Evil As a Contemporary Concept

Some take evil to be the opposite of good, but this may be an excessively loose definition. Others use the term evil to mean premeditated human acts that involve profound immorality.

The study of evil has had something of a comeback in philosophy. This has been fueled by the actions of twentieth-century dictators who literally or metaphorically have personified evil. The interest of philosophers in evil has not waned. Dictators continue to do diabolical things and there is little hope that this will change. As long as they continue, questions about evil will remain front and center. Even thinkers who struggle precisely to define it often argue that we ignore or trivialize evil only at our peril.

In contemporary philosophy, two understandings of evil are common, one broad and the other narrow. The broad understanding defines evil as pain and suffering, regardless of who or what causes it. It therefore encompasses both natural and moral evil. The narrower definition applies the term only to moral agents and what they bring about. According to this more restrictive understanding, to call someone or something evil is to use the strongest form of opprobrium; it is to condemn as despicable those characters or deeds that horrify the normal human conscience. Such evil becomes unfathomable.

Many people deny that evil exists or downplay evil by explaining it away. Some suggest that what appears to be evil is simply a lack of enlightenment, of failing to internalize norms of decency. Others argue that what appears to be evil is the direct or indirect result of poverty. All such ways of treating evil strip the concept of its horrendous essence.

Because God creates only what is good, some theologians have advanced the idea that evil does not exist in itself but only as an absence or corruption. This view has merit, but it may not take us the whole way to grasping the nature of evil.

Evil can be sorted into two broad categories, natural and moral. Examples of natural evil are devastating earthquakes and lethal tsunamis. No human being causes them. Natural evil is a built-in part of our existence. It can be challenging for a Christian to make sense of natural evil. Why, for example, does God allow tragedies to befall small children? Does God lack the power to change things? Or does God not care?

Moral evil, by contrast, involves human agency, which means people are behind it. Making sense of moral evil within the context of Christianity becomes easier if we take seriously the idea of free will. No one has complete free will, since our thoughts, attitudes, and inclinations, consciously or unconsciously, reflect our backgrounds, including how and where we have been raised. But, as the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre pointed out, we always have the ability to say no. Yet, saying no will always be easier for some than for others.

God has given us the capacity to ignore or defy the divine order of things, and to inflict on other human beings unspeakable forms of brutality. Dictators think nothing of exterminating thousands if not millions in the service of their quest for prestige, wealth, or territory, and sometimes for sex. Or simply out of pride, as exemplified by the biblical story of Herod who, to avoid embarrassment in front of his quests, refused to renege on a promise he’d made to Salome and ordered John the Baptist beheaded.

Christians who believe God ordains even the tiniest thing that happens can end up in the difficult position of having to reconcile their belief that we have freedom of choice, with their belief that God determines everything, including all human decisions such as which button to push on a vending machine. Some soften this position by arguing that God has an overarching plan but leaves the minor decisions to us. The challenge becomes to figure out where human choice yields to divine providence.

Moral choice inevitably raises questions about the devil. Does a real devil exist, and if so what can and can’t that devil influence, and how? Or is the devil, referred to in the New Testament, a metaphor? The Oxford don, Cambridge Professor, and writer C. S. Lewis became a Christian when he was roughly thirty. At first, he didn’t take the existence of a devil seriously, but as he moved through the rest of his life he increasingly did. This inspired him to write one of his most popular books, The Screwtape Letters, about a veteran devil advising a novice one.

Regardless of how one makes sense of it, and no matter what we call it, evil is out there, ready to affect us. When it does, when evil invades our life, say by the sudden loss of a child, its existence becomes highly personal What had previously been an abstract problem turns into a test of faith. Perhaps the ultimate test for a Christian is how he or she relates to God in the wake of seemingly senseless tragedy.