I have been thinking a lot lately about evil. As I look at the condition of our world and our lives, even the Church, I am more convinced that evil is a hyperactive, conscious and intentional force at work against us. There are times when I wonder if our enemy has been so effective in its work of deceiving us that we find ourselves all the way back in pre-flood Genesis: "The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time" (Gen. 6.5). We really do struggle to resist the temptations sends our way.
As a younger man, I believed that evil was real but more the absence of good than a volitional power. I believed that when we choose not to do God's will the result will most often be problematic because we have ignored the Perfect Truth that aids us in escaping disasters. In my mind, evil was dependent on humans to make errors in order to cause problems. I thought it was kind of like water only getting into your basement if it was not sealed properly not because the water wanted to get into your basement.
Though I certainly believe that evil takes advantage of our moments of disobedience, I also now believe that evil charts its own course and plans its own plans and does not require the assistance of human fallibility in order to be destructive.
For instance, is it too far-fetched to believe that the devastating spread of malaria by mosquitoes is the result of a demonic plan? Humans are not responsible for malaria and yet it destroys gladly. Or how about the proliferation of depression in our nation? Often this malady is not the result of ungodly human choices but instead brain circuitry gone haywire and/or chemical imbalances. This seems like a wicked scheme to me or at the very least the culmination of our souls being pressed upon by evil for millenia.
Or how about personality disorders, especially those of the egotistic variety? A pathology such as a narcissism is destructive to sufferer and bystanders alike. Yet it is very resistant to any form of treatment or behavior modification. Further, it is clearly not simply the result of faulty nurture but involves other vague factors that are difficult to pinpoint. What would evil like more than to corrupt humans in such a way that they become a corrupting, disruptive influences on their own? A clever scheme indeed.
Ephesians 6 reads in part like this, "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Seems evident to me from a scriptural perspective that evil is an intelligent, active force that is seeking to bring chaos out of God's order and for all people to perpetually dwell in fear in the valley of the shadow of death to their own detriment.
So what do you think? Is evil a real force or is it just the absence of good? Does it plot and plan or does it simply creep into the void when we disobey the Lord?
I will look forward to your wisdom!
Jeff
2 comments:
Joyce ~
I suppose a question to be answered is in regard to the nature of the Fall. If there had been no original sin, would there be any such thing as depression in the world? My answer is an emphatic "no."
The Fall introduced a blanket of evil that attacked every aspect of Creation; nothing was spared. Humanity as a whole came under the influence of perdition.
To be influenced by evil has both a personal and an impersonal dimension. On one hand, I am personally tempted to covet my neighbor's car and to worship idols. Satan is asking me personally to choose against the ways of God. I therefore have the option to say "yes" or "no" to said temptation.
On the other hand, there is the impersonal evil that attacks and does damage to people by no fault of their own. We can see this manifested in depression, genetic disorders of mind and body, cancer, and systemic tendencies, etc. So it is not the evil unleashed by the sin of an individual that has caused schizophrenia but evil tinkering with human genetics and family systems that has caused schizophrenia.
This is not to deny human complicity in the spread of impersonal evil but to say that evil does not require such complicity.
The reality is that if you live in NW Ohio and own a vehicle that vehicle will eventually develop rust spots not because you have failed to keep your car clean enough but because salt is always placed on the roads on which we all drive in order to melt the ice and that salt is corrosive. The rust spots are virtually inevitable.
So is the influence of evil upon humanity.
Release from a particular impersonal evil is a collaborative work of the the Spirit and the person. It is grace. A person cannot make it happen by sheer force of will nor does God always answer our pleas for release very expediently. Our task is to pray, to trust, to wait, and not to resist the Spirit. The Lord does the rest.
I think I will write more about this later...
Jeff
1 Peter 5:8 says our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Sounds pretty deliberate. We know that our enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy; while our Lord came so that we may have life abundant. Just stumbled across your blog and found this very thought-provoking post. Thanks for the discussion. :)
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