligence which prevents humans beings from attaining to the full comprehension of their environment, are congenital forms of evil each vary in character and degree according to natural disposition and social circumstances.<\/p>\n
By moral evil are understood the deviation of human volition from the prescriptions of the moral order and the action which results from that deviation. Such action, when it proceeds solely from ignorance, is not to be classed as moral evil, which is properly restricted to the motions of will towards ends of which the conscience disapproves. The extent of moral evil is not limited to the circumstances of life in the natural order, but includes also the sphere of religion, by which man’s welfare is affected in the supernatural order, and the precepts of which, as depending ultimately upon the will of God, are of the strictest possible obligation (see SIN). The obligation to moral action in the natural order is, moreover, generally believed to depend on the motives supplied by religion; and it is at least doubtful whether it is possible for moral obligation to exist at all apart from a supernatural sanction.<\/p>\n
Metaphysical evil is the limitation by one another of various component parts of the natural world. Through this mutual limitation natural objects are for the most part prevented from attaining to their full or ideal perfection, whether by the constant pressure of physical condition, or by sudden catastrophes. Thus, animal and vegetable organisms are variously influenced by climate and other natural causes; predatory animals depend for their existence on the destruction of life; nature is subject to storms and convulsions, and its order depends on a system of perpetual decay and renewal due to the interaction of its constituent parts. If animals suffering is excluded, no pain of any kind is caused by the inevitable limitations of nature; and they can only be called evil by analogy, and in a sense quite different from that in which the term is applied to human experience. Clarke, moreover, has aptly remarked (Correspondence with Leibniz, letter ii) that the apparent disorder of nature is really no disorder, since it is part of a definite scheme, and precisely fulfills the intention of the Creator; it may therefore be counted as a relative perfection rather than an imperfection. It is, in fact, only by a transference to irrational objects of the subjective ideals and aspirations of human intelligence, that the “evil of nature” can be called evil in any sense but a merely analogous one. The nature and degree of pain in lower animals is very obscure, and in the necessary absence of data it is difficult to say weather it should rightly be classed with the merely formal evil which belongs to inanimate objects, or with the suffering of human beings. The latter view was generally held in ancient times, and may perhaps he referred to the anthropomorphic tendency of primitive minds which appears in the doctrine of metempsychosis. Thus it has often been supposed that animal suffering, together with many of the imperfections of inanimate nature, was due to the fall of man, with whose welfare, as the chief part of creation, were bound up the fortunes of the rest (see Theoph. Antioch., Ad Autolyc., II; cf. Genesis 3 and 1 Corinthians 9). The opposite view is taken by St. Thomas (I, Q. xcvi, a. 1,2). Descartes supposed that animals were merely machines, without sensation or consciousness; he was closely followed by Malebranche and Cartesians generally. Leibniz grants sensation to animals, but considers that mere sense-perception, unaccompanied by reflexion, cannot cause either pain or pleasure; in any case he holds the pain and pleasure of animals to be parable in degree to those resulting from reflex action in man (see also Maher, Psychology, Supp’t. A:, London, 1903).<\/p>\n
It is evident again that all evil is essentially negative and not positive; i.e. it consists not in the acquisition of anything, but in the loss or deprivation of something necessary for perfection. Pain, which is the test or criterion of physical evil, has indeed a positive, though purely subjective existence as a sensation or emotion; but its evil quality lies in its disturbing effector the sufferer. In like manner, the perverse action of the will, upon which moral evil depends, is more than a mere negation of right action, implying as it does the positive element of choice; but the morally evil character of wrong action is constituted not by the element of choice, but by its rejection of what right reason requires. Thus Origen (In Joh., ii, 7) defines evil as stéresis; the Pseudo-Dionysius (De. Div. Nom. iv) as the non-existent; Maimonides (Dux perplex. iii, 10) as “privato boni alicujus”; Albertus Magnus (adopting St. Augustine’s phrase) attributes evil to “aliqua causa deficiens” (Summa Theol., I, xi, 4); Schopenhauer, who held pain to be the positive and normal condition of life (pleasure being its partial and temporary absence), nevertheless made it depend upon the failure of human desire to obtain fulfillment–“the wish is in itself pain”. Thus it will be seen that evil is not a real entity; it is relative. What is evil in some relations may be good in others; and probably there is no form of existence which is exclusively evil in all relations, Hence it has been thought that evil cannot truly be said to exist at all, and is really nothing but a “lesser good.” But this opinion seems to leave out of account the reality of human experience. Though the same cause may give pain to one, and pleasure to another, pain and pleasure, as sensations or ideas, cannot but be mutually exclusive. No one, however, has attempted to deny this very obvious fact; and the opinion in question may perhaps be understood as merely a paradoxical way of stating the relativity of evil.<\/p>\n
There is practically a general agreement of authorities as the nature of evil, some allowance being made for varying modes of expression depending on a corresponding variety of philosophical presuppositions. But on the question of the origin of evil there has been, and is a considerable diversity of opinion. The problem is strictly a metaphysical one; i.e. it cannot be solved by a mere experimental analysis of the actual conditions from which evil results. The question, which Schopenhauer has called “the punctum pruriens of metaphysics”, is concerned not so much with the various detailed manifestations of evil in nature, as with the hidden and underlying cause which has made these manifestations possible or necessary; and it is at once evident that enquiry in a region so obscure must be attended with great difficulty, and that the conclusions reached must, for the most part be of a provisional and tentative character. No system of philosophy has ever succeeded in escaping from the obscurity in which the subject is involved; but it is not too much to say that the Christian solution offers, on the whole, fewer difficulties, and approaches more nearly to completeness than any other. The question may be stated thus. Admitting that evil consists in a certain relation of man to his environment, or that it arises in the relation of the component parts of the totality of existence to one another, how comes it that though all are alike the results of a universal cosmic process, this universal agency is perpetually at war with itself, contradicting and thwarting its own efforts in the mutual hostility of its progeny? Further, admitting that metaphysical evil in itself may be merely nature’s method, involving nothing more than a continual redistribution of the material elements of the universe, human suffering and wrongdoing still and out as essentially opposed to the general scheme of natural development, and are scarcely to be reconciled in thought with any conception of unity or harmony in nature. To what, then, is the evil of human life, physical and moral, to be attributed as its cause? But when the universe is considered as the work of an all-benevolent and all-powerful Creator, a fresh element is added to the problem. If God is all-benevolent, why did He cause or permit suffering? If He is all-Powerful, He can be under no necessity of creating or permitting it; and on the other hand, if He is under any such necessity, He cannot be all-powerful. Again, if God is absolutely good, and also omnipotent, how can He permit the existence of moral evil? We have to enquire, that is to say, how evil has come to exist, and what is its special relation to the Creator of the universe.<\/p>\n
The solution of the problem has been attempted by three different methods.<\/p>\n
