Evil Is Not, And Strives To Unmake The Universe In Its Own Image
The ontology of evil is that evil is anti-being, it is a self-destructive parasite whose end, if it were allowed to come to pass, lies in the extermination of being itself. Evil cannot exist on its own, but only thrive on the good, eating away at it until that which was good is no longer and that which is fed on the good will then die out as well. Nonetheless, evil appears in the world, it is a phenomena which we encounter, even if, essentially it is illusory. Thus, St. Athanasius wrote: “But good is, while evil is not; by what is, then, I mean what is good, inasmuch as it has its pattern in God Who is. But by what is not I mean what is evil, in so far as it consists in a false imagination in the thoughts of men”[1] We create what is evil through our minds, we establish it in the world, giving it the illusion of being: it appears, but we are not able to see it for the void it actually is. It takes the shape of what it deconstructs, it simulates it and fakes it as it eats it away, until the whole structure collapses and the inner, nihilistic core is revealed.
Moral evil follows through with ontological evil- it is the act in which such anti-being, such nihilism, is thrust into the world. As evil is self-destructive, so too, do we find moral evil to be self-destructive and harmful, creating much pain and suffering in the world and in the who acts on it. It leads us to go after that which is less than ideal, so that it we can then help in the deconstruction of the good itself:
But the audacity of men, having regard not to what is expedient and becoming, but to what is possible for it, began to do the contrary; whence, moving their hands to the contrary, it made them commit murder, and led away their hearing to disobedience, and their other members to adultery instead of to lawful procreation; and the tongue, instead of right speaking, to slander and insult and perjury; the hands again, to stealing and striking fellow-men; and the sense of smell to many sorts of lascivious odours; the feet, to be swift to shed blood, and the belly to drunkenness and insatiable gluttony. All of which things are a vice and sin of the soul: neither is there any cause of them at all, but only the rejection of better things.[2]
Evil is chaotic, denouncing all that is rational; in its essence, there is no reason, there is only the destruction of reason as it destroys being. To look for the reason for sin is to give too much credit to sin itself. Of course, sin, evil, thrives on the good, imitates it, and suggests itself under the illusion of good, so that we can see how and why someone would act a certain way when we see how they misconstrue the good. This is not to give reason for evil, but rather, to show the reason behind the good which is contained by and used by evil.
Moral evil resides in us, comes from us, as a kind of self-destructive tendency within; it is the embracing of nihilo over creation, turning the two inside-out. This, of course, is how it first hides itself – but later, the more it develops in us, the more it can reveal itself for its nihilistic glory, and the one who embraces the process of their self-destruction will, in the end, revel in it, knowing full well they seek the end of being.
It is, however, possible for one to come face to face with sin, to see the way sin has led one to self-destruct, and counter it with a no. They can look for and strive for a way out of the habits they have let develop – they can see what they have allowed and finally admit their need for help. This is, in part, what happened with Philip K Dick, and why he often sees his theories connect in many places to orthodox teaching, even if he realizes other aspects of his speculation take him away from it. The basis of his thought, the basis of his spiritual transformation, lies in his encounter with his own evil, and the horror he realized he had brought upon himself:
I have isolated and defined at last the death-dealing streak in me: it is rebellion. I am wild and would be tame. (Meek.) I recapitulate our original sin: rebellion, which is nothing more lofty than resentment. I pray God to break me, sincerely. I have cut through all the layers and am down to the primordial core: strife, not love; thanatos, not eros. One can go no further. It is killing me, this primordial evil in me. God help me. Erbarme mich, mein Gott!! Oder ich bin verloren.[3]
PKD has hit upon an aspect of the primordial sin. It is rebellion, but not just any kind of rebellion, but the rebellion against being itself. It hides this under the guise of self-promotion, in the idolatrous attempt to become a god-unto-oneself. By rejecting the order of being, by rejecting God, one must engage strife and death, in the destruction of being which can only prove itself through the power of suicide (as Dostoevsky showed in The Possessed). The only way we can try to replace God is through the destruction of everything God has created, ending with ourselves. While we might have an instinct for self-survival, we also do have, thanks to sin, the angst which leads us to destroy ourselves. The two create a battle within the soul, a battle which can only be won when God has broken us down, removed the evil, and then restored us to a rightful relationship with him, and through him, all of creation. We must focus on the good within, and work with it, to put in check the sin, to put in check our rebellion against being, but we cannot hold out without God. Without God, without the restorative power of grace, that sin will slowly work at us from within, and in the end, we will be lost.
