It is good that evil exists!

[Bahman]

I think you have to meditate further on the story.

I mediated enough on this story when I was thinking about the origin of evil.

Satan was given the one attempt.

Poor Satan, the only being which all blames go on him. The one who could solve the puzzle of evil emergence after his fall, yet we close our eyes on the puzzle that why he fell? Moreover why Satan should have access to Garden seducing two innocent beings knowing they will fail and eat the fruit? No my friend this story offers more question that it answer unless you accept that putting Adam and Eve on that situation was evil and for much greater GOOD.

Now we happily(?) go on sinning of our own accord without encouragement.
Then, we were in a state of grace where we had more control and, being closer to God, would be unable to consider sinning: not quite heaven where the goodness makes sin impossible, but definitely not where we are now in our broken state.

Broken state? You must be kidding. We are very fine and doing well. Self-awareness brings suffering, like it or not, no matter where you are and what you are doing.

You understand putting the tree in the garden as an evil act. It would have, if we had chosen God, permitted us to grow more deeply in our understanding and love of God.

It is not only putting the tree there that was evil. Giving Satan access to Garden was evil too.

Again, the chain of events culminated in the birth, death and resurrection of our Saviour, demonstrating the infinite depth of God’s love for us.

Saviour? Why we are in state of suffering yet? Why we should still be here?

We all suffer; at any point some more than others. In many (most) cases, we find solace in Him.

We find solace when find the strength to face the reality as it is. Our minds goes up and down which is necessary as well since state of up/happiness losses its meaning without any down/sadness as good losses its meaning without evil.

I am interested; how do you understand suffering? It is so real, and when severe, it cannot be intellectualized away. It is there reaching to the core of our existence.

Suffering is crucial and it is evil. It could lead us to state of breakdown which is not very pleasant yet it leads to higher resistance and strength.

One can seek Nirvana, but it is a very rare accomplishment.

One has to seek truth and find the truth and truth will set him/her free.

Christians have the transcendent symbol if the cross with its ultimate conclusion, the resurrection. Through our pain we have the possibility of connecting with God, who knows and shares in our suffering making us new.

Making us new, sure I agree with that but I don’t think the concept is Christian.

There is a very real answer to pain.

This is the price we have to pay for awareness. Higher level of awareness more suffering, more power, more responsibility toward others.

To me your comment suggests that it was evil to create us. This is all pretty amazing!!! So, I wouldn’t agree.

Where is the origin of evil when everything is created good?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Poor Satan, the only being which all blames go on him. The one who could solve the puzzle of evil emergence after his fall, yet we close our eyes on the puzzle that why he fell? Moreover why Satan should have access to Garden seducing two innocent beings knowing they will fail and eat the fruit? No my friend this story offers more question that it answer unless you accept that putting Adam and Eve on that situation was evil and for much greater GOOD.

***“Poor Satan” - seriously?
Satan is not responsible for my sins nor for the fall of mankind. You misunderstand Genesis.
He fell because he chose himself over God; his sin would be pride.
Satan was permitted in the garden so that man’s faith in and love of God could be proven. We failed; but we are given a second chance.
I do not see Adam and Eve as innocents; they had far greater grace bestowed upon them than ourselves. They spoke with God; when was the last time you did? ***

Broken state? You must be kidding. We are very fine and doing well. Self-awareness brings suffering, like it or not, no matter where you are and what you are doing.

If I were kidding, I would use an emote.
Not everyone is doing fine and well.
I do not understand your statement that self-awareness brings suffering. I have known several people who became demented and no longer knew who they were; I saw them suffer. Human suffering is of a spiritual nature

. . . Our minds goes up and down which is necessary as well since state of up/happiness losses its meaning without any down/sadness as good losses its meaning without evil.

Happiness is not a lack of sadness; quite the opposite, sadness comes from loss

. . . One has to seek truth and find the truth and truth will set him/her free.

Yep; the ultimate Truth being God

. . . Where is the origin of evil when everything is created good?

It is clear to me as described above. What do you see as the origin of evil?

 

[tonyrey]

Indeed, they did not. Angels are in eternity, outside of time. They had to make their choice once and for all time. Once their choice was made, their choice was everlasting. The consequences of their choice were immediate and irrevocable.

I don’t believe we have sufficient information to know whether the fallen angels had only one opportunity. They certainly weren’t in heaven because how could they reject God if they were in His Presence? They must have been at an epistemic distance to be capable of doing so.

 

[tonyrey]

Keeping a kid in a close room, showing a super nice cookie and then telling that you are never allowed to touch the cookie is evil.

Not evil but unrealistic!

More to the point is that the origin of evil is found in our power to choose how to live and whether to love ourselves at the expense of others.

 

[mommamaree]

I don’t believe we have sufficient information to know whether the fallen angels had only one opportunity. They certainly weren’t in heaven because how could they reject God if they were in His Presence? They must have been at an epistemic distance to be capable of doing so.

I am confused by your responses. Are you unaware that these questions have already been asked and answered by the Catholic Church, by its theologians and its saints?

