The Origins of Evil

Don: Usually we think of evil as something that affects us adversely and personally—something that makes us suffer, causes us sorrow or pain, deprives us of wellbeing, disadvantages us, disrupts our happiness or contentment, afflicts us with loss. In short, we think of evil as anything that prevents us from living a joyous life. It could occur naturally or it could be man-made. If there is a scale of evil, at one end might just be sheer bad luck—being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of unforeseen circumstances. At the other end would be an evil acting deliberately against one.

As we see it, evil revolves around our own perspective. We define it based on how it affects us (and how we see it affecting others) not just physically but also mentally and emotionally.

From the temptation of Jesus, we know that evil is not of God: It is of the devil. It is not defined as something that is simply bad or simply not good; rather, it is defined (via the three temptations of Jesus) as self-reliance, self-worship, and self-appropriation of God’s power to one’s own cause.

The temptation of Eve is described thus:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 4:1-13)

The serpent is “crafty”. The original Hebrew is עָרוּם  (arum), which can also mean shrewd or sensible. Other English translations of the Bible use “subtle”, “cunning” “astute” and “wily”. The Hebrew word appears extensively in the book of Proverbs. A review of them might shed some light on the nature of the serpent, and the nature of evil:

A fool’s anger is known at once,
But a prudent man conceals dishonor. (Proverbs 12:16)

A prudent man conceals knowledge,
But the heart of fools proclaims folly. (Proverbs 12:23)

Every prudent man acts with knowledge,
But a fool displays folly. (Proverbs 13:16)

The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way,
But the foolishness of fools is deceit. (Proverbs 14:8)

The prudent sees the evil and hides himself,
But the naive go on, and are punished for it. (Proverbs 22:3)

A prudent man sees evil and hides himself,
The naive proceed and pay the penalty. (Proverbs 27:12)

Leaving aside the question of how the serpent got to be this way, we see it described in English translations as crafty or cunning rather than as prudent or sensible. The latter qualities are seen as a mark of possessing good judgment, which involves calculation, measurement, and discernment. In other words, it relies upon human wit rather than on God. This is a fundamental root of the evil that confronted both Eve and Jesus. Prudence and sensibility sound like good, positive attributes; but evidently they expose one to the self-reliance, self-worship, and self-appropriation of God’s power that lie at the root of evil, as shown in the temptation of Jesus.

In the Garden, Eve’s judgment that the serpent was right in declaring that she would surely not die from eating the forbidden fruit placed her firmly on the ground of cause and effect for her own gain, just as surely as gravity could have resulted in the death of Jesus had he jumped from the cliff as Satan suggested. But Jesus chose a path distinctly different from Eve’s. That her eyes would be opened was a clear invitation—a temptation—to self-reliance out of discernment. This was the very thing that Jesus shunned in turning away from becoming the self-reliant baker of his own bread. That Eve would become like a God is a clear reference to the self-worship that we see so well illustrated in the temptations of Jesus. The worship of the creature rather than the worship of the creator is part of the bedrock of evil.

So in both the Garden and the wilderness evil is shown to be not something that is simply bad, or even something that is the absence of goodness. We see it instead as a life bound and based in prudence and sensibility, employing one’s own wit on behalf of one’s own life, based on a reliance upon oneself rather than reliance on God.

That God’s ways are not man’s ways can be seen over and over again in scripture, and we sense it empirically in our own lives. Paul said:

…for we walk by faith, not by sight… (2 Corinthians 5:7)

but we still tend to define evil on the basis of what we see. We walk by sight, not by faith. How many times, in retrospect, have we discovered that something we thought was bad, disadvantageous, and even evil turned out in the long run to be good.

Paul also said that:

… we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

He does not say that things will always be good all the time, but he does say that eternal goodness would come to those who love God.

That the believer can see goodness where others see evil, that we who love God can walk by faith and not by sight, that we who have been called to God’s purpose can see that our ways are not God’s ways, that goodness will prevail and ultimately will be for the best, that evil can be seen even in prudent, sensible use of our own wit… all of this presents a fresh and disturbing perspective on the subject of evil.

David E: It seems to me it is a mistake to consider events as evil. Evil is a presence in both the Garden and the wilderness. We make a mistake in using our wit to analyze good and evil. The only valid and reliable way to discern good and evil is through the inner light, the spirit of God that is in all of us.