I. It has been contended that existence is fundamentally evil; that evil is the active principle of the universe, and good no more than an illusion, the pursuit of which serves to induce the human race to perpetuate its own existence (see PESSIMISM). This is the fundamental tenet of Buddhism (q.v.), which regards happiness as unattainable, and holds that there is no way of escaping from misery but by ceasing to exist otherwise than in the impersonal state of Nirvana. The origin of suffering, according to Buddha, is “the thirst for being”. This was also, among Greek philosophers, the view of Hegesias the Cyrenaic (called peisithánatos, the counsellor of death), who held life to be valueless, and pleasure, the only good, to be unattainable. But the Greek temper was naturally disinclined to a pessimistic view of nature and life; and while popular mythology embodied the darker aspects of existence in such conceptions as those of Fate, the avenging Furies, and the envy (phthónos) of the gods, Greek thinkers, as a rule, held that evil is universally supreme, but can be avoided or overcome by the wise and virtuous.<\/p>\n
Pessimism, as a metaphysical system, is the product of modern times. Its chief representatives are Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, both of whom held the actual universe to be fundamentally evil, and happiness it to be impossible. The origin of the phenomenal universe is attributed by Schopenhauer to a transcendental Will, which he identifies with pure being; and by Hartmann to the unconscious, which includes both the Will and the Idea (Vorstellung) of Schopenhauer. According to both Schopenhauer and Hartmann, suffering has come into existence with self-consciousness, from which it is inseparable.<\/p>\n
II. Evil has been attributed to one of two mutually opposed principles, to which respectively the mingled good and evil of the world are due. The relation between the two is variously represented, and ranges from the co-ordination imagined by Zoroastrianism to the mere relative independence of the created will as held by Christian theology. Zoroaster attributed good and evil respectively to two mutually hostile principles (hrízai, or árchai) called Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) and Ahriman (Angra Mainyu). Each was independent of the other; but eventually the good were to be victorious with Ormuzd, and Ahriman and his evil followers were to be expelled from the world. This mythological dualism passed to the sect of the Manichees, whose founder, Manes, added a third, but subordinate principle, emanating from the source of good (and perhaps corresponding, in some degree, to the Mithras of Zoroastrianism), in the “living spirit”, by whom was formed the present material world of mingled good and evil. Manes held that matter was essentially evil, and therefore could not be in direct contact with God. He probably derived the notion from the Gnostic sects, which, though they differed on many points from one another, were generally agreed in following the opinion of Philo, and the neo-Platonist Plotinus, as the evil of matter. They held the world to have been formed by an emanation, the Demiurge, as a kind of intermediary between God and impure matter. Bardesanes, however, and his followers regarded evil as resulting from the misuse of created free will.<\/p>\n
The notion that evil is necessarily inherent in matter, independent of the Divine author of good, and in some sense opposed to Him, is common to the above theosophical systems, to many of the purely rational conceptions of Greek philosophy, and to much that has been advanced on this subject in later times, In the Pythagorean idea of a numerical harmony as the constitutive principle of the world, good is represented by unity and evil by multiplicity (Philolaus, Fragm.) Heraclitus set the “strife”, which he held to be the essential condition of life, over against the action deity. “God is the author of all that is right and good and just; but men have sometimes chosen good and sometimes evil” (Fragm. 61). Empedocles, again, attributed evil to the principle of hate (neîkos), inherent together with its opposite, love (phília), in the universe. Plato held God to be “free from blame” (anaítios) for the evil of the world; its cause was partly the necessary imperfection of material and created existence, and partly the action of the human will (Timeaus, xlii; cf. Phaedo. lx). With Aristotle, evil is a necessary aspect of the constant changes of matter, and has in itself no real existence (Metaph., ix, 9). The Stoics conceived evil in a somewhat similar manner, as due to necessity; the immanent Divine power harmonizes the evil and good in a changing world. Moral evil proceeds from the folly of mankind, not from the Divine will, and is overruled by it to a good end. In the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus (Ston. Ecl., 1, p.30) may be perceived an approach to the doctrine of Leibniz, as to the nature of evil and the goodness of the world. “Nothing is done without thee in earth or sea or sky, save what evil men commit by their own folly; so thou hast fitted together all evil and good in one, that there might be one reasonable and everlasting scheme of all things.” In the mystical system of Eckhart (d. 1329), evil, sin included, has its place in the evolutionary scheme by which all proceeds from and returns to God, and contributes, both in the moral order and in the physical, to the accomplishment of the Divine purpose. Eckhart’s monistic or pantheistic tendencies seem to have obscured for him many of the difficulties of the subject, as has been the case with those by whom the same tendencies have since been carried to an extreme conclusion.<\/p>\n
Christian philosophy has, like the Hebrew, uniformly attributed moral and physical evil to the action of created free will. Man has himself brought about the evil from which he suffers by transgressing the law of God, on obedience to which his happiness depended. Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se : and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own well-being, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dion. Areop., De Div. Nom., iv, 31; St. Aug., De Civ. Dei. xii). The evil from which man suffers is, however, the condition of good, for the sake of which it is permitted. Thus, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii). Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (De Civ. Dei,xi). Again, the excellence of God’s works in nature is insisted on as evidence of the Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, by which no evil can be directly caused. (Greg. Nyss., De. opif. hom.) Thus Boethius asks (De Consol. Phil., I, iv) Who can be the author of good, if God is the author of evil? As darkness is nothing but the absence of light, and is not produced by creation, so evil is merely the defect of goodness. (St. Aug., In Gen. as lit.) St. Basil (Hexaem., Hom. ii) points out the educative purposes served by evil; and St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. as the penal and just consequence of sin (De Civ. Dei, XI, xii, De Vera Relig. xliv). Lactantius uses similar arguments to oppose the dilemma, as to the omnipotence and goodness of God, which he puts into the mouth of Epicurus (De Ira Dei, xiii). St. Anselm (Monologium) connects evil with the partial manifestation of good by creation; its fullness being in God alone.<\/p>\n
The features which stand out in the earlier Christian explanation of evil, as compared with non-Christian dualistic theories are thus the definite attribution to God of absolute omnipotence and goodness, notwithstanding His permission of the existence of evil; the assignment of a moral and retributive cause for suffering in the sin of mankind; and the unhesitating assertion of the beneficence of God’s purpose in permitting evil, together with the full admission that He could, had He so chosen, have prevented it (De Civ. Dei, xiv). How God’s permission of the evil which He foreknew and could have prevented is to be reconciled with His goodness, is not fully considered; St. Augustine states the question in forcible terms, but is content by way of answer to follow St. Paul, in his refrence to the unsearchableness of the Divine judgments (Contra Julianum, I, 48).<\/p>\n
The same general lines have been followed by most of the modern attempts to account in terms of Theism for the existence of evil. Descartes and Malebranche held that the world is the best possible for the purpose for which it was created, i. e. for the manifestation of the attributes of God. If it had been less fitted as a whole for the attainment of this object. The relation of evil to the will of a perfectly benevolent Creator was elaborately treated by Leibniz, in answer to Bayle, who had insisted on the arguments derived from the existence of evil against that of a good and omnipotent God. Leibniz founded his views mainly on those of St. Augustine and from St. Thomas, and deduced from them his theory of Optimism (q.v.). According to it, the inverse is the best possible; but metaphysical evil, or perfection, is necessarily involved in the constitution, since it must be finite, and could not have been endowed with the infinite perfection which belongs to God alone. Moral and physical evil are due to the fall of man, but all evil is overruled by God to a good purpose. Moreover, the world with which we are acquainted is only a very small factor in the whole of creation, and it may be supposed that the evil it contains is necessary for the existence of other regions that are unknown to us. Voltaire in “Candide”, undertook to throw ridicule at the idea of “best possible world”; and it must be admitted that the theory is open to grave objections. On the one hand, it is scarcely consistent with the belief in the Divine omnipotence; and on the other, it fails to account for the permission (or indirect authorship) of evil by a good God, to which Bayle had specially taken exception. We can not know that this world is the best possible; and if it were, why, since it must include so much that is evil, should a perfectly good God have created it? It may be urged, moreover, that there can be no degree of finite goodness which is not susceptible of increase by omnipotence, without ceasing to fall short of infinite perfection.<\/p>\n