Maybe I am misunderstanding the purpose of this forum. I thought, this being Catholic Answers, that the Philosophy forum was a place to explore philosophy through the prism of what the Church teaches. Perhaps I am wrong?

 

[tonyrey]

Being able to sin-and actually sinning and so introducing evil into the world-are two different things. But God knew Adam would sin, and, creating His universe in a “state of journeying” towards perfection as the catechism teaches, He deemed it worthwhile to create even so.

No one can deny there has been development in the universe since the Big Bang. No reasonable person behaves as if life is valueless, pointless and meaningless:

“By their fruits you shall know them”.

Either putrid and poisonous or mature and delicious…

“Ripeness is all” (Edgar - King Lear).

 

[philv]

I like the quote, “The devil tries to remind us of our past, but we will remind him of his future.” Because of our dependency of God is learned, it’s better than being “wired” to depend. The meaning is richer since it’s learned. Otherwise we’d be robots who are programmed. I think God would be bored with robots quickly being “programmed” to worship him and avoid sin.

 

[ffg]

Interesting thread.

I would say no, if evil never existed, that would be good.

But I would submit my sig since evil does exist.

 

[tonyrey]

1. If evil events had never occurred nothing would have existed.
2. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage.
3. There is no such thing as a free lunch (life).
4. Everything has its price.
5. Cosmic justice is at the core of life.
6. Only God is perfect in every respect.

 

[tonyrey]

I like the quote, “The devil tries to remind us of our past, but we will remind him of his future.” Because of our dependency of God is learned, it’s better than being “wired” to depend. The meaning is richer since it’s learned. Otherwise we’d be robots who are programmed. I think God would be bored with robots quickly being “programmed” to worship him and avoid sin.

Robots are efficient but incapable of love…

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t believe we have sufficient information to know whether the fallen angels had only one opportunity. They certainly weren’t in heaven because how could they reject God if they were in His Presence? They must have been at an epistemic distance to be capable of doing so.

Neither the Church nor its theologians nor its saints claim to be omniscient! There are divergences of opinion on many topics.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the purpose of this forum. I thought, this being Catholic Answers, that the Philosophy forum was a place to explore philosophy through the prism of what the Church teaches.

Within the prism of what the Church teaches there is plenty of scope for the discussion of metaphysical, epistemological, moral, legal, social, political, economic, aesthetic and spiritual issues.

 

[tonyrey]

1. If evil events had never occurred nothing would have existed.

“nothing” refers to the absence of material reality and does not apply to
immaterial reality.

 

[Bahman]

Not evil but unrealistic!

More to the point is that the origin of evil is found in our power to choose how to live and whether to love ourselves at the expense of others.

Unrealistic? This was exactly the situation of Adam and Eve.

 

[Bahman]

***“Poor Satan” - seriously?
Satan is not responsible for my sins nor for the fall of mankind. You misunderstand Genesis.
He fell because he chose himself over God; his sin would be pride.
Satan was permitted in the garden so that man’s faith in and love of God could be proven. We failed; but we are given a second chance.
I do not see Adam and Eve as innocents; they had far greater grace bestowed upon them than ourselves. They spoke with God; when was the last time you did? ***

Since his fall is paradoxical hence he doesn’t exist. His fall is paradoxical since everybody could fall once one being with free will fall in heaven hence heaven is not a safe place for a being with free will. The situation of Adam and Eve is paradoxical since they were in evil situation, namely they could sin, they have live in the garden forever and the tree was there too. This means that they would eventually perform the sin, eating the fruit.

If I were kidding, I would use an emote.
Not everyone is doing fine and well.
I do not understand your statement that self-awareness brings suffering. I have known several people who became demented and no longer knew who they were; I saw them suffer. Human suffering is of a spiritual nature

Which one hurt you more, the fact that you might be in pain, or the fact that you are aware that you are in pain.

Happiness is not a lack of sadness; quite the opposite, sadness comes from loss

I didn’t say so.

Yep; the ultimate Truth being God

You cannot know God unless you are God.

It is clear to me as described above. What do you see as the origin of evil?

It is pretty unclear for me as we could neither experience evil nor perform evil unless it was a part of creation.

 

[tonyrey]

Unrealistic? This was exactly the situation of Adam and Eve.

“Keeping **a kid **in a close room, showing a super nice cookie and then telling that you are never allowed to touch the cookie is evil” is undoubtedly unrealistic…

 

[ffg]

1. If evil events had never occurred nothing would have existed.
2. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage.
3. There is no such thing as a free lunch (life).
4. Everything has its price.
5. Cosmic justice is at the core of life.
6. Only God is perfect in every respect.

I don’t know if you are joking, but…

1. God had to create before evil existed.
2. Not necessarily, Heaven existed before Hell was created to house evil.
3. As mercy and forgiveness seem to be more core to God, I would disagree, or maybe the ‘Our Father’ would have said 'Don’t forgive us our trespasses, because want our Cosmic Justice."
4. Can’t disagree there.

 

[TheHolyGhost]

This apparent paradox is summed up in the words “felix culpa”. If we hadn’t sinned Jesus wouldn’t have redeemed us and we wouldn’t understand God’s love. In fact we wouldn’t be capable of unselfish love if we couldn’t sin! What is your view?

