EVIL

"Evil" can be defined as that which opposes, or is the antithesis of, what is good. There is no precise articulation of the nature of evil in the creeds of the Church, nor is there any explicit or definitive Christian doctrine of evil. For biblical writers God's reality was accepted unquestioningly, and evil was accepted as an inevitable aspect of the world. Since evil was (and remains) the source of incredible human suffering and anguish, the biblical response did include appeals to God for understanding, and petitions to God to reduce suffering. The classic example is Job, but there are many other biblical writings that address the issue of understanding God's relationship to evil (cf. Ps 10:1, 22:1, Lam 2:20–22, Jn 9:1–5, Lk 13:1–5, etc.).

In Scripture. While the Scriptures display remarkable consistency and coherence about God and evil, the sacred authors did not produce a systematic theology of evil and suffering, nor did they theorize about God's hidden will in permitting evil and suffering, with a few exceptions (cf. Ps 10:1; Ps 22:1; and Ps 42:9; Lam 2:20–22; Jn 9:1–5, Luke 13:1–5; etc.). Evil is understood predominantly, though by no means exclusively, as divine punishment for sin (cf. Jer 44:22–23; Gal 6:7–8; Mt 7:18–19; Am 3:8; Lam 3:38; Is 45:7; etc.). Other explanations attribute evil and suffering to divine warnings and tests of faith (2 Cor 8:2; 1 Pt 1:6–7; etc.), to divine discipline (1 Cor 11:32; Dt 7:4–7; Heb 12:5–12; etc.), and as a means of expiation or atonement for sin—as displayed in Israel's sacrificial system of mandatory expiation (Lev 1–7; Jgs 2:18; Jer 8:21; Ps 126:5–6; etc.). The New Testament provides some unique perspectives on evil and its relationship to God; it teaches, for example, that evil has redemptive value, a view inspired especially by the Servant Songs in Isaiah (Is 41:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13– 53:12), and patterned on Christ's suffering on behalf of all humanity (cf. Mk 10:38–39; Lk 14:27, etc.). Most importantly, perhaps, the New Testament teaches that suffering is not in every instance to be understood as directly attributable to a divine purpose, but that free creatures, both human and angelic, are the source of much, perhaps all, evil. The older view that God causes evils for justifiable reasons was softened, accordingly, by this understanding of human and angelic free will as the source of much suffering. Evil was understood as the result of satanic forces under the leadership of Satan, the personification of evil, yet also an ontological reality: "the lord of this world" (cf. Jn 12:31; Jn 14:30; Jn 16:11; Jn 17:31; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 6:12; etc.), "the adversary" (1 Pt 5:8), the "tempter" (1 Thes 3:5; 2 Cor 11:3), etc., who endlessly goads humanity into sin and brings about trials to discourage us and weaken our resolve for goodness (cf. 1 Thes 2:18; 1 Tm 4:1–7), etc. The human mind was thought to be the battleground for spiritual warfare between God and the demonic (2 Cor 10:3–5; Eph 6:10–12). Christ conducted spiritual warfare in His ministry, exorcizing evil spirits and showing by example that evil is an affront to God and must be resisted. Christian theology holds that Christ defeated Satan by the Cross and Resurrection, freeing us from the bondage to sin and the fear of death (Heb 2:14–15; 1 Cor 15). Christ urged His disciples to continue the fight against evil and He gave them power and authority to do so in His name (cf. Lk 9:1; Lk 10:19; etc.). So focused was Christ's battle against evil powers that St. Paul's letters defined Christ's atoning death as a ransom to Satan (Gal 3:20; 1 Tm 2:6; Col 2:15; Rom 3:25; and cf. Mt 20:28; Heb 2:14; 3:15; 1 Jn 3:8; etc.), a view held by the Church for a millennium until St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) proposed an alternative view of Christ's death as an atoning satisfaction for humanity's sinful rebellion against God, rather than for a ransom to be paid to Satan (see atonement).