Leibniz has been more or less closely followed by many who have since treated the subject from the Christian point of view. These have, for the most part, emphasized the evidence in creation of the wisdom and goodness of its Author, after the manner of the Book of Job, and have been content to leave undiscovered the reason for the creation, by Him, of a universe in which evil is unavoidable. Such was the view of King (Essay on the Origin of Evil, London, 1732), who insisted strongly on the doctrine of the best possible world; of Cudworth, who held that evil, though inseparable from the nature of imperfect beings, is largely a matter of men’s own fancy and opinions, rather than the reality of things, and therefore not to be made the ground of accusations against Divine Providence. Derham (Physico-Theology, London, 1712) took occasion from an examination of the excellence of creation to commend an attitude of humility and trust towards the creator of “this elegant, this well contrived, well formed world, in which we find everything necessary for the sustenation, use and pleasure both of man and every other creature here below; as well as some whips, some rods, to scourge us for our sins”. Priestly held a doctrine of absolute determinism, and consequently attributed evil solely to the divine will; which, however, he justified by the good ends which evil is providentially made to subserve (Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, Birmingham, 1782). Clarke, again, called special attention to the evidence of method of design, which bear witness to the benevolence of the Creator, in the midst of apparent moral and physical disorder. Rosmini, closely following Malebranche, pointed out that the question of the possibility of a better world than this has really no meaning; any world created by God must be the best possible in relation to its special purpose, apart from which neither goodness or badness can be predicated of it. Mamiani also supposed that evil be inseparable from the finite, but it tended to disappear as the finite approached its final union with the infinite.<\/p>\n
III. The third way of conceiving the place of evil in the general scheme of existence is that of those systems of Monism, by which evil is merely viewed as a mode in which certain aspects of moments of the development of nature are apprehended by human consciousness. In this view there is no distinctive principle to which evil can be assigned, and its origin is one with that of nature as a whole. These systems reject the specific idea of creation; and the idea of God is either rigorously excluded, or identified with an impersonal principle, immanent in the universe, or conceived as a mere abstraction from the methods of nature; which, whether viewed from the standpoint of materialism or that of idealism, is the one ultimate reality. The problem of the origin of evil is thus merged in that of the origin of being. Moral evil, in particular, arises from error, and is to be gradually eliminated, or at least minimized, by improved knowledge of the conditions of human welfare (Meliorism). Of this kind, of the whole, were the doctrines of the Ionic Hylozoists, whose fundamental notion was the essential unity of matter and life; and on the other hand, also, that of the Eleatics, who founded the origin of all things in abstract being. The Atomists Leucippus and Democritus, held what may be called a doctrine of materialistic Monism. This doctrine, however, found its first complete expression in the philosophy of Epicurus, which explicitly rejected the notion of any external influence on nature, whether of “fate”, or of Divine power. According to the Epicurean Lucretius (De Rerum Natura, II, line 180) the existence of evil was fatal to the supposition of the creation of the world by God: Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatum Naturam mundi, quæ tanta est prædita culpa. Giordano Bruno made God the immanent cause of all things, acting by an internal necessity, and producing the relations considered evil by mankind. Hobbes regarded God as merely a corporeal first cause; and applying his theory of civil government to the universe, defended the existence of evil by simple assertion of the absolute power to which it is due–a theory which is little else other than a statement of materialistic Determinism in terms of social relations. Spinoza united spirit and matter in the notion of a single substance, to which he attributed both thought and extension; error and perfection were the necessary consequence of the order of the universe. The Hegelian Monism, which reproduces many of the ideas of Eckhart, and is adopted in its main features by many different systems of recent origin, gives to evil a place in the unfolding of the Idea, in which both the origin and inner reality of the universe are to be found. Evil is the temporary discord between what is and what ought to be. Huxley was content to believe the ultimate causes of things are at present unknown, and may be unknowable. Evil is to be known and combated in the concrete and in detail; but the Agnosticism professed, and named, by Huxley refuses to entertain any question as to transcendental causes, and confines itself to experimental facts. Haeckel advances a dogmatic materialism, in which substance (i. e. matter and force) appears as the eternal and infinite basis of all things. Professor Metchnikoff, on similar principles, places the cause of evil in “disharmonies” which prevail in nature, and which he thinks may perhaps be ultimately removed, for the human race at least, together with pessimistic temper arising from them, by the progress of science. Bourdeau has asserted in express terms the futility of seeking a transcendental or supernatural origin for evil and the necessity of confining the view to natural accessible, and determinable causes (Revue Philosophique, I, 1900).<\/p>\n
The recently constructed system, or method, called Pragmatism, has this much in common with Pessimism, that it regards evil as a actually unavoidable part of that human experience which is in point of fact identical with truth and reality. The world is what we make it; evil tends to diminish with the growth of experience, and may finally vanish; though on the other hand, there may always remain the irreducible minimum of evil. The origin of evil is, like the origin of all things, inexplicable; it cannot be fitted into any theory of the design of the universe, simply because no such theory is possible. “We cannot by any possibility comprehend the character of the cosmic mind whose purpose are fully revealed by the strange mixture of good and evil that we find in this actual worlds particulars–the mere word design, by itself has no consequences and explains nothing.” (James, Pragmatism, London, 1907. Cf. Schiller, Humanism, London 1907.) Nietzsche holds evil to be purely relative, and its moral aspects at least, a transitory and non-fundamental concept. With him, mankind in the present state, is “the animal not yet properly adapted to his environment”. In this mode of thought the individual necessarily counts for very little, as being merely a transient manifestation of the cosmic force; and the social aspects of humanity are those under which its pains and shortcomings are mostly considered, with a view to their amelioration. Hence, the various forms of Socialism: The idea conceived by Nietzsche of a totally new, though as yet undefined, form of social morality, and of the constitution and mutual relations of classes; and the so called ethical and scientific religions inculcating morality as tending to be generally good. The first example of such religion was that of Auguste Comte, who upon the materialistic basis of Positivism, founded the “religion of humanity”, and professed to substitute an enthusiasm for humanity as the motive for right action, for the motives of supernatural religion.<\/p>\n
