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Evil: Myth or Truth?Preached at St. Barnabas Church, Bellville, TX The Third Sunday after Trinity, 2010 by The Rev. Stephen E. Stults
I Peter 5:8-9 Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, Our Epistle selection for the day brings forth an interesting question, which depending on your social circle, may have various answers. This question is: what is the nature of evil in this world? Delving deeper into this question, it brings another related corollary: is the idea of objective evil a myth, or is it truth? If one has associates among those who deem themselves as secular intellectuals, yet who are devoid of a lively faith, the answer one might receive is one of mild incredulity or even derision. “What!” your associates might exclaim. “You believe in evil as an objective reality? You actually accept the idea that there’s some sort of supernatural evil entity arrayed against you? How delightfully quaint! How primitive and simplistic!” On the other hand, you may also have associates in the other “camp,” so to speak, who believe, as St. Peter does, that “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 St. Peter 5:8). So, brethren, which is it? Do we, as 21st century Reformed Episcopalians, believe that the Devil really exists, that there really is a supernatural enemy named Satan? How can we actually believe that there is an Enemy Below against us? Or, do we prefer, like much of the world, to believe that evil is a matter of behavioral mis-priorities? In other words, does evil exist simply because people misbehave and do “bad” things to one another? If that is true, isn’t it a pity that people just can’t learn to avoid doing what society deems as inappropriate behavior? Why can’t people just learn to be “good”? In short, is so-called “bad” behavior learned, inherited, or does it simply exist in Man? What do you think? These are very powerful questions. Yet to simplify and to clarify our thinking, it all boils down to one very important question: is evil inside of us, or is outside? Said another way, are we actually affected by an external source of evil, or is it just our failure as a race (the human race) to learn proper behavior? We all know people that feel this way. Notice that we said “feel,” not “think.” One of the problems of our modern society is that we have for years been asked how we feel about situations, rather than how we think about them. The result of this is the exultation of transient emotion over cool, rational thought. Over time, it diminishes one’s ability to decide rationally using principle as a guide and places our choices as the mercy of our turbulent emotions. Over time, our moral choices are in danger of becoming mere emotional responses, rather than being based on solid doctrinal grounds. In short, if we follow these, we know what is right and wrong, rather than deciding how we feel about them. Continuing our question about whether evil is internal or external, objective or subjective, let use address society’s views about it. Most people, intellectual or not, will agree that there is something called “evil” in the world. If one presses them for a clearer definition, however, their response may become somewhat more muddled, if they can give an answer at all. Usually, their definition of evil will take the form of some amorphous, non-definable “force” in the World, or a generalized statement about the acts of a few misguided, “mad” individuals, such as a Hitler or a Stalin. This may be followed up by a fervent hope or solid belief in the ability of education to erase, eventually, all evil from the world. It’s only a matter of time before people learn enough to become enlightened and thus cast off their evil ways. Time, education, and of course, money will eventually win the day, some people say. As usual, let me issue my disclaimer here. As you know, I come from a family of farmers and teachers. Thus, I heartily believe in education. It truly makes the difference between barbarism and civility. Yet, it too has its limitations. One cannot simply educate away the evil in mankind. If that were true, wouldn’t we as the human race have gotten it about right by now? How many more hundreds or even thousands of years will it take for mankind to be perfected? No, unfortunately, we all know the answer. Education, good wonderful education, only makes us more knowledgeable and perhaps a little more efficient as we find new and better ways to kill one another. History is, and will always be, violent, brutish and nasty. No doubt there is some marginal, even major improvement in the quality of life over time, thanks to education and the piling up of technology from year to year. This is good. Yet, when it comes time to violently disagree, the usual outcome is the same: the shedding of blood. Thus, when we consider these sad facts and to actually answer the question of whether evil is external or internal, we need to adopt an interesting stance by recognizing that it is actually not an “either-or” situation, but rather a “both-and” one. That is, evil is both objective and subjective, while existing both externally and internally in Man. How can this be? How can evil be both objective and subjective? How can evil exist both externally and internally? This is where it gets interesting… First, it cannot be denied that evil is recognizable. We know when something is not right, just as we know when something is not fair. One cannot easily define justice, yet all of us can describe how it feels to be treated unjustly. Similarly, we can all recognize evil. The difference, as we alluded to earlier, is that the Christian knows that there is an objective nature to evil. We