An encounter with the evil within, an encounter with one’s own negative, rebellious tendencies reveals the truth behind the teaching of original sin. The evil within does not want to be exposed, and will lead us around in circles trying to deny this truth. But once we see it, once we see what it is doing to us, once the decay is so great that the illusion it created vanished, then we can come to the sin and say no, and admit our rebellion and our need for God. This is what PKD himself did:
This is orthodoxy. Sorry – I was led to it. By relentless reasoning, research and colloquy with Zebra himself (i.e., revelation) my errors were corrected. I haven’t arrived at the conclusion I want. But again, sorry: the road of true inquiry does not always lead to what you want or expect, but to what is true.[4]
Reason combined with revelation – reason, which follows the order of being and promotes it, and revelation, the disclosure of what we cannot ascertain by ourselves, combine to reveal the truth and the true order of being. Reason is the antidote to the irrational nature of evil, revelation to the ignorance we have caused for ourselves as we destroy ourselves through moral evil. “The only way we could see that our universe – and us – are irrational is when God the rational bursts in and we have something rational to compare the irrational with.”[5] The two are valuable, but they are not enough. One can see the truth and still be trapped. That is why grace is necessary, it is what frees the will so that it will not be trapped by the prison of the decaying, dying self. Grace restores what was lost, though of course, it does so in such a way that our cooperation is expected. If it didn’t, it would contradict its very purpose.
[1] St. Athanasius, “Against the Heathen” in NPNF2(4):6.
[2] Ibid., 6.
[3] Philip K. Dick, Exegesis. ed. Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2011), 431-2.
[4] Ibid., 432.
[5] Ibid., 454.
Comments are closed.
Henry,
What an inviting conversation but….
“”O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.”
Reason is the antidote to the irrational nature of evil.
I’m not entirely comfortable with this conclusion. Doesn’t that implicitly assume that those with a reduced capacity for reason (i.e. the mentally challenged) are increasingly disposed to evil? Don’t we typically observe the opposite within this group of people?
Secondly, there is much in the world that is irrational. Isn’t it incomplete to assume only that which is reasonable is true or good?
Dan,
I would say physical evil has hurt such people, preventing them to actualize their spiritual potential, but in the eschaton, that shall be healed. Evil is often what one is affected by, not what one is.
And the irrational, the chaotic, the entropic is, I would say, a consequence of sin.
Also, to add further: Jesus is the Logos which gives everyone their own logos, their own “reason.” When talking about the irrational, we are talking about that which is anti-logos — that which is destroying the logos of a thing;.
But don’t we have a line from Jesus about this exact thing in John 9:1?
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
That seems to suggest it is not evil that has hurt such people – that it is wholly God’s plan that the works of God be seen in those who are physically or mentally disadvantaged?
And the irrational, the chaotic, the entropic is, I would say, a consequence of sin.
But the physical world is also very much this way by nature, isn’t it? Even the simplest things, such as the diagonal of a square being incommensurate with its sides, is irrational. Yet we see that everywhere in the universe.
Dan,
The physical world is as it is as a result of the sin which is put in the system: both the sins of angels which fell (who have some connection to the powers of the earth), and the sin of humanity — sin is deconstructing the world, making it what it is not. That’s the point. This will affect us all living in such a world.
Then what answer to Jesus’ teaching above that seems to indicate quite the opposite?
Jesus’ teaching is not the opposite, I do not think you are reading what I am saying. It is the general result of sin to destroy the world in which we live, in an ontological sense, and this has caused defects in the development of human persons. This does not mean a particular sin is necessarily connected to particular defects (obviously, it could be, such as someone throwing acid in another person’s face could blind them). The fact is that the system itself is itself under the effects of sin — and God allows this (free will, but also, because in the end, God can take what comes out of this and make it something better than if he made a world without such choice).
And I would hardly say that the phyisical world is chaotic and entropic because of sin. The very nature of the universe is chaotic and entropic.
