Loving A Hidden God
MAKING SENSE OF EVIL
It would be ridiculous to condemn in created things the various deficiencies which gradually wear away their corruptible nature. It was by the will of the Creator that their fleeting existence should contribute to the loveliness of those earthly seasons which display the harmony of the universe. It is the nature of transitory things that some are born while others die, that the weak give way to the strong, that the victim nourishes the life of the victor. If the beauty of this order fails to delight us, it is because we are so trapped in this corner of the universe that we cannot see the beauty of the totality where particular parts, which seem ugly to us, blend together in a beautiful harmony.
City of God, 12.4
The first thing that needs to be said is the evil exists. (On Free Choice, 3.8.22) The excessive optimism of a Pollyanna denying the reality of evil simply does not make good sense. Bad things happen, sometimes to good people, sometimes to the innocent. Bad things happen to us and the people and things we love. A life's work is destroyed by some natural disaster, a home is destroyed by tornado, a farm is decimated by flood or drought, our animal friends suffer and die, our crops are eaten by insect predators.
And worst of all (speaking as human chauvinists) WE get sick. WE will die. WE are falling apart. Perhaps you are willing to write this off in my case by observing that I have already lived a good number of years, but that does not satisfy me at all because, you see, I want to live FOREVER. Even granted that old fossils like me should eventually "go gracefully (and not kicking and screaming) into the night", what justification can be given for the suffering and death of children? Why do I go on living while those whom I love are plagued with illness and eventually die?
How in the world can any reasonable person ignore the OBVIOUS EVIL that we humans inflict on each other and on the world in which we live? The Holocaust did not happen by accident. It was caused by the malice and indifference of human beings like you and me. The pain that we sometimes inflict on our children, the brutal way in which we sometimes treat our animals, the way in which we sometimes pollute our physical environment ... these are not fictions. Reflecting on his own adolescent perversions, Augustine remarked that it almost seems that we humans sometimes do evil just for the fun of it. Indeed, one scholar wrote a doctoral thesis arguing that at least the amount of evil in the world is a sign that Satan does indeed exist and is active here and now.
I am not quite sure I would go that far. Humans are very efficient in raising hell without angelic help. We do quite well in causing suffering in others of our species and any lesser species that gets in our way. Of course ALL the suffering in the world can't be blamed on us. It seems that we live in a universe of predators who express their nature when they bring down and consume anything that gets in their way.
The philosopher Hume remarked that "Man is a wolf to man" but he could just as easily have said that "Bacteria is a wolf to man". It is true that sometimes our illnesses are caused by our own bad decisions but in other cases we get sick because we are infected by some death-dealing microbe. And even without such germ attacks from without, there seems to be a natural fragility in the human body and the universe itself which dictates that "all will pass away." We call all of these "bad" things "bad" because we wish that they could be avoided. We wish that there would be no suffering, no death, no decay in ourselves and the people that we love. We want to live forever and we want the good things and good people we cherish to live forever too.
From our point of view, the world does not seem to be a perfect place. Evil seems to be an "absence" of something more than "thing". It is more of a hole than a "blotch" on reality. (Confessions, 7.12.18) Thus, vice is an absence of virtue. Death in animals and plants is the absence of life. Disease is the absence of health. When a disease is cured, this does not mean that it has gone somewhere else. I do not rid myself of a cold by giving it to someone else. My return to health means only that my sickness, the hole in my health, has been filled. Similarly, overcoming my vice does not impose it upon another. My lack of virtue is not a "demon" which must be cast out. It is a gap in my moral life that needs to be filled. (Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Charity, 3.11)
The fact of "evil" (the apparently "imperfect") in the universe gives rise to two questions, one speculative and one practical. The speculative question is, "How can evil exist in a universe created by a good God?" The practical question is, "How should I deal with the evil I see around me and my own tendency to do evil?" Each of these questions needs to be considered in turn.
First the speculative question: "Why does evil exist?" Augustine did not consider the evil that we attribute to such natural events as death, suffering, destructive storms, etc., as mysterious as the evil that we knowingly and willingly choose to commit ourselves. It is sad, but not mysterious, when a child dies of disease. But it is sad and mysterious when a child dies as the result of the neglect and/or brutality of its parents. Augustine's faith told him that all created things (even the most ephemeral) are reflections of God's perfections and are always good. (83 Diverse Questions, 46.1-2)
The earth wears down and living things die. Such "fading away" causes suffering in living things sensitive to pain and causes an additional pain in those animals who can love and who perceive their loved one's suffering and dying. Is such wasting away a sign of a defect in creation? Certainly it seems better to be incorruptible than corruptible. (Confessions, 7.4.6) But does it therefore follow that it is an evil when a contingent being exists which will someday fall apart? All of creation comes from nothing and there are only two alternatives: to be corruptible or not-to-be at all. (City of God, 12.4)
Perhaps God could have preserved everything in its natural state for all eternity. All of creation (ourselves included) hang in existence by a "thread" and there seems to be no good reason why that "thread" could not have been made unbreakable. But would this have been a good thing? The beauty of reality comes both from the immutable unity of God and from the coming and going of created things and in the latter case there is a certain majesty in the orderly "giving way" of the old to the new. Creation is something like a poem or a grand speech whose beauty comes from the passing away and new creation of syllable after syllable. (On Order, 2.4.13; Confessions, 4.10.15) So too in the art of argumentation (Augustine observes):
Anyone who is so entranced by one phase of an argument that they refuse to move on to the next step is rightfully judged to be insane.