In the light of Catholic doctrine, any theory that may be held concerning evil must include certain points bearing on the question that have been authoritatively defined. These points are the omnipotence, omniscience, and absolute goodness of the Creator; the freedom of the will; and that suffering is the penal consequence of wilful disobedience to the law of God. A complete account may be gathered from the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, by whom the principles of St. Augustine are systematized, and to some extent supplemented. Evil, according to St. Thomas, is a privation, or the absence of some good which belongs properly to the nature of the creature. (I,Q. xiv, a. 10; Q. xlix, a. 3; Contra Gentiles, III, ix, x). There is therefore no “summum malum”, or positive source of evil, corresponding to the “summum bonum”, which is God (I, Q. xlix, a. 3; C. G., III, 15; De Malo, I, 1); evil being not “ens reale” but only “ens rationis”–i.e. it exists not as an objective fact, but as a subjective conception; things are evil not in themselves, but by reason of their relation to other things, or persons. All realities (entia) are in themselves good; they produce bad results only incidentally; and consequently the ultimate cause of evil if fundamentally good, as well as the objects in which evil is found (I, Q. xlix; cf. I, Q. v, 3; De Malo, I, 3). Thus the Manichaean dualism has no foundation in reason.<\/p>\n
Evil is threefold, viz., “malum naturæ” (metaphysical evil), “culpæ” (moral), and “paenæ” (physical, the retributive consequence of “malum culpæ”) (I, Q. xlviii, a. 5, 6; Q. lxiii, a. 9; De Malo, I, 4). Its existence subserves the perfection of the whole; the universe would be less perfect if it contained no evil. Thus fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live, and if there were no wrong doing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice (I, Q. xlviii, a. 2). God id said (as in Isaiah 45) to be the author of evil in the sense that the corruption of material objects in nature is ordained by Him, as a means for carrying out the design of the universe; and on the other hand, the evil which exists as a consequence of the breach of Divine laws is in the same sense due to Divine appointment; the universe would be less perfect if its laws could be broken with impunity. Thus evil, in one aspect, i.e. as counter-balancing the deordination of sin, has the nature of good (II, Q. ii, a. 19). But the evil of sin (culpæ), though permitted by God, is in no sense due to him (I, Q. xlix, a. 2).; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men (I-II, Q. lxxiii, a. 6; II-II, Q. x, a. 2; I-II, Q. ix, a. 3). It should be observed that the universal perfection to which evil in some form is necessary, is the perfection of this universe, not of any universe: metaphysical evil, that is to say, and indirectly, moral evil as well, is included in the design of the universe which is partially known to us; but we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.<\/p>\n
St. Thomas also provides explanations of what are now generally considered to be the two main difficulties of the subject, viz., the Divine permission of foreseen moral evil, and the question finally arriving thence, why God choose to create anything at all. First, it is asked why God, foreseeing that his creatures would use the gift of free will for their own injury, did not either abstain from creating them, or in some way safeguard their free will from misuse, or else deny them the gift altogether? St. Thomas replies (C. G., II, xxviii) that God cannot change His mind, since the Divine will is free from the defect of weakness or mutability. Such mutability would, it should be remarked, be a defect in the Divine nature (and therefore impossible), because if God’s purpose were made dependent on the foreseen free act of any creature, God would thereby sacrifice His own freedom, and would submit Himself to His creatures, thus abdicating His essential supremacy–a thing which is, of course, utterly inconceivable. Secondly, to the question why God should have chosen to create, when creation was in no way needful for His own perfection, St. Thomas answers that God’s object in creating is Himself; He creates in order to manifest his own goodness, power, and wisdom, and is pleased with that reflection or similitude of Himself in which the goodness of creation consists. God’s pleasure is the one supremely perfect motive for action, alike in God Himself and in His creatures; not because of any need, or inherent necessity, in the Divine nature (C. G., I, xxviii; II, xxiii), but because God is the source, centre, and object, of all existence. (I, Q. 65:a. 2; cf. Proverbs 26 and Conc. Vat., can. 1:v; Const. Dogm., 1.) This is accordingly the sufficient reason for the existence of the universe, and even for the suffering which moral evil has introduced into it. God has not made the world primarily for man’s good, but for His own pleasure; good for man lies in conforming himself to the supreme purpose of creation, and evil in departing from it (C.G., III, xvii, cxliv). It may further be understood from St. Thomas, that in the diversity of metaphysical evil, in which the perfection of the universe as a whole is embodied, God may see a certain similitude of His own threefold unity (cf. I, Q. xii); and again, that by permitting moral evil to exist He has provided a sphere for the manifestation of one aspect of His essential justice (cf. I, Q. lxv, a. 2; and I, Q. xxi, a. 1, 3).<\/p>\n
It is obviously impossible to suggest a reason why this universe in particular should have been created rather than another; since we are necessarily incapable of forming an idea of any other universe than this. Similarly, we are unable to imagine why God chose to manifest Himself by the way of creation, instead of, or in addition to, the other ways, whatever they may be, by which He has, or may have, attained the same end. We reach here the utmost limit of speculation; and our inability to conceive the ultimate reason for creation (as distinct from its direct motive) is paralleled, at a much earlier stage of the enquire, by the inability of the non-creationist schools of thought to assign any ultimate cause for the existence of the order of nature. It will be observed that St. Thomas’s account of evil is a true Theodicy, taking into consideration as it does every factor of the problem, and leaving unsolved only the mystery of creation, before which all schools of thought are equally helpless. It is as impossible to know, in the fullest sense, why this world was made as to know how it was made; but St. Thomas has at least shown that the acts of the Creator admit of complete logical justification, notwithstanding the mystery in which, for human intelligence, they can never wholly cease to be involved. On Catholic principles, the amelioration of moral evil and its consequent suffering can only take place by means of individual reformation, and not so much through increase of knowledge as through stimulation or re-direction of the will. But since all methods of social improvement that have any value must necessarily represent a nearer approach to conformity with Divine laws, they are welcomed and furthered by the Church, as tending, at least indirectly, to accomplish the purpose for which she exists.<\/p>\n
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A.B. SHARPE Transcribed by Patricia Massia-Kellog, H. Jason Krim, Jes Bahn, and Yaqoob Mohyuddin <\/p>\n
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VCopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York<\/p>\n
is discord or disturbance in the order of the universe. Leibnitz divides it into metaphysical evil, i.e., imperfection; physical evil, i.e., suffering; moral evil, i.e., sin. Origen defined evil to be the negation of good; and in this he has been followed by many Christian thinkers. The distinction into natural and moral evil is the only one now generally recognized.<\/p>\n
1. “Natural evil is whatever destroys or any way disturbs the perfection of natural beings, such as blindness, diseases, death, etc. But as all that we call natural evil is not the penalty of sin, nor, as some have supposed, only the penalty of it, such disturbance is not necessarily an evil, inasmuch as it may be counterpoised, in the whole, with an equal if rot greater good, as in the afflictions and sufferings of good men. When such disturbance occurs as the penalty of transgression, it is the necessary consequence of moral evil.” The tendency of modern thought is towards the doctrine that the (apparent) disturbances of the physical world are likely to be reconciled with universal law as science advances.<\/p>\n
2. “Moral evil is the disagreement between the actions of a moral agent and the rule of those actions, whatever it be. Applied to choice, or acting contrary to the revealed law of God, it is termed wickedness or sin. Applied to an act contrary to a mere rule of fitness, it is called a fault” (Bucky s.v.). On the origin of evil, and its relations to the government of God, SEE SIN; SEE THEODICY.<\/p>\n
The word generally used for evil and wickedness is ra (), which appears to signify breaking up, or ruin. The LXX rendering for it is usually or . It is one of those words which binds together in one the wicked deed and its consequences. It is evil as opposed to good in Gen 2:17, al. It is rendered calamity in Psa 141:5; distress in Neh 2:17; adversity in 1Sa 10:19, Psa 94:13, and Ecc 7:14; grief in Neh 2:10, Pro 15:10, Ecc 2:17, Jon 4:6; affliction in Num 11:11, and ten other passages; misery in Ecc 8:6; and in Gen 40:7, Neh 2:1-2, Ecc 7:3; sorrow in Gen 44:29, Neh 2:2; trouble in Psa 41:1, and eight other passages; sore in Deu 6:22, and eight other passages, noisome in Eze 14:15; Eze 14:21; hurt in Gen 26:29, and twenty-eight other passages; heavy in Pro 25:20; vex in Num 20:15, and 2Sa 12:18; wretchedness in Num 11:15; also harm, ill, and mischief in almost every place where these words are found in the A. V.<\/p>\n