The Source of Evil. Traditionally, Christian theologians have referred to the Adamic Fall (Gn 3) for an understanding of the source of evil, the view that evil emerges from the misuse of human freedom. While this had been foreseen by God, the gift of freedom, nonetheless, was an essential and fundamental gift from God, one that distinguishes humanity from all other creatures and gives man alone the ability to choose good and evil. The misuse of freedom by Adam and Eve (Gn 3) introduced sin and suffering into a world created good (see suffering). This "original sin" largely corrupted human nature, though not completely. As St. Augustine explained (City of God XIII, 14), the corruption is inherited "seminally" ("in the seed") by Adam and Eve's progeny. Ours is a world, accordingly, in which we are estranged not only from God, but from our spiritual nature, the world itself, and one another. This understanding of the Fall of humanity into corruption and sin became the dominate Christian explanation for evil and suffering. Interestingly, the Old Testament makes no mention of the Adamic Fall after the account in Genesis 3. The account was revived in the intertestamental books of Jubilees and 2 Enoch, and taken into Christianity by St. Paul's image of Christ as the second Adam who had overturned the sin of the first Adam (Rom 5:12–17; 1 Cor 15:21–22; Rom 5:16). The more common Old Testament view is that evil and suffering have their source in the breaking of the covenant established by Yahweh with the patriarchs Abraham and Moses. A further (and much less influential) view of evil's origin is found in the account of the sinful mating of the "sons of God" with "the daughters of men," caused by their "evil imagination" (Gn 6:5), an event that led to God's punishment by the catastrophic flood (Gn 6). The sinful actions noted in Gn 6:5 were elaborated in the Watchers legend in 1 Enoch in the intertestamental period. By the time of Christ, the account of the Fall in Genesis 3 had been coalesced with the "evil imagination" account used in Rabbinic Judaism, and taken up by St. Paul who taught that Adam's Fall was explained by an "evil imagination" that was passed on to his progeny (see Hick, Evil, 202–5; see also 2 Esdras 3:21–22: "For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him"). Augustine developed the theory of concupiscence (lust, sexual desire, etc.) as the source of evil within humanity, a theory that was integral to his defense of human freedom and doctrine of original sin (see Evans, Augustine, 132–67, etc.). St. Thomas later adapted this view, but with a more positive and optimistic emphasis about the condition of the human soul (see Summa theologiae I. Qs 81–82; Rahner, "Concupiscentia").

Kinds of Evil. A common division of evil is that into metaphysical, physical, and moral, as explained in the following sections.

Metaphysical Evil. The metaphysical notion of evil comes from leibniz. This type of evil results, in the opinion of some, from the mere finitude of created beings, i.e., from the absence of a perfection not required for the natural integrity of creatures. According to this conception, evil would affect all created beings universally and without any fault on their part. This view was revived in the twentieth century by several philosophers [cf. M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Halle 1927) pp. 175–180; K. Jaspers, Philosophie (Berlin 1932) 2: 196–199; J. P. Sartre, L'Etre et le Néant (Paris 1943) p. 481], for whom original sin is the universal perception of a nature in anguish, conscious of its limits and native imperfection. Such a metaphysical notion of evil can be contested since finitude in itself is not an evil. It is indeed the negation of a higher perfection (e.g., man is not an angel), but not as a privation (e.g., man is not deprived of the perfections proper to an angel). If there is evil in the notion of metaphysical evil, it may be in the fact that limited and finite creatures inevitably will choose evil over good, and must deal consciously with the inevitability of the ultimate threat of finite existence: death. For the Christian, however, death itself is not an evil, but has been overcome by Christ and eternal life gained. "The last enemy that will be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26).

Physical Evil. Physical evil is that affecting a nature, i.e., a being defined by an essence or by an ensemble of properties. It must not, therefore, be restricted to corporeal evil, for it is much wider in scope, and can be attributed to any nature, corporeal or spiritual, whose integrity it alters. Moral pain or sorrow is a physical evil in that it deprives the soul of its natural equilibrium, just as blindness deprives the body of its natural integrity. The same holds true for all psychological ills affecting spiritual powers, such as psychoses and neuroses.

In this category of physical evil are often included cataclysms—earthquakes, typhoons, epidemics—that afflict greater or lesser areas of the earth. Writers like voltaire draw arguments against divine providence from these events. Yet evil property so-called does not lie in these cataclysms, which after all flow from natural laws. Evil rather lies in the sufferings, often great and terrible, that accidentally follow in the wake of such phenomena. What is implied here, then, is basically the problem of suffering, with its correlative, that of the providence of god.

Material things can lack the integrity that is proper to their natures. In speaking of non-living things, we sometimes say they are "altered," such as bad wine, i.e., wine that has turned sour or has been diluted. But the evil, properly speaking, is not in such things: howsoever altered or imperfect in their own order, they are what they are by virtue of natural laws. It is man who classifies them as good or bad according as they suit his needs or not. Poison, for instance, is a natural thing, and as such it is good. Evil lies in using poison in a harmful manner, as an instrument of murder. In this case, the evil is in man. Among living beings, natural evil consists in suffering, both physical and moral, that destroys emotional harmony and equilibrium, which constitute the proper perfection of a sensible being as such.

On the matter of suffering, one must distinguish between man and animal. Man is par excellence the subject of suffering; not that he suffers more, quantitatively, than animals, but because he is aware of his suffering. An animal suffers pain without being able to reflect upon it. Awareness of pain serves only to intensify the evil. But this situation provides man with an opportunity to dominate and conquer suffering—an ability that the animal, being identified with suffering and so to speak drowned in it, does not possess. Man can accept suffering as expiation, if he is guilty, or as an act of fortitude, if he is innocent. From this, it should be evident that for man suffering is not an absolute evil, or at least, if it is really an evil, it is not the evil in itself. Whatever the suffering, it can be either vanquished or diminished by means provided by science, or else overcome by the courage of the one experiencing it, and thus be further ordained to man's moral and spiritual welfare. What would be classifiable as absolute evil, on the other hand, is suffering that could serve no purpose.