On Free Choice, 3.15.42
It is likewise foolish to say that created things should not pass away. The orderly process of old yielding to new is the essence of the beauty of creation. (City of God, 11.22)
Things pass; only humans are forever. The true tragedy, the true evil in creation is the sometimes stupid and sometimes perverse human choice of finite over infinite, of the temporal over the eternal. As Augustine writes:
A wicked will is the cause of all evil. If the will acted in accord with its nature (to seek the good), it certainly would preserve its nature and not harm it. It would not therefore be wicked. From all this it is clear that the root of all evil is simple this:
not being in accord with nature.
Freedom of the Will, 3.17.48
From his own experience and from his reading of scripture, Augustine recognized that our present condition is such that we are good but wounded. We are born with ignorance about what we should do and an inability to choose easily the course that is good for us. (On Free Choice, 3.20.55) We are like those born addicted to drugs and we need help to overcome our addiction. We have been captured by the effects of past evil choices and now we need release from captivity before we can exercise the freedom to do good.
Augustine interpreted the story told in Genesis strictly and was convinced that the first evil act, the "turning away from God" by angels and human beings, was their own perfectly free act. (On True Religion, 21.41) When humans fell from God it was not like the falling of a stone controlled by forces outside itself. (On Free Choice, 3.1.2) It was due to their own free choice. Their evil act rejecting God was not a sin of weakness but a sin of Pride. The free human spirit became so satisfied with itself, so delighted with its own powers, that it tried to be God. It was (writes Augustine)
... like prisoners who, having no fear of punishment because of a delusion of power, create for themselves the illusion of "being in charge" by doing something wrong.
Confessions, 2.16.14
The healthy Adam sinned and the whole race became infected.
Is this not unfair? Augustine poses the question very succinctly:
Granted Adam and Eve sinned, but what did we poor wretches do? Why should we be born with the blindness of ignorance and the difficulty of trying to choose the good? Why should we enter life wandering about ignorant of what we should do? And why, when we are finally moved to do the right thing, should we be unable to do it because of an overpowering carnal desire?
On Free Choice, 3.19.53
The answer is that, as a result of the introduction of evil into history, the environment was changed. The human race ever after had to work out its destiny in a world far different from paradise. And, before we begin to blame God too vehemently, it is good to remember that THIS IS NOT THE WORLD THAT GOD WANTED! It is the world that humans chose.
Granted that those now wounded first human beings are our ancestors, it was only natural that their strength and weakness should be passed on to their descendants. Augustine believed that it would have been contradictory for the wounded Adam to produce offspring better than himself. (On Free Choice, 3.20.55) We are members of the same species and it is only natural that we should share common strengths and suffer a common weakness.
God could have intervened and protected the children of Adam from the effects of his poor choice, but to what end? There is certain fittingness in his non-intervention. God respected thereby the natural course whereby humanity reaps the harvest of its decisions for good or evil. But why did he not try to prevent that first bad choice, the original sin? Once again, to do so would have been to interfere with human freedom. As Augustine observes:
Certainly God had the power to make humans who could not sin. But He preferred to make them so that they had the power to sin or not sin as they wished. As a result there would be humans who gained merit from not sinning in this life and who then received in the next the reward of not being able to sin.
On Continence, 6.16
Whether an event is good or evil ultimately depends on whether it serves the purpose of creation. Even the least and most transient part of creation reflects an aspect of the goodness of God. Even the most vicious and malicious human being contains the most precious gift given to created things: the gift of freedom, the power to take responsibility for life. In the least and greatest part of creation God can discern his reflected goodness and loves it. (83 Diverse Questions, 46.1-2) It is this infinite love of God that gives every part of creation its value. Is it better to be than not to be even though one's existence may be brief? Is it better to be free than not to be free even though freedom is sometimes misused? For Augustine the answer was a resounding "Yes". To be a sign pointing to an infinite lover is a great gift even though it is for only a time. It is not absurd. It is glorious.
Augustine believed that this sometimes "tired old world" of ours is not only good but is in fact the best possible world. God would have preferred the world of paradise to have existed forever but not at the sacrifice of the freedom of human beings to make it otherwise. And even in the sometimes disorderly world that resulted, it is still possible for human beings (with the help of God) to lead decent lives and eventually achieve the eternal paradise of heaven. Thinking about such a wonderful possibility, Augustine confessed "I no longer wished for a better world," (Confessions, 7.13.19) and said to God, "Those who find fault with any part of your creation are simply crazy." (Confessions, 7.14.20)
But believing that this world is indeed the best, does not answer the
practical question of how we should deal with the evil that we find in the world and in
ourselves. As we shall see, the only reasonable solution is to face it bravely with
patience, prayer, prudence and perseverance.