These passages sometimes imply injury done to a person, but do not touch up on its moral aspect. this is to be borne in mind as we read Isa 45:7, ‘I create evil,’ and similar verses in other cases, however, this element is introduced in Jdg 11:27, we read, ‘I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me;’ here the wrong or injury is regarded as an injustice. Again, in 1Sa 17:28, ‘I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart,’ moral evil seems to be intended. The word is also rendered ‘naught’ or ‘naughty’ in 2Ki 2:19, Pro 20:14, and Jer 24:2; but in these passages naughty has its original sense of ‘good for nothing,’ a sense in which the word is still used in some parts of England. Perhaps this was all that was implied in Eliab’s rude speech to David.<\/p>\n
Ra is rendered wicked a great many times; it is also frequently rendered bad, but in the latter class of passages that which is injurious is referred to rather than that which is morally evil. Ra, in fact, generally indicates the rough exteri or of wrong-doing, as a breach of harmony, and as a breaking up of what is good and desirable in man and in society. Whilst the prominent characteristic of the godly is lovingkindness, one of the most marked features of the ungodly man is that his course is an injury both to himself and to every one round him.<\/p>\n
If Christians believe in a God of love and power who created and controls the world, how can they explain the presence and power of evil in the world? This question commonly puzzles people, but the Bible gives no direct answer to it. As usual the Bibles response to the problem is practical rather than theoretical. It is more concerned with helping people develop character than with satisfying intellectual curiosity. And as people accept that help, they receive answers to some of the problems (cf. Joh 7:17). (Concerning the superior knowledge that Gnostics claimed to have regarding good and evil see KNOWLEDGE.)<\/p>\n
Human nature<\/p>\n
God created the world good and he wanted the people of his creation to enjoy it with him (Gen 1:31; 1Ti 4:4; Heb 4:4; Heb 4:10). But since he created them as morally responsible beings with a freedom to make their own decisions, the possibility existed that they might misuse their freedom. They might choose to do what they knew they should not do (Gen 2:15-17). Maturity would come through making correct moral choices. The self-denial involved in rejecting tempting alternatives would strengthen character (cf. Heb 5:8; Heb 5:14).<\/p>\n
God wanted people to live in a relationship of love with him and with their fellow human beings; but they could not love if they were not free. If they were robots, they could do what their maker programmed them to do, but they could not love or enjoy anything. However, as freedom produced the possibility of devotion and goodness, so also it produced the possibility of rebellion and evil. Evil was not a product of the creative activity of God, but a product of the wrong use of freedom by morally responsible beings (Gen 3:1-7; Jam 1:12-13).<\/p>\n
Life in a spoiled world<\/p>\n
The Bible commonly speaks of evil in two different but related ways. Firstly, it speaks of evil in a moral sense similar to that considered above, where evil is the opposite of moral goodness (Pro 8:13; Jer 7:24; Mic 2:1; Mat 5:45; Mat 15:19; Rom 7:19; Rom 7:21; 2Th 3:2; for details see SIN). Satan, through whom this evil entered the human race, is fittingly called the evil one (Gen 3:1; Mat 13:19; 1Jn 2:13; 1Jn 5:19; see SATAN).<\/p>\n
Secondly, the Bible speaks of evil in a more general sense, where it refers to calamities, conflicts, sufferings, misfortunes and even to things such as bad health and bad fruit. The word again means the opposite of good, but with a non-moral meaning (Deu 7:15; 2Sa 15:14; Mat 7:17; Luk 16:25). Yet there is a connection between these two uses of evil. Because the evil of sin has infected the world, calamities and misfortunes have become part of life in the world.<\/p>\n
When the Old Testament says that God sends both good and evil, it is referring not to moral good and moral evil, but to lifes blessings and troubles. Israelites in Old Testament times acknowledged Gods overall control in all the affairs of life, both good and bad (Job 2:10; Isa 45:7). They saw that the evils of conflict, disaster and destruction were often Gods means of punishing the wicked (1Sa 16:14; Jer 35:17; Amo 3:6).<\/p>\n
No cause for despair<\/p>\n
Although the entrance of sin into the world has spoiled Gods purposes for the human race, it has not overthrown them. God can bring good out of evil (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:28). The troubles of life are not always Gods judgments for specific wrongdoings. God usually does not explain why particular evils occur or why people suffer from them. Nevertheless, he consistently uses those evils to bring positive benefits (Hab 1:13; Hab 3:17-19; Luk 13:1-5; Joh 9:2-3; 2Co 12:7-9; see SUFFERING). This, however, does not excuse the people who cause the evils (Isa 10:5-11; Jer 51:5-10; Jer 51:34-36; Mat 26:24; Act 2:23; Rom 3:8).<\/p>\n
Probably the most feared of all evils is death, but God uses even death to fulfil his purposes for good. Through death he has conquered death and delivered people from the power of evil (Heb 2:14; see DEATH). Through Christs death, believers can enjoy victory over evil while still living in the present evil world (Rom 6:7-11; Rom 6:14; Gal 1:4; see SALVATION). They will enjoy final victory when Christ returns to remove all evil, even to its last trace, and bring in Gods new heaven and new earth (1Co 15:25-28; Rev 21:4; Rev 21:27; Rev 22:1-3).<\/p>\n
EVIL.It is customary to distinguish three kinds of evil: (1) what Leibnitz called metaphysical evil, i.e. the incompleteness and imperfection which belong more or less to all created things; (2) physical evil, i.e. pain, suffering, and death; and (3) moral evil, which is a vicious choice of a morally responsible being.<\/p>\n
1. Metaphysical evil.The writers of the OT were, for the most part, deeply impressed with the doctrine of Gods transcendence; i.e. His unique and unapproachable majesty, power, and holiness. Hence the nothingness and transitoriness of all earthly and visible things are a constant theme with them: Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, etc. (1Ki 8:27); What is man that thou art mindful of him? etc. (Psa 8:4); All flesh is grass, etc. (Isa 40:6); The inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers (Isa 40:22). Compared with Gods ineffable holiness, the holiest of created beings are, as it were, unclean. In heaven the holy angels veil their faces in Gods presence (Isa 6:2). The holy sanctuary of Israel required to be purged every year from its pollutions by the blood of sacrifices (Lev 16:16). All human righteousnesses are as a polluted garment (Isa 64:6).<\/p>\n
In the NT there is naturally less stress laid upon the Divine transcendence. The theme of the NT writers is the love of God shown in the Incarnation. The eternal Son of God has taken upon Him human nature, to raise it into fellowship with God, to clothe it with the garment of the Divine righteousness, and to cause it to partake of the Divine immortality. Yet the awful and unapproachable character of God, and the infinite abyss which separates the Creator from the highest creature, are never lost sight of. He alone is the Absolute Good (Mar 10:18); He alone may lawfully be worshipped (Mar 12:29; Mar 12:32, Rev 19:10).<\/p>\n
2. Physical evil.<\/p>\n
(1) Optimism and pessimism.Christianity may be classed philosophically as a moderate optimism. It is not an extravagant optimism, like that of Leibnitz, who maintained that this is the best of all possible worlds, or of Malebranche, who regarded it as the best conceivable. Christ would certainly not have endorsed the hyperboles of Pope, that all discord is harmony not understood, and all partial evil universal good; yet He must certainly be classed among the most pronounced teachers of optimism. As against all forms of Gnosticism and Dualism, He maintained that the Universe, in all its parts, is the work of a perfectly good Creator, and that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, it is under the guidance of His fatherly Providence: Behold the fowls of the air, etc. (Mat 6:26); Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? etc. (Mat 10:29); He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, etc. (Mat 5:45). The optimism of Jesus is particularly evident in His eschatology. He taught that in the end good will triumph over evil, and evil be absolutely excluded from the Universe: In the end of the world the Son of man shall send forth his angels, etc. (Mat 13:41, cf. Mat 24:31; Mat 25:30; Mat 25:41). He believed that there is a glorious goal to which the whole creation is moving. In one passage He calls it Creations new birth (, Mat 19:28); but His usual term for it is the Kingdom of God (or of Heaven): Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Mat 13:43). For the coming of this Kingdom every Christian is directed to pray (Mat 6:10) and to watch (Mat 24:42, Mat 25:13). That the material Universe will be glorified along with the spiritual is not distinctly stated by Jesus, but is a necessary inference from the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which was undoubtedly held by Him (Mat 5:29; Mat 10:28 etc.), though in a more spiritual form than was generally current (Mat 22:30).<\/p>\n