The brute animal as subject of suffering does not pose the same problem. Lacking reason, it lacks also a proper finality within itself. The brute is one among many, an instrument in the service of man. Man can use such things for his own advantage, though within the bounds of right reason. Were he unnecessarily to inflict sufferings upon them, he would offend God who requires of man that he make wise use of creation. Man would also degrade himself in seeking perverse satisfaction in the suffering of a sensible creature.

This leads to the problem of death. Death is exclusively the concern of man, for man alone knows that he will die and is capable of anguish as he faces death. Is death an evil? While this problem calls into play all the conceptions of mankind, one may still reduce it to its essential elements. In any event, death cannot be the evil. Either man dies completely, or his soul survives the ruin of the bodily organism. If he dies completely, death takes away the problem: evil annihilates itself in its very realization. Moreover, how could death appear as an evil, a privation, for a being destined by nature to die completely? Death appears as evil only to the being that aspires not to die, and perceives this aspiration as fulfilling a need of its nature. This is the case for man, who seems unable to banish the scandal of death. We are here face to face with mystery—a mystery on which Christian faith alone can shed light. For faith teaches us not only that the conditions of man's dying are the result of a fault affecting the destiny of all mankind, but also that the trial that is death is the very door leading the faithful to an eternity of happiness (De malo 5.4–5).

Understood biblically, such physical evils are the result of a fallen world, a world corrupted by the prideful evil imagination of humanity (Gn 3). Thus, while historical skeptics like Hume, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, etc. and contemporary atheists like Michael Martin and William Rowe have argued that the horrors of physical evils are decisive evidence against belief in God, Christians believe that such evils are the price we pay for living in a fallen world. In the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, furthermore, the world is described as an aesthetic whole that is good from God's perspective, while the parts are evils and seen (often) only as such (see Confessions VII, 22; CG XI, 16–18, 22; etc). Despite the fallen nature of the world, God uses evils for good ends (Rom 8:28), for example, as means for expiation for our sins, or as means by which to achieve good ends not otherwise attainable, etc. Physical evils, moreover, are to be understood as unavoidable byproducts of natural laws that are goods in themselves, being necessary to support human life. As St. Thomas explained: "Many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of the lion be preserved unless the ass was killed" (Summa theologiae I. Q48). This, indeed, is a partial explanation for the long-held Christian belief in o felix culpa ("O happy fault"), attributed to St. Augustine and others but first used in the 5th century or, perhaps as late as the 7th century (in the Exsultet in the Roman Missal ). This belief holds that it is better to have a world in which there is evil than a world without evil, since evil must be seen in the light of Christ's redemptive act. Evil is "fortunate" because is has merited such a great and wonderful redeemer (O felix culpa quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem ). Physical suffering, then, is not an absolute evil: God remains in sovereign control and "works together all things for good for those who love God" (Rom 8:28), as should we (cf. Rom 12:21, etc.). The very nature of physical evils cannot be divorced from the providence of God; we must not attribute these sufferings directly to divine causation, but the good which results is God's work.

Moral Evil. Moral evil, consisting essentially in the disorder of the will, is called fault or sin. This species of evil presents the greatest problem, raising as it does the crucial question: how can its existence be reconciled with the infinitely good providence of God?

In contrast to physical evil, moral evil is that found in a rational and free nature as such. Properly the soul is its immediate subject, or more precisely, the will, with its power of obeying or disobeying the norms of moral conscience and the divine law. Moral evil is therefore a privation of rectitude required by the natural law, a privation affecting a free will, which through its own fault lacks a perfection it ought to have (De malo 2.1–2).

Moral evil or the disordered will, however, is itself an "evil of nature," viz, an evil to which a rational and free nature is subject. While this pertains to the general category of physical evil, of which it is a species, its specific nature is such as to justify the distinction between physical and moral evil. Physical evil, as already defined, is always an evil suffered, whether this affects a corporeal or a spiritual nature; such evil is received in a nature whose integrity it violates. Conversely, moral evil results from the voluntary activity of an agent who, in depriving himself of a perfection to which he is obliged by nature, inflicts upon himself a self-mutilation. Moral evil is thus properly constituted by this very activity (De malo 1.3).