The ends dont justify the means.

 

[tonyrey]

The ends dont justify the means.

1. Wouldn’t you tell a lie to save a person’s life?
2. Do you reject the principle that we should choose the lesser of two evils?
3. Do you believe God shouldn’t have created us with free will?

 

[inocente]

1. Do you reject the principle that we should choose the lesser of two evils?

You need to define what you mean. For instance, where an airliner is likely to be used as a terrorist weapon, the German Federal Constitutional Court held that the greater evil would be to shoot it down, as that violates the right to life and human dignity of innocent passengers, whereas your government holds it to be the lesser evil, as it sacrifices the passengers to protect a greater number of lives on the ground.

 

[Coolhandlukeboy]

the problem is evil doesn’t exist, it is a privation of the good.

This

As was pointed out Evil does not exist .- for God would never create evil. When we sin we create the absence of good"

And this, although we do not “create” an absence of good either.

It would be somewhat misleading to discuss evil without starting with this - that evil is a lack of good - or including it implicitly. And it would be misleading to say evil exists even for the purpose of illustration.

St. Augustine - Father of the Church - spoke about the “Problem of Evil” (note bene: not the existence of evil). You can see this in his text from the Enchiridion. I will summarize it:

1. All of creation is good: Unless we exist, we cannot have goodness/God.
2. Good can be increased or decreased in created things, but never fully lost.
3. There must first be a “thing” which exists, before it can be corrupted.
4. There is no evil without good: how can something be evil without first existing (and to exist is good)
5. What about an evil person? Inasmuch as God willed the person to be, he is good.

This means that there is a base level of goodness to all of creation. All of it is created for God. Man is created for God. As such, to exist is good. To choose good things is greater. To choose God himself is best.

To merely exist as a human [edit: able to choose the good, but merely eats, drinks, sleeps and has sex] would imply some evil, for if man is made for God, but doesn’t choose God, he is lacking God. We call this evil. Any lack of God is evil. So any action we perform that is not directed at God would lack some goodness and therefore would contain some “evil” (some lacking of good)

This fuels soooo many Catholic ideas. Human Dignity and mortal and venial sins, for example. Any act that doesn’t have God as its end is a grave matter (grounds for mortal sin), and completely evil. Any act that even partially has God as an end is grounds for venial sin. Any purely good act is directed to God, and would lack no goodness.

Even Satan is good inasmuch as God created him and willed him to be in heaven with Him. Christ calls Satan the evil one, not because God created him, but because Satan does no good whatsoever. Must stink to be Satan, wanting to be evil, but incapable by his nature of being pure evil.

This means that saying Hitler is evil is not a true statement, and a very un-Catholic one. Hitler did evil things. But God made Hitler to share in his eternal happiness. Hitler chose actions that completely were devoid of God. But inasmuch as he was a human being, we should love and pray for him.

But in my humble opinion, I think the most important discussion about evil is to address what it should be. How many youth feel God just says no to everything? The problem of evil is that it isn’t love. Murder lacks love completely. Idolatry lacks love of God completely. Coveting goods/people lacks love completely (for it to be grave matter, we put material things as our end, instead of God. In other words, we don’t choose to love God)

St. Augustine is also well known for saying that sin is a disordered love. I think this is the best way to really get at sin and evil. The correct order of love should be God first, others second, ourselves third and all material creation fourth. This is Biblical, by the way. If you need references, then I could provide them.

Example: so, my children want me to make them dinner, but I’d rather watch television. Disordered love. I ought to put my children first (as others) and television last (or not at all). This is sin.

Adam and Eve’s first sin was to love themselves over God. Sure, some people will hound on the fact that they disobeyed. But that is a negative view of sin and love. Adam and Eve placed themselves first, over each other and over God. And they did so through material creation. The Fall of Man was a disordered love.

Think in our lives, what our sins are. We disorder our loves. Instead of loving God and others, we put ourselves first through material things:

e.g. My friend hasn’t heard about God. I’m not going to say anything because I fear ridicule (disordered love: love myself over others)
e.g. I am attracted to a hot woman and decide to commit adultery. (I love myself over both my wife and the “hot” woman, and potentially over the child which may result from such a “union”. A threefold disordered love!!!)
e.g. I could pray, but I’d rather fool around on my smartphone (disordered love: material things over God)

In conclusion… the problem with evil, is that we aren’t loving enough. People blame God for allowing evil, when in fact it is we who aren’t loving as God. If all of mankind loved as God loved (even if we tried and failed to love as God loves), what a different world we’d have! So it isn’t that evil is the problem, it is that we aren’t loving enough, and in a proper order.

In closing, one could speak about free will. But it has been spoken of before and seems rather obvious now after numerous posts. Why does man have free will? To choose good. The best good is God, and is the purpose of man. Thus, the most appropriate choice is God. Anything less, will contain diminishing “goodness”.

No, I will stick with sin/evil as a disordered love. Evil is when one loves less than one ought to, and something less worthy of our love.