(2) Pain, sorrow, disease, and death.The Gospels lend no countenance to the view that moral evil is the only genuine evil, and that physical evil is not evil in the strict and proper sense. Pain, sorrow, disease, and death were regarded by Jesus as things which ought not to be, and He spent much of the time of His public ministry in combating them: He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed with the devil: for God was with him (Act 10:38). He committed the ministry of healing to the Apostles and other believers: Preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils; freely ye have received, freely give (Mat 10:7). Death was regarded by Jesus as in an especial sense the enemy. Its ravages affected Him with acute distress ( , Joh 11:33 ff., where consult the commentators). Three of His most striking recorded miracles were victories over death (Mar 5:41, Luk 7:14, Joh 11:43); and His own resurrection, according to the energetie expression of the Apostle, abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light (2Ti 1:10).<\/p>\n
As to the causation of physical evil, there is a great difference of point of view between the OT and the NT. The OT upon the whole (Job 1:2. is an exception) regards physical evil as inflicted directly by God. According to the NT, however, physical evil is mainly the work of the devil. God tolerates, permits, and overrules, rather than directly inflicts it. Pain and disease and death belong to the devils kingdom, not to Gods; and their universal prevalence is a sign of the usurped authority over the human race of the prince of this world. The preaching of the Kingdom of God and the emancipation of mankind from the devils thraldom were consequently accompanied by an extensive ministry of healing, and Christ appealed to His miracles as evidence that the kingdom of God is come upon you (Luk 11:20). The NT does not, however, deny that physical evil is often inflicted by God for disciplinary or retributive purposes. Heb 12:6 lays especial stress upon the wholesome chastening of affliction which all the sons of God receive. Examples of penal or retributive affliction are Mat 9:2 (palsy), Mat 23:35 (war and massacre), Joh 5:14 (constitutional infirmity), Act 5:5 (death), Act 13:11 (blindness). Jesus, however, strongly protested against the idea that every calamity is to be regarded as a punishment for individual sin. This specially Jewish idea, which Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar develop at length in the Book of Job, is definitely condemned (Luk 13:4, Joh 9:3).<\/p>\n
3. Moral evil.<\/p>\n
(1) Its nature and origin.The only possible way of accounting for moral evil without making God the author of it, is to attribute it to the abuse of free will on the part of created beings, angelic, or human, or both. The doctrine of free will has been severely criticised in all ages by the advocates of philosophical and theological necessity; but it has, notwithstanding, held its ground, and is at the present time the faith of all the most progressive races of mankind. That it was held by Jesus does not admit of reasonable doubt. Thus He habitually spoke of the power which men possess to resist God and to frustrate His benevolent intentions: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I () and ye would not ( , Luk 13:34; cf. Joh 5:40, Mat 11:20 ff.). His general invitations to all men to be saved imply the same doctrine: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mat 11:28); And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself (Joh 12:32).<\/p>\n
The reality of Christs Libertarianism is not disproved by certain passages in the Gospels which seem at first sight to speak the language of Predestination, or even of Determinism (Joh 6:37; Joh 6:39, Mat 26:24 etc.). Predestination was not so held in Christs time as to exclude free will. Josephus says of the Pharisees: When they say that all things happen by fate, they do not take away from men the freedom of acting as they think fit; since their notion is that it hath pleased God to mix up the decrees of fate and mans will, so that man can act virtuously and viciously (Ant. xviii. i. 3).<\/p>\n
Jesus accordingly attributed the origin of evil not to the will of God, but to the perversity of Gods creatures. Mankind, according to Him, is in rebellion against God; but the whole guilt of rebellion is not his. Before man existed, there were myriads of finite spirits, higher in the order of creation than he, and of these some fell from their original innocence and became devils. The chief of these, Satan, is ever seeking to seduce the human race from its allegiance to its Creator, and is therefore emphatically called the tempter ( , Mat 4:3, 1Th 3:5), and the slayer of men (, Joh 8:44). This last is the one certain allusion to the fall of Satan to be found in the Gospels (Luk 10:18 is doubtful). From it we learn that he once existed in a state of innocence ( ), but did not persist in it (reading with WH [Note: H Westcott and Horts text.] ).<\/p>\n
The position of Satan in the Universe is so exalted, and the power ascribed to him in the NT so great (cf. esp. Mat 4:8, Joh 14:30), that some have regarded Jesus as a Dualist. But the authority attributed to Satan in the NT, though great, is subordinate. The devils recognize the power of Jesus, and come out at His word (Mar 1:24; Mar 1:34; Mar 3:11 etc.). If Satan is the strong man, there is a Stronger, who can bind him and spoil his goods (Mat 12:29). At the Temptation the devil acknowledged that his power is a delegated one ( , Luk 4:8). His kingdom will surely come to an end; in fact its fall has already been virtually secured by the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Joh 12:31). His final punishment has been determined, and it will be fully adequate to his delinquency (Mat 25:41).<\/p>\n
(2) Original sin.There is no recorded teaching of Jesus about original sin. He recognized the fall of man (Joh 8:44), and the general sinfulness of the human race (Mat 7:11); but how He connected these two facts does not appear. It may, perhaps, be argued from Joh 9:1-3, that He would not have approved of any theory of original sin which regarded men as obnoxious to punishment from God merely because of an ancestral taint that they could not help inheriting. See, further, artt. Sin and Eternal Punishment.<\/p>\n
Literature.Athanasius, contra Gentes; Augustine, Antipelagian Treatises, etc.; Origen, de Principiis (esp. i. 5, 6); J. Muller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin (translation ); Momerie, The Origin of Evil; Naville, The Problem of Evil (translation ); Butler, Analogy; Le Conte, Evolution, ix.; Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, i. 3, 4: Tennant, The Origin and Propagation of Sin; and The Fall and Original Sin; Bull, The State of Man before the Fall; Paley, Natural Theology, xxvi.; Harris, pro Fide, xiv; A. Moore, Science and the Faith, and Essays, i., iii., and Oxford House Papers, vol. ii.; artt. Sin and Fall in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; Dixie, The Necessity of Pain in Oxford House Papers; E. A. Abbott, The Kernel and the Husk, ix.; S. Laing, A Modern Zoroastrian. The subject is discussed in most systematic treatises on theology, ethics, and metaphysics.<\/p>\n
C. Harris.<\/p>\n
EVIL is an older form of the word ill; used, both as substantive and adjective, to tr. [Note: translate or translation.] various synonyms and ranging in meaning from physical unfitness to moral wickedness. The former is archaic, but occurs in Gen 28:8 (AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), Exo 21:8 (AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), Jer 24:3 (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ), and Mat 7:18, though the two last passages are not without an ethical tinge. But the word almost invariably connotes what is either morally corrupt (see Sin) or injurious to life and happiness.<\/p>\n
