What is the source of radical evil that seeks to corrupt and pervert the human race? What causes violence, cruelty, genocide, self-centeredness, abuse, neglect and war? Jeffrey Burton Russell writes:
“We are again aware of the ineradicable nature of perversity in our own behavior, a perversity that has perhaps been more evident in the twentieth century than ever before. Well-intentioned efforts to reform human nature by education or legislation have so far failed, and rather spectacularly, as they break like waves against the rock of radical evil. We have direct perceptions of evil, of deliberate malice and desire to hurt, constantly manifesting itself in governments, in mobs, in criminals, and in our own petty vices. Many people seem to have the additional experience that behind all this evil, and directing it, is a powerful, transhuman, or at least transconscious personality. This is the Devil.” (Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, p.222)
When is experiencing evil either a reason for believing in God, or an argument against the existence of God?
C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, says that his argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But then he asked himself where he got his idea of just and unjust from? If the universe had no ultimate meaning, then he would never have found out that it had no meaning. If there was no light, we would never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning. He concluded that atheism was too simple.
If we know that the universe contains much that is bad and meaningless, we can believe one of two things. Either that this is a good world that has gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been (the Christian view). Or Dualism: that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out an endless war.
All too often there is the misconception that Christianity is Dualism, that there are two gods: the Creator God of Light and Love, and Satan, the Prince of Darkness and Hate. But if badness is goodness spoiled, there must be something good before it can be spoiled. The Bad Power is not independent of the Good Power. To be bad, he must exist and have intelligence and will. But existence, intelligence and will are in themselves good. Therefore, he must be getting them from the Good Power: even to be bad he must borrow or steal from his opponent. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing. It is the perversion of what is good. Therefore, the power of darkness is not equal to the power of light.
The Bible’s teaching is quite clear that there is only one God, and that he reveals himself to us in words: “For this is what the LORD says – he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited – he says ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other… I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right… And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and Savior; there is none but me.” (Isaiah 45:18,19,21)
But how do we know that God is behind the truth of what is good in life?
St. Paul argued in Romans 1:18-25 that what may be known about God is plain to all people because God has revealed himself to everyone. God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen and understood from his creation. The universe is a work of art by a divine artist. It is a gargantuan biological machine invented by a divine genius. It is a menagerie of life generated by a divine parent. It is a moral community that is dependent on a divine lover.
Why is it that secular rationalists cannot clearly see God’s invisible qualities from creation? Why is the world for them emptied of metaphysical meaning? St. Paul says it is because they suppress the truth. They will not see the truth because, although they have a limited knowledge of God, they will not glorify God or give thanks to him. They choke on giving praise or thanks to someone else they cannot see. They don’t want to admit their debt to God, so they cannot express appreciation.
This charge of “suppressing” the truth is a serious one, and resented by those who maintain that they hold to a high view of reason. The truth that Paul accuses them of suppressing is the truth about the one God, a truth which secular rationalists dispute is available because it cannot be scientifically verified. It is a metaphysical truth which is accessible only by faith, i.e. trust in realities behind and beyond the physical. Secular rationalists cannot admit to those realities, and are not willing to try the experiment of faith. They suppress the willingness to experiment with faith with regard to the spiritual, although they use it in their lives for daily commerce (trusting banks and credit), and for meaningful relationships of love, friendship, and marriage. We suppress those things that disturb us, that cause us anxiety, that make us feel out of control. To believe in the truth about God is to believe that we are not in control, and that we are accountable to someone greater than ourselves. That can be a fearful prospect. It can also be a comforting one, if the truth about God reveals a God of mercy and love, who provides all things necessary for our lives and our salvation.
Because secular rationalists cannot acknowledge their dependence on God for life, and health, and everything, their thinking becomes futile and their foolish hearts are darkened. “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images… They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” (Romans 1:22,25)
The Message paraphrases the same passage this way: “What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life… they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them.”
What is the lie that people prefer to the truth that God made them? It is that we can fall into the awful error of worshipping ourselves – we are the gods we make. Paul Tillich wrote, “The demonic is the elevation of something conditional to unconditional significance.” It is the temptation to want to become the center of our universe. It is allowing ourselves to be deceived by the ‘father of lies’. Jesus said, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” St. Paul explains what happens: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor.4:4) Our thinking becomes confused so that we cannot see the truth about God in the world he has made. We become “illiterate regarding life.” We cannot read the signs of God in the world he has made. We cannot interpret the activity of God as real. It is what happened when Jesus performed his miracles in the presence of his contemporaries, yet they still would not believe in him.
Evil occurs when we make idols of that which is created and meant to be conditional. It is replacing God with something else. It is giving our worship to something other than our Creator and Savior. They may be good things, but they become perverted when we give them our ultimate loyalty. Each one of us has gods we have made in our own image. It may be our reputation, our politics, our family, our finances, our church, our comfort, our self-image, our convenience, or our privacy. Evil wants to debase our worship of God.
St. Paul wrote long ago:
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:20-29)
A Prayer:
“O Lord God Almighty, as I go out to this day’s living, I am seized with a strong sense of thankfulness and awe at your mighty works in this world and in my life.
The physical universes in all their mystery and order, design, intricacy and beauty, vast still beyond our measuring: these are your mighty works.
– I praise and glorify you, O God.
The interior universe of the human spirit, its mysteriousness and lucidity, passion and intricacy, vision and practicality, idealism and grief, instinct for beauty and capacity for desolation, vast still beyond measuring: these are your mighty works.
– I praise and glorify you, O God.
This beautiful planet earth, with its seas and continents, mountains, plains, deserts and rainforests, creatures and plants, vast resources of rock depth and sea depths still beyond our measuring: these are your mighty works.
– I praise and glorify you, O God.
This life you have given me, this day before me: with its hopes and fears, its human encounters, its love and friendships, its antagonism and hurts, its anger and its joy, its tedium and its pleasures, its delight in your love and the challenge and joy of your service: vast possibilities of heavenly life, here and to come, still beyond my measuring: these too are your mighty works.
– I praise and glorify you, O God.
O Lord, God, whose people, inspired by your Spirit, first told out your mighty works, the ultimate victory of your good over every power of evil and destruction: may my voice be joined to theirs, so that others in my own generation may hear me, too, telling in their own tongue of your mighty works. Amen.”
(Ruth Etchells, Just As I Am, p.78,79)
Excerpted from Ted Schroder, SURVIVING HURRICANES, pp.20-28
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