“If evil has the same kind of reality as good, the same autonomy and completeness, our allegiance to good becomes the arbitrary chosen loyalty of a partisan. A sound theory of value demands something different. It demands that good should be original and evil a mere perversion; that good should be the tree and evil the ivy; that good should be able to see all around evil (as when sane men understand lunacy) while evil cannot retaliate in kind; that good should be able to exist on its own while evil requires the good on which it is parasitic in order to continue its parasitic existence.”
C.S. Lewis, “Evil and God” in God in the Dock, Chapter 1, 1970
When evil has a personal face, it is easy to recognize, at least for “sane men” as Lewis points out in his brilliant little essay quoted above. It is when it comes anonymously, as in a killer-virus such as we are now experiencing, or a terrible tsunami, or some other “Act of God”, that it is not so obvious.
Evil is, as he so aptly describes it, “a mere perversion”, a “parasite” on the good. Most of us can pretty readily accept that good health is good, but disease and injury are not, at least not in any meaningful personal sense. Disease is a “perversion” of what normal life is meant to be, what we believe we are truly made for. That is why we work so strenuously to avoid it and prevent it, and, when it comes, to overcome it and restore “normal” life as much as is possible.
We may get bogged down here by racing after the rabbit of evolution and its “laws” of natural selection and survival of the fittest. The sociological counterpart of these “laws” is the doctrine of inevitable progress towards a more and more perfect society where everything becomes better and better for everyone over time. From those two perspectives (which are really manifestations of the same belief system in different domains), some apparent “evils” are really good because the dialectical process (Hegel’s contribution to the endless progress ideology) demands a constant see-saw between the two poles (“thesis” and “antithesis”) in order for progress to occur.
In other words, our whole modern-post-modern foundational perspective and ideology are actually built on a deeper worldview of Dualism. In the essay quoted above, Lewis makes devastatingly short work of this ideology, leaving it as exposed as the Emperor with no clothes whom everyone ignores for the sake of living in peace because we are afraid to admit that insanity rules.
Lewis’ point is that Dualism itself is a false trail. He concedes that it is better than admitting no evil at all exists, but its deception is that evil has an independent status on the same footing as good, “the same autonomy and completeness” reducing good and evil to simple partisan preferences of equal validity. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah once commented on this kind of thinking and belief by denouncing it: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who change darkness into light and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20) As Lewis sums it up, “A sound theory of value demands something different.”
The proposal that an immoral and even evil course of action is justifiable because of the “good” end benefits, whether at a personal or communal level, is the subtlest end-run around “a sound theory of value”. We have all heard this as “the ends justify the means”. Thank you for that pearl of cynical wisdom, Machiavelli! The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck phrased it for politics and state-craft as “Realpolitik”.
In a perfect world we would not have to deal with such thinking, but we have all run into conundrums in our own lives about whether or not to tell the truth, or perhaps “to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Whether or not to “snitch”, be a tattle-tale. When is it more right, or better, to withhold the truth or part of it, to perhaps allow a little larceny to produce a much better result for someone (or oneself) which will promote a greater long-term good? Or perhaps to protect someone from harm and even death – as in sheltering a Jew during the Holocaust? Or a fugitive slave? A human-made law in and of itself is not necessarily right. We all understand that there is a “higher law”, a “sound theory of value” that we are all yearning for.
At the personal level normal people have a conscience to guide them regarding good and evil. Children need to learn not to hurt others, not to take what is not theirs, not to lie, but there is an innate sense that there are good and bad things – even if only at first in learning that some behaviors result in bad consequences. But the ability to differentiate is already inborn.
Evil has a personal face, all the time. A natural process is not “evil” of itself, but can have evil effects on the living creatures sometimes caught in its path. Since we do not control these processes, we call them “acts of God”.
But the Creator is not “evil” for creating a cosmos in which its elements and processes may bring pain and suffering on the beings inhabiting it. Those beings are also part of that cosmos, but the difference is that some of them are aware of how things proceed, of the kinds of effects some actions can produce – both on themselves and on other creatures, and even on the non-living part of the cosmos. That is where the moral element enters.
This is a very complex issue and relationship, much debated by philosophers and theologians since humans could record their thoughts. The Biblical Book of Job is possibly the first treatise dealing with it in depth ever written. It is still a compelling read, even for people who do not normally look into the Bible. If you have a few hours during your present confinement, I recommend you (re)read it! The end is rather shocking but quite a revelation and certainly humbling.
So what of the issue of God and evil, as per Lewis’s little essay? Is the existence of evil, in all its forms, impersonal “acts of God” and personal acts of malevolence, a convincing “proof” that no eternal, infinite, all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing Creator can possibly exist? Or perhaps it proves, as per Dualism, that there are really two battling deities at war in the Cosmos? Or is it really, contrary to modern-post-modern received wisdom, proof that there is such a Creator as the West’s traditional all-good, all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Creator?
As Lewis tells us (if you look up his little essay it is a ten-minute reading gold-mine) in “Evil and God”, the Dualism choice is better than the first one in the above paragraph, because it explains more of what we really meet in the Cosmos as it is. But it is much inferior to the third choice he offers.
Our problem is that we westerners have so little foundation in metaphysics and spiritual formation that we do not have a way to fit a God who could allow evil to exist into any box we are capable of constructing. Our scientific, materialist mindset insists that any Deity who can really exist must be measurable and reducible to categories that our finite minds can create. (Of course, if we could so delineate and define God, He/She would not be God!)
The paradox is that we don’t want to be told that there is an absolute truth and standard that is above and beyond what we are willing to accept either within our society or within our personal lives. After all, I am an autonomous, independent, self-aware, self-determining being. How dare some God tell me, in any way, what I am really made for and how I can best discover all I am meant to be! We want the right to tell a Creator what He/She ought to do and be, and how!
However, despite all our Ophelian protests to the contrary (Hamlet saying of his lady-love, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much…”), our nature tells us that we are made to know that there is a Creator and that we are made to be in personal relationship with Him/Her.
Somehow, when we arrive there, the good-evil dilemma, dialectic, paradox, etc., begins to take on a different face. We become the “sane man” in Lewis’ phraseology, who is “able to see all around evil (as when sane men understand lunacy) while evil cannot retaliate in kind”.
TO BE CONTINUED
World.V.You 