know this because the Word of God tells us so, in Genesis, in this book, in all four Gospels, the Book of Daniel, and of course, the Book of Revelations, plus many other references. The Bible is littered with references to Satan, many of them from Christ Himself. This may be enough for some believers, since they believe if the Word of God says so, it is true. Your Vicar is one of those individuals. Another objective witness to the objective nature of evil is simply our knowledge of history. When we recall horrendous acts done by man consistently over history, can we really deny that evil is objective? Take, for example, the mass murders in Rwanda a number of years ago, as two major tribes sought, literally, to annihilate each other. Literally, millions of peoples died. What a witness to objective evil… The second way we believe in Satan is from personal experience. This is the subjective side of our knowledge of it. Some of us in this room may have had a personal experience with an evil presence, as with Martin Luther’s encounter with an evil presence, at which he flung his inkpot. This is not just a bad feeling about something, but rather a real meeting with utter malignity. You will know and remember it if it happens to you. Most humans cannot truly fathom what true evil is until they experience the utter hate, desolation, and fear that it entails. Prayer is the only answer and, of course, it works. The other subjective reality to evil is that way that it affects each person, believer or not. There is not a person alive who has not been tempted to do something that they know is wrong. Even the most icy-hearted atheist, one who has totally shut God out of his heart, has been tempted to do something that rebels against his sense of morality. After all, atheists and agnostics have morals; it’s just that they are man-centered, not God centered. As such, they are limited to some degree and usually require the force of secular law. Evil is subjective in that each person is tempted in different ways, albeit always within well-worn pathways of sin. After all, we know that Satan is unable to create; he can merely twist, distort, or pervert that which already exists. He is never creative, merely repetitive. So far, we have seen that evil is far more than just a myth because: we as humans recognize its existence, we have history as our guide, and because the Word of God tell us so. It has both an objective quality and subjective quality to it. Now, let us address the question of whether evil is external or internal. Once again, it may very well be that it is a not either-or, but a both-and situation. In order to answer this, we must ask one final question: what causes humans to respond to evil? If, as many Christians believe and what most people simply recognize, there is some sort of phenomenon called “evil” in the World, why are people swayed by it? Why don’t people simply do right? Does evil actually live inside of us and is it more than just habitual bad behavior? How can it be that our interior selves respond to and allow themselves to be led by evil? It simply can’t be that we have evil in us. After all, God made all things and pronounced them “good.” The answer to
this is obvious to the Christian, while at the same time it is more
troublesome and even repellent to those of the World. It is simply that,
although we were indeed created good, indeed the foremost of God’s
creations, man was given enough freedom and free will to rebel; and
unfortunately, rebel we did.
We know that our first parents rebelled against God, choosing to follow
their own wills instead of his. Our nature is fallen, the very image of
God once created in us killed by sin. It may be grossly unfair, but that’s the way it is. Why else would our
natures respond to the evil around us and why else is it possible that
the evil within, our fallen-ness, should in any way respond to temptation? If we were completely good,
this temptation would be impossible, because it would have no fertile
ground on which to sprout. Our external enemy, Satan, would have
absolutely no basis on which to speak to our internal selves if there
were no common language.
Yet, sadly, there is. Despite our innate goodness from our creation and despite the image of God that was planted in us, our fallen-ness inside wants to respond to the fallen-ness without. This is rather a gloomy picture. Or rather, it would be, without one magnificent ray of light piercing our gloom and our darkness. This ray can be expressed in three simple words: Jesus is Lord! He has restored us, He has repaired the shattered image of God in us, and He has given us one more critical thing. What is that? He has given us faith, faith so powerful that it empowers us to resist the One who would cast us down. He has given us power to resist the external evil of this World, Satan, while reforming us inside so that we can resist our internal impulse to sin as well. Will we, can we, be successful at this? Yes. Every time? No. Yet, our failure is the glory of God, because He knows what a battle we are in. We win sometimes, we lose often, but through God’s Grace, we never give up trying. Through all of it, we must strive to maintain our joy, for that, despite our tribulations and our failures in righteousness, that is our difference from the World. Let us celebrate this difference with joy and thanksgiving. I Peter 5:10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. Amen |
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All material on this site is copyright © 2011 St. Barnabas Anglican Church, except where an author is named. In such cases, the author retains all rights. |
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