For that matter, we don’t even have to stop at the physical – a square is a mathematical abstraction, and still irrational. A circle exists despite pi being irrational. The fact that the universe exists is irrational – why would an entity who is wholly perfect and cannot add to His perfection create a universe? That alone is irrational.
The very nature of the phenomenal universe we see contains in it the effects of the fall. It is not separate from it. And when you bring out irrational numbers, that is equivocation, since their principle can easily be discerned, they are not irrational in the philosophical sense.
I am somewhat offended that you’re accusing me of equivocation (though only very mildly). I think that’s next of kin to an ad-hominem dismissal of a valid argument. I was only following your lead.
Let me lay my argument out more clearly. You claim that evil is irrational (which I agree with), and reason is the antidote to the irrationality of sin. I have no problem with the former, but the latter implicitly creates a quasi-mathematical system where evil can be offset by reason. If this were true, then it should stand to reason (pun intended) that those who have not the capacity for reason should be at a spiritual disadvantage, but that’s not what we observe. Therefore, your conclusion must be incomplete.
You responded by extending it into the entropic – responding that the defects we perceive in the natural order are the result of sin. I responded in kind by questioning your fundamental hypothesis; pointing out that the natural order, both on a physical and abstract level, appears to be intrinsically irrational. Therefore, the argument that the irrationality of the world may not be a defect at all.
At this point, I’m not trying to question the original argument you are making (that sin is implicitly an irrational drive toward annihilation – which I agree with). I am questioning your conclusion, which extends your argument into territories it shouldn’t go.
My argument is this: Evil is irrational, but irrational isn’t evil. Therefore reason cannot be the antidote. Grace is the antidote, whether reasonable or not.
As I said, I am just going quick with lack of sleep today. However, equivocation is going on, assuming irrational in irrational number means the same as irrational in the philosophical sense. It doesn’t; that we can derive the number shows it is not irrational in the philosophical sense.
Clarification: Therefore, the argument that the irrationality of the world may not be a defect at all.
Should read:
Therefore, the perceived irrationality of the world may not be a consequence of sin; it may not be a defect at all.
Henry,
You are getting fixated on one point of my argument without addressing any of the other ones. And no, I am not equivocating. Though for the sake of preventing this from going off the rails, I will not pursue that angle further. The specific example is really irrelevant to the point, which is that salvation cannot be found in Reason alone. I think I’ve made a good argument to that effect, and there’s no point in further discussion if you’re not going to even address it.
I think Henry’s right here. An impaired capacity for reason is an evil which, considered in itself, inhibits full human flourishing. Yet, while it may be of sin, it is not sin. To have the full capacity for reason and to turn one’s eyes aside, to behave in ways contrary to the divine luminous Reason by which the world was made is to aid and abet Unreason, and so to sin. In many ways, this is part of the truth of John 9:40-41, viz. Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.”
I don’t see it that way at all, and I think I have scripture to back me up on this.
The mind needs to be kept in check just like every other aspect of the human person. If it is not balanced by the spirit, it will postulate its own dominion over the world. We elevate reason beyond the natural boundaries established for it, and assume through reason we are saved.
But the world is intrinsically irrational – logically, we shouldn’t exist.
Remember, man was created in God’s image, and that includes woman – ergo implying that God has female characteristics. There is as much passion in the world as there is reason.
Dan, I think we may be having a bit of a terminological breakdown here. I freely admit that human reason is darkened by sin, and as a result of this darkening and the bending of our wills along with the disproportionate character of our passions, what we come to call “rational” is often not the case. There are, as Scripture reminds us, people who are “worldly wise” which is to say not truly wise at all. So, when the Scriptures worries about reason, it is never reason in itself that is worrisome, but rather the bloated pride arising from false reason. On the other hand, Logos and Wisdom hold a special place of privilege in the Scriptures, and it is these, when our minds are enlightened and our vision of the world is set right, seeing as god sees, that we are truly rational.
I don’t see why you think that logically we should not exist. There is nothing illogical about the world or our place in it. Granted, what we see is that we need not exist, but that is something else. That makes our presence truly gratuitous, but not for that reason irrational. As I use the term, and I suspect as Henry does, what would be irrational would be something counter to reason. Gift may exceed the categories of reason, but surely it is not counter to it.