Donald: The things Don mentioned that we consider evil—things that cause suffering, etc.—are things we naturally try to avoid. There is no temptation to have those things as part of our experience. People of religion or faith gather together in their temples seeking God’s presence, but he is everywhere. Goodness surrounds us, and sometimes it prevails. We gather at the temple every week to try to analyze and describe what evil is and how to avoid it; but then I wonder about the contrast between that and the innocent child’s view of good and evil.

Michael: I fail to see evil as an external presence. To me, it’s a part of human nature.

David F: Relatively primitive cultures have many taboos and see evil in a lot of different things. As we grow more sophisticated, we remove those taboos from our vocabulary and our experience. We move to a higher level.

David E: The same argument applies to goodness. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the latter is a metaphor for a higher level of thinking about what is good.

Anonymous: Can we be in the presence of good or evil and not feel it?

David E: I think so.

David F: We do see both good and evil at several levels in the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus was very good at turning things on their head!

Donald: Adam and Eve played the blame game. The devil made me do it.

Michael: That’s how Christianity tries to take the blame away from God for everything that we consider to be evil: By creating another God, called the Devil! It makes things easier, but that does not necessarily make them true! We want to transfer the blame for our sin to an external entity called the devil, whose existence is pure speculation.

Anonymous: If evil surrounds us, then which side takes the initiative to connect?

Donald: It’s like the radio waves that surround us. We have to tune in to hear them. But I’m not sure how it happens.

David: The signal for good is more powerful than the signal for evil; hence our occasional observation in this class that there seems to be much more good than evil in the world. Our inner light usually overwhelms the darkness within us. Faith requires that we believe that it will ultimately always prevail, but again I think we can rely a little bit on sight here—we can (in my view!) see that goodness generally prevails.

David F: When the disciples asked Jesus whose sin caused a man’s blindness—his own or his parents’—Jesus said “Neither”. His blindness was a way to show the power of God—that God is more powerful, that good and evil are not equally powerful.

David E: If they were, the result would be stalemate or even entropy—destruction. There would be no developing universe, no unfolding Creation.

Donald: Temptation seems easy to succumb to, yet evil that results in suffering is hardly attractive. So perhaps it’s not so much that we succumb to temptation but that our selfishness drives us to it.

David E: But evil is not painful at all! It’s a ton of fun! That’s why it’s so seductive. To merit a Beatitudinal blessing, in contrast, is extremely painful! Good is hard and can be painful.

David F: It depends on the glasses one wears!

Don: Indeed. Different people look at the same thing, with some saying it’s evil and others saying it has a silver lining.

Michael: A lot of what we consider evil is just a human judgment. It really depends on how we see it. I might consider something evil; you might not see it that way. I might change my mind if some good comes out of it.

Donald: Perhaps if we were to talk about “bad” rather than “evil” things, that view would make sense. “Evil” is such a strong word.

Anonymous: Did Eve do evil when she ate the forbidden fruit?

David: I don’t think we can “do” evil. The serpent was the evil. She merely succumbed to it.

Michael: It’s a matter of judgment! When the disciples asked about the cause of the man’s blindness—of the evil that befell him—I am reminded of my home in Palestine, where there are many poor and disabled people who yet come across as the gentlest souls. I don’t know why that is, but it makes one wonder “Why did this happen to them?” But most people treat them badly, and take advantage of them. I don’t understand Jesus’s answer to the disciples, that this shows the glory of God. It seems to turn the notion of evil completely upside down.

David: Their serenity in the face of their disability and oppression suggests that they have received the blessing of God’s grace.

Donald: To take advantage of those who lack the means to defend themselves seems an ultimate evil!

Anonymous: Arabic has singular, plural for two, and plural for three or more. In the Arabic translation of the Bible, when God commanded Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit, he addressed him in the singular. But the serpent used the plural for two when he talked to Eve about the prohibition, and Eve responded from the plural two perspective. Yet God had only instructed Adam, singular, not to eat the fruit. In talking about the forbidden tree, Eve referred only to the tree that was in the middle of the Garden—but both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are in the middle of the Garden. Eve did not say which one she was talking about. So did Eve get a bum rap? 😉 She was not commanded not to eat the forbidden fruit, and in any case perhaps she was confused about which tree not to eat from!