This point is important in a consideration of evil, for it is precisely in the disordered will that evil assumes its tragic and mysterious character. Though the evil of the world with its attendant sufferings may be a heavy burden on man's reason, the perversity of the will, by which man denies his proper nature and insults God, is an even greater oppression. Thus, it would seem that the essence of evil resides in this perversity, which gives rise also to the evils of the world. In fact, Judeo-Christian revelation considers this moral lapse, inaugurated by Adam and transmitted to all humanity through original sin, as the first cause of all the ills of the world, viz, suffering, inter-personal conflicts, injustice, violence, and wars (cf. St. Augustine, Vera relig. 12.23: "Evil is either sin, or the punishment due to sin").

Since it is voluntary privation, a refusal to consider here and now the moral rules for right action for the purpose of a good that is not the good, evil is a consequence of liberty. Such a "negative positivity," such placing of a negation or a refusal, makes the will disordered and defines evil properly so-called (malum culpae: moral fault, sin). It is obvious from this that the problem of evil appears primarily as a voluntary perversion; it is the problem of the nature and form of this "power of nothingness" that springs from a nature endowed with liberty. Put in this way, the problem of evil is above all a problem for Christians. Pagans, except for those involved in Greco-Oriental religions, were aware only of the physical ills affecting humanity, namely, misery, ignorance, and errancy.

Evil as Privatio Boni. The view of evil as "untruth" (aristotle) and as having no reality in itself (plotinus), was developed by St. Augustine in his debates with Manichean dualists who distinguished between spirit and matter, rejecting the flesh (matter) as evil and demonic. Augustine defended Christian belief against the Manichean objection that the Christian God, as the creator of all things, must then be the creator of evil as well. augustine responded with the privatio boni view of evil that he had found in neoplatonism: God, he argued, creates only what is good and, as such, evil has no genuine reality of its own (ens reale ), but rather, is to be understood as a subjective human concept (ens rationis ) (see Enchiridion XI, etc.; see also St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, Q49; De Malo I, 3; etc.), as parasitic on the good and as that that deprives a good creation of its good (see Schwarz, Evil, ch. 2 and Hick, Evil, ch. 3). St. Augustine (cf. On Nature and Grace; Enchiridion XI–XIV), and later St. Thomas (Summa theologiae I, Q14, 46, etc.), explained this as the corruption of our divinely given "telos," the falling away from the good intended for us by God, a view of evil described by St. Augustine variously as privatio, deprivatio, corruptio, amissio, vitium, defectus, indigentia, and negatia. What God creates is good and that which deprives the good has no ontological status.

Satan and Evil. Another view of evil gives it a much clearer ontological status, but that has been long neglected by most theologians and rejected by the secular world's fascination with reason and the scientific method during the past three centuries. This view of evil has its basis in the biblical teaching that Satan and his demonic horde of fallen angels (Mt 25:41, 2 Pt 2:4) have been engaged in spiritual warfare against God. It has been argued that after Augustine, the centrality of the spiritual warfare theme was subsumed under the more dominant theme of the all-encompassing providence of God. Rarely has the spiritual warfare theme been exploited by theologians in response to the theodicy issue (see Boyd, God at War ). While God permits satanic evil powers to wreck havoc on the world, the Church has been given "all power and authority to cast out demons" (cf. Mt 10:1–8; Mk 16:17; Lk 10:19; Lk 9:1–2) and, indeed, has an obligation to do so. As the ministry of Jesus and his disciples demonstrated, evil is not to be explained away as serving some mysterious divine providence, at least not in every case. Evil, rather, is to be resisted and defeated, except in those instances in which God is enacting just punishment or achieving some greater good through His permission of evil, a permission that allows evil uses of free will in both humanity and satanic forces. Amos 3:6 ("Does evil befall a city unless the Lord has done it?") warns of God's coming punishment if the people do not repent. By permitting the destruction of the kingdom as a deed of Satan, God accomplished His purpose, since the evil of the people had to be punished (see Boyd, God at War, 150–52). The point here, however, is that not all evil is to be seen as the means by which God fulfills His purposes. Indeed, the evil misuse of free will by humanity (and satanic powers) causes evils that God does not seek; yet in His incomprehensible goodness, God salvages whatever good can be achieved in these evils (Rom 8:28).

Bibliography: g. boyd, God at War (Downers Grove 1997). g. r. evans, Augustine on Evil (Cambridge 1982). d. r. griffin, God, Power and Evil (Philadelphia 1976). j. hick, Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed. (New York 1978). g. h. joyce, Principles of Natural Theology (New York 1972). k. rahner, "Why Does God Allow Us to Suffer," Theological Investigations XIX (New York 1983); "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace" and "The Theological Concept of Concupiscentia," Theological Investigations I (Baltimore 1961). h. schwarz, Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective, tr. m. worthing (Minneapolis 1995). r. a. sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification (Santa Barbara, CA 1997). b. l. whitney, Theodicy: An Annotated Bibliography on the Problem of Evil, 1960–1991 (Bowling Green State University 1998).

[r. jolivet/

b. whitney]