As to your last point, I might suggest it would be better to say not that God has female or male characteristics, but that both men and woman are made according to the image of God. That is, the causality works only one way, not the other. Second, even if granted, why would we want to associate women with the passions as such?
No, I don’t think we misunderstand each other. I think we simply disagree. We tend to elevate the importance of the specific gifts that are given to us. It is therefore no surprise that a board full of highly educated men and women would give Reason the highest seat at the table. But we know that there are many who do not have such gifts – either through genetics, circumstance, or misfortune – yet it is these people whom often exhibit the highest degree of faith, hope, and love.
Reason is not required for salvation, so why should we assume it is the “antidote” to evil? Faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is love. I don’t see reason mentioned anywhere.
An impaired capacity for reason is an evil which, considered in itself, inhibits full human flourishing. Yet, while it may be of sin, it is not sin.
Again, how do you justify this in light of John 9? Are you so certain that impaired capacity for reason is evil, when those we know who are afflicted with it often exhibit characteristics that would indicate a greater degree of goodness and compassion? Are the works of God not present in those with mental or physical ailments too?
Can you explain the superiority, in terms of patent truth value, in claiming evil to be the absence of goodness, rather than claiming the opposite–that goodness is the absence of evil, which seems to be the stance of those who see this world to exist near the bottom of the Great Chain of Being?
I have also never understood the interpretation of the Eden myth, which claims that sin came into the world with the disobedience of Eve, when the serpent’s disobedient (or evil) intent is clearly prior to Eve’s transgression. Moreover, the serpent is evidently a creature. Was it made bad? If so, evil is a presence, rather than an absence. Or was there a prior Fall involving the serpent? If the latter, it would seem that the standard explanation of Original Sin is inadequate, at best.
Who has made the position that good is the absence of evil? The whole concept of evil being being is self-contradictory, for it would thus not be evil, but what is good. The good is what things strive for, and are, by nature. (I’m sorry I’m giving brief answers today, but I didn’t sleep too well last night, so my thought processes are diminished from that evil).
“Who has made the position that good is the absence of evil?”
The various Gnostic, Neo-Platonist, Kabalistic would seem to imply that. Matter is evil. One approaches goodness by making one’s way up the ladder, encountering less density of matter as one progresses, until finally one arrives at the level of pure spirit, which is good and true being.
The implications of the presence of the serpent in the Garden seem rarely to be addressed. This would appear to be a creature possessed of both language and reason, who was bent prior to the Fall of Man. How did that happen?
Saying that matter is connected to evil does not say, however, good is the absence of evil. The Gnostics tended to be dualistic which had two principles, but the Platonic system which Christianity basically embraces sees the gradation of being so that matter might be “next to nothingness” but it is, in its ordered setting, good.
As for how it happened, it is the fall of the angels, which has many theories. I still suggest Bulgakov’s “Bride of the Lamb” has a good Christan examination of this difficult issue of the fall, which reminds us (as PKD himself doeS) not to confuse time with ontology.
So, matter is good only to the extent that to exist is better than not to exist? This would seem to be somewhat less than patently true; but let’s stipulate it anyway.
This is still only to say that the world–as created (unless it was originally immaterial)–is just barely, the ittsy-bittsy, tiniest bit good. Which is not as it is presented in Sunday school.
If Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, then they would already have possessed the capacity of reason. They would, ergo, have been able to discern good and evil. If they were made in the image of God, then the prohibition from eating from the tree of good and evil (and thereby becoming like gods), makes no sense. It also makes no sense for an omniscient God to set the whole thing up as some kind of loyalty test, since He would have had prescient knowledge of an outcome that He himself designed. It would seem that the standard interpretation of the Eden myth does not make sense, if one stops to think about it a little. It seems designed to take the blame for creation’s shortcomings off of the creator and place the blame on the creatures. Gnostics of various stripes all say, Yes–that’s because the creator was not the Highest God, but a powerful, though imperfect, demi-urge who blew the task.
I wonder if you miss some of the poetry of Genesis 3. There is an irony in the kind of knowledge of good and evil had by knowing obeying a divine command absent any motive to do so, another kind of knowledge from having successfully repulsed evil and remained true to the good in the face