Donald: When we ask for forgiveness, are we asking to be forgiven an evil deed, are we asking to be closer to goodness, are we asking to avoid evil, are we saying “Sorry” for our sins? Are we sorry for allowing evil to connect?

Anonymous: We condemn ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness based on a set of rules. But some people have different rule sets.

David F: It’s true that according to the scripture God accused Adam directly of having eaten the forbidden fruit but he did not accuse Eve directly—he just punished her too.

David E: Those rule sets are the wrong place to be looking for confirmation of good or evil. The only valid and reliable source is the inner light. Good and evil are not subject to rational definition and codification into rule sets, but as Anonymous said, we define and codify them anyway—and that is terribly, terribly dangerous.

David F: We have the same issue on the other side.  We have the dead works of the law. The same process is on both sides of the equation. We’re not good or evil because  we do certain behaviors. We are evil because of something else. These behaviors are just the fruit of something else. There is something about our behavior that is key to our understanding of evil.

Rimon: What if we were to let the concept of awareness and oneness just observe goodness and evil, if we let them just be an observer?

David E: Good point. If we reverted to our original state of oneness with God would we recognize evil? It would not be paradise if we we could watch evil happening, inside or outside the walls. If we are one with God we exist in pure goodness which by definition excludes evil, which the—for all practical purposes—does not exist.

Donald: So what is heaven? Is it the absence of evil? When the books are reviewed it will bring us great pain even to see evil. We understand God’s judgment by comparing. But I just have to have faith that heaven is a place of great joy and harmony and peace etc. for eternity. Somehow that sounds less stimulating that the environment in which we live, which gives us the power to contrast.

David F: To Native Americans and Asians, heaven is where good and evil are in balance. The yin and yang of this life continues in the next. The concept of no evil is very unique to our culture.

Michael: Perhaps evil and good are in balance right now. We are bad judges, so how would we know?

Don: It is indeed a naturally tendency of man to try to define and discern good and evil, right and wrong. The church is always willing to step in and help, and we turn to it because we don’t want to lose out on eternal life, which is linked in our minds to right and wrong, good and evil. The only way to break this habit is to sever the link between eternal life and good/evil, otherwise we fall into the vortex of organized religion, ever ready to supply the wanted definitions.

Anonymous: Adam and Eve knew nothing about death, so the threat of it cannot have meant much to them. The fruit looked, smelt and tasted good, and would make them wise, according to the serpent. This was all evident to them literally “by sight” so they acted upon that reasonable understanding. Adam and Eve had no evil intent. Subsequently, God cursed the serpent, not Adam and Eve. But the pain (of childbirth for Eve, of toil for Adam) God inflicted on them can cause death. Yet the curse was on the ground and on the serpent, not on Adam and Eve.

Donald: Evil is a crafty, subtle, almost disguised thing. Its very mysteriousness prompts curiosity.

Rimon: It seems good and evil were present from the beginning. They were present before the Fall, not just after it.

Anonymous: Eve’s sin—which I would not call evil—was that she walked by sight, not by faith. Even if she didn’t hear it directly from God, Adam would surely have told her about the prohibition. But she would not take it on faith. She took it, and judged it, by sight. Jesus did the exact opposite, in the wilderness. So lack of belief, lack of faith is the biggest sin because it is the source of all evil.

David F: God asked whether the son of Man would find faith when he visited the earth, so clearly it is key. We look at the fruits of our time and declare them to be evil, but to me, evil starts when we lose our faith, or lose our connection with God. God is light, life, and the way. Everything good is God. When we disconnect from our faith in God, we start down the road of evil. I agree we should not judge evil if only because we need to focus our efforts on re-establishing connections with God, not on playing the blame game, which is a vicious circle.

David: Goodness—God—ought not (in my humble opinion! 😉 ) to be in the business of cursing anyone or anything—and perhaps he wasn’t, in the case of Adam and Eve. In causing pain, suffering, and death to them and us by cursing the ground and so on, God was in fact bestowing a beatitudinal blessing.

Anonymous: God did not curse Adam and Eve. He cursed the ground.

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