1. In the OT the two meanings are at first scarcely differentiated. Whatever comes to man from without is, to begin with, attributed simply to God (Amo 3:6, Lam 3:38, Eze 14:9, Isa 45:7). Destruction is wrought by His angels (Exo 12:23, 2Sa 24:16, Psa 78:49). Moral temptations come from Him (2Sa 24:1, 1Ki 22:23), though there is a tendency to embody them in beings which, though belonging to the host of heaven, are spoken of as evil or lying spirits (1Sa 16:14, Jdg 9:23, 1Ki 22:22). The serpent of the Fall narrative cannot be pressed to mean more than a symbol of temptation, though the form which the temptation takes suggests hostility to the will of God external to the spirit of the woman (2Co 11:3, cf. Gen 3:1-3). Then later we have the figure of the Adversary or Satan, who, though still dependent on the will of God, is nevertheless so identified with evil that he is represented as taking the initiative in seduction (Zec 3:1, 1Ch 21:1, but cf. 2Sa 24:1). This marks the growth of the sense of Gods holiness (Deu 32:4 etc.), the purity which cannot behold evil (Hab 1:13); and correspondingly sharpens the problem. Heathen gods are now identified with demons opposed to the God of Israel (Deu 32:17, Psa 106:37; cf. 1Co 10:20). This tendency, increased perhaps by Persian influence, becomes dominant in apocryphal literature (2Pe 2:4 and Jud 1:6 are based on the Book of Enoch), where the fallen angels are a kingdom at war with the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n
2. In the NT moral evil is never ascribed to God (Jam 1:13), being essentially hostile to His mind and will (Rom 1:18-21; Rom 5:10, 1Jn 1:5-7; 1Jn 2:16; 1Jn 2:29; 1Jn 3:4; 1Jn 3:9); but to the Evil One (Mat 6:13; Mat 13:19, 1Jn 5:19), an active and personal being identical with the Devil (Mat 13:39, Joh 8:44) or Satan (Mat 4:10, Mar 4:15, Luk 22:31, Joh 13:27), who with his angels (Mat 25:41) is cast down from heaven (Rev 12:9, cf. Luk 10:18), goes to and fro in the earth as the universal adversary (1Pe 5:8, Eph 4:27; Eph 6:11, Jam 4:7), and will be finally imprisoned with his ministering spirits (Rev 20:2; Rev 20:10, cf. Mat 25:41). Pain and suffering are ascribed sometimes to God (Rev 3:19, 1Th 3:3, Heb 12:5-11), inasmuch as all things work together for good to those that love Him (Rom 8:28); sometimes to Satan (Luk 13:16, 2Co 12:7) and the demons (Mat 8:28 etc.), who are suffered to hurt the earth for a season (Rev 9:1-11; Rev 12:12).<\/p>\n
The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges (see Butlers Analogy, i. 7, cf. 1Co 13:12). Pain is justified by the redemption of the body (Rom 8:18-25, 1Pe 4:13), punishment by the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Heb 12:7-11), and the permission of moral evil by the victory of the Cross (Joh 12:31, Rom 8:37-39, Col 2:15, 1Co 15:24-28). Accept the facts and look to the end is the teaching of the Bible as a guide to practical religion (Jam 5:11). Beyond this we enter the region of that high theology which comprehensive thinkers like Aquinas or Calvin have not shrunk from formulating, but which, so far as it is dealt with in the NT, appears rather as a by-product of evangelical thought, than as the direct purpose of revelation (as, e.g., in Rom 9:1-33, where Gods elective choice is stated only as the logical presupposition of grace). St. Paul is content to throw the responsibility for the moral facts of the universe upon God (Rom 9:19-24; cf. Job 33:12, Ecc 5:2, Isa 29:16), who, however, is not defined as capricious and arbitrary power, but revealed as the Father, who loves the creatures of His hand, and has foreordained all things to a perfect consummation in Christ the Beloved (Eph 1:3-14 etc.).<\/p>\n
J. G. Simpson.<\/p>\n
ev’l, evil , ra; , poneros, , kakos, , kakon): In the Bible it is represented as moral and physical. We choose to discuss the subject under these heads. Many of the evils that come upon men have not been intended by those who suffer for them. Disease, individual and national calamity, drought, scarcity of food, may not always be charged to the account of intentional wrong. Many times the innocent suffer with, and even for, the guilty. In such cases, only physical evil is apparent. Even when the suffering has been occasioned by sin or dereliction of duty, whether the wrong is active or passive, many, perhaps the majority of those who are injured, are not accountable in any way for the ills which come upon them. Neither is God the author of moral evil. God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man (Jam 1:13). See TEMPTATION.<\/p>\n
1. Moral Evil<\/p>\n
By this term we refer to wrongs done to our fellowman, where the actor is responsible for the action. The immorality may be present when the action is not possible. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart (Mat 24:48, Mat 24:49), whether he shall smite his fellow-servants or not, the moral evil is present. See SIN. All these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man (Mar 7:21-23). The last six commandments of the Decalogue apply here (Exo 20:12-17). To dishonor one’s parents, to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness and to covet are moral evils. The spiritual import of these commandments will be found in Mat 5:21, Mat 5:22, Mat 5:27, Mat 5:28. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness (Mat 6:23). Words and deeds are coined in the heart before the world sees or hears them (Mat 12:34, Mat 12:35). The word ought or its equal may be found in all languages; hence, it is in the mind of all people as well as in our laws that for the deeds and words we do and speak, we are responsible. Break off thy sins by righteousness (Dan 4:27) shows that, in God’s thought, it was man’s duty, and therefore within his power, to keep the commandment. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well (Isa 1:16 f). We cannot think of God commanding men to do what He knew they had no ability to do! God has a standing offer of pardon to all men who turn from their evil ways and do that which is right (Eze 33:11-14 f). Evil begins in the least objectionable things. In Rom 1:18-23, we have Paul’s view of the falling away of the Gentiles. Knowing God (Rom 1:21), they were without excuse (Rom 1:20), but glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened (Rom 1:21). Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom 1:22). This led the way into idolatry, and that was followed by all the corruption and wrongdoing to be instigated by a heart turned away from all purity, and practiced in all the iniquity to be suggested by lust without control. Paul gives fifteen steps in the ladder on which men descend into darkness and ruin (Gal 5:19-21). When men become evil in themselves, they necessarily become evil in thought and deed toward others. This they bring upon themselves, or give way to, till God shall give them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting (Rom 1:28). Those thus fallen into habits of error, we should in meekness correct, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will (2Ti 2:25, 2Ti 2:26).<\/p>\n
2. Physical Evil<\/p>\n
Usually, in the Old Testament the Hebrew word ra is employed to denote that which is bad. Many times the bad is physical; it may have been occasioned by the sins for which the people of the nation were responsible, or it may have come, not as a retribution, but from accident or mismanagement or causes unknown. Very many times the evil is a corrective, to cause men to forsake the wrong and accept the right. The flood was sent upon the earth because all flesh had corrupted their way (Gen 6:12). This evil was to serve as a warning to those who were to live after. The ground had already been cursed for the good of Cain (Gen 4:12). Two purposes seemed to direct the treatment: (1) to leave in the minds of Cain and his descendants the knowledge that sin brings punishment, and (2) to increase the toil that would make them a better people. God overthrew Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, cities of the plain, making them an example unto those that should live ungodly (2Pe 2:6). In the Book of Isa the prophet, we find a number of burdens: the burden of Babylon (13:1-22); the burden of Moab (Isa 15:1-9); the burden of Damascus (Isa 17:1-14); the burden of Egypt (19:1-17); the burden of the Wilderness of the Sea (Isa 21:1-10); the burden of Dumah (Isa 21:11, Isa 21:12); the burden upon Arabia (21:13-17); the burden of the Valley of Vision (22:1-25); the burden of Tyre (23:1-18); the burden of the Beasts of the South (Isa 30:6-14); the burden of the Weary Beast (Isa 46:1, Isa 46:2). These may serve as an introduction to the story of wrongdoing and physical suffering threatened and executed. Isa contains many denunciations against Israel: against the Ten Tribes for following the sin introduced by Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and the threatening against Judah and Benjamin for not heeding the warnings. Jeremiah saw the woes that were sure to come upon Judah; for declaring them, he was shut up in prison, and yet they came, and the people were carried away into Babylon. These were the evils or afflictions brought upon the nations for their persistence in sin. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Yahweh, that doeth all these things (Isa 45:7). These chastisements seemed grievous, and yet they yielded peaceable fruit unto them that were exercised thereby (Heb 12:11).<\/p>\n
Appearance of, to be avoided<\/p>\n
\n
– <\/strong>General references<\/p>\n Rom 14:1-23<\/span>; 1Co 8:7-13<\/span>; 1Co 10:28-33<\/span>; 1Th 4:11-12<\/span>; 1Th 5:22<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n – <\/strong>Instances of:<\/p>\n \n b Paul, in refusing to eat that which had been offered to idols<\/p>\n 1Co 8:13<\/span> <\/p>\n \n b In supporting himself<\/p>\n 1Co 9:7-23<\/span> <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n (AS. yfel) Negation of the extrinsic elections of things. In practice, the positive effects of such negation. The morally bad. Hostility to the welfare of anything. Absence of the good. Opposite of goodness. See Ethics. — J.K.F.<\/p>\n is distinguished into natural and moral. Natural evil is whatever destroys or any way disturbs the perfection of natural beings, such as blindness, diseases, death, &c. Moral evil is the disagreement between the actions of a moral agent, and the rule of those actions, whatever it be. Applied to choice, or acting contrary to the moral or revealed laws of the Deity, it is termed wickedness, or sin. Applied to an act contrary to a mere rule of fitness, it is called a fault. The question concerning the origin of evil has very much perplexed philosophers and divines, both ancient and modern. Plato, for the solution of this question, maintained, that matter, from its nature, possesses a blind and refractory force, from which arises in it a propensity to disorder and deformity; and that this is the cause of all the imperfection which appears in the works of God, and the origin of evil. Matter, he conceives, resists the will of the supreme Artificer, so that he cannot possibly execute his designs; and this is the cause of the mixture of good and evil, which is found in the material world. It cannot be, says he, that evil should be destroyed, for there must always be something contrary to good; and again, God wills, as far as it is possible, every thing good, and nothing evil. What that property of matter is which opposes the wise and benevolent intentions of the first Intelligence, Plato has not clearly explained; but he speaks of it as , an intimate propensity to disorder, and says, that before nature was adorned with its present beautiful forms, it was inclined to confusion and deformity, and that from this habitude arises all the evil which happens in the world. Plutarch supposes the Platonic notion to be, that there is in matter an unconscious, irrational soul; and this supposition has been adopted by several modern writers. But the writings of Plato afford no evidence that he conceived the imperfection of matter to arise from any cause distinct from its nature. Such a notion is incongruous with Plato’s general system, and is contrary to the doctrine of the Pythagorean school, to which he was probably indebted for his notions on this subject; for the philosophers of that sect held that motion is the effect of a power essential to matter. Some of the Stoics adopted the notion of the Platonists concerning the origin of evil and ascribed it to the defective nature of matter, which it is not in the power of the great Artificer to change; asserting, that imperfections appear in the world, not through any defect of skill in its author, but because matter will not admit of the accomplishment of his designs. But it was perceived by others, that this hypothesis was inconsistent with the fundamental doctrine of the Stoics concerning nature. For since, according to their system, matter itself receives all its qualities from God, if its defects be the cause of evil, these defects must be ultimately ascribed to him. No other way of relieving this difficulty remained, than to have recourse to fate, and say, that evil was the necessary consequence of that eternal necessity to which the great whole, comprehending both God and matter, is subject. Thus, when Chrysippus was asked whether diseases were to be ascribed to Divine providence, he replied that it was not the intention of nature that these things should happen; nor were they conformable to the will of the Author of nature and Parent of all good things; but that, in framing the world, some inconveniences had adhered by necessary consequence, to his wise and useful plan. To others the question concerning the origin of evil appeared so intricate and difficult, that, finding themselves unequal to the solution of it, they denied either that there is any God at all, or, at least, any author or governor of the world. The Epicureans belonged to this class; nor does Lucretius allege any other reason for denying the system of the world to be the production of a Deity beside its being so very faulty. Others again judged it to be more rational to assign a double cause of visible effects, than to assign no cause at all; as nothing, indeed, can be more absurd than to admit actions and effects without any agent and cause. These persons perceiving a mixture of good and evil, and being persuaded that so many inconsistencies and disorders could not proceed from a good being, supposed the existence of a malevolent principle, or god, directly contrary to the good one; hence they derived corruption and death, diseases, griefs, mischiefs, frauds, and villanies, while from the good being they deduced nothing but good. This opinion was held by many of the ancients; by the Persian magi, Manicheans, Paulicians, &c.<\/p>\n 2. Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, deduces from the possibility and real existence of human liberty an answer to the question, What is the cause and original of evil? For liberty, he says, implying a natural power of doing evil, as well as good; and the imperfect nature of finite beings making it possible for them to abuse this their liberty to an actual commission of evil; and it being necessary to the order and beauty of the whole, and for displaying the infinite wisdom of the Creator, that there should be different and various degrees of creatures, whereof, consequently, some must be less perfect than others; hence there necessarily arises a possibility of evil, notwithstanding that the Creator is infinitely good. In short thus: all that we call evil is either an evil of imperfection, as the want of certain faculties and excellencies which other creatures have; or natural evil, as pain, death, and the like; or moral evil, as all kinds of vice. The first of these is not properly an evil: for every power, faculty, or perfection, which any creature enjoys, being the free gift of God, which he was no more obliged to bestow, than he was to confer being or existence itself, it is plain the want of any certain faculty or perfection in any kind of creatures which never belonged to their nature, is no more an evil to them than their never having been created, or brought into being at all, could properly have been called an evil. The second kind of evil, which we call natural evil, is either a necessary consequence of the former; as death, to a creature on whose nature immortality was never conferred; and then it is no more properly an evil than the former; or else it is counterpoised, in the whole, with as great or greater good, as the afflictions and sufferings of good men, and then also it is not properly an evil; or else, lastly, it is a punishment; and then it is a necessary consequent of the third and last sort of evil, namely, moral evil. And this arises wholly from the abuse of liberty, which God gave to his creatures for other purposes, and which it was reasonable and fit to give them for the perfection and order of the whole creation; only they, contrary to God’s intention and command, have abused what was necessary for the perfection of the whole, to the corruption and depravation of themselves. And thus all sorts of evils have entered into the world, without any diminution to the infinite goodness of its Creator and Governor.<\/p>\n 3. This is obviously all the answer which the question respecting the origin of evil is capable of receiving. It brings us to the point to which the Scriptures themselves lead us. And though many questions may yet be asked, respecting a subject so mysterious as the permission of evil by the Supreme Being, this is a part of his counsels of which we can have no cognizance, unless he is pleased to reveal them; and as revelation is silent upon this subject, except generally, that all his acts, his permissive ones as well as others, are wise, and just and good we may rest assured, that beyond what is revealed, human wisdom in the present state can never penetrate.<\/p>\n Evil This article is not a study of the word evil as substantive, adjective, or adverb in the two senses of bad and hurtful, for which the use of a concordance may suffice; but of the conception of evil in the apostolic writings. Three senses of the term have been distinguished by Leibniz: metaphysical-the necessary … Continue reading “Evil”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-encyclopedic-dictionary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Evil<\/h2>\n
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Evil <\/h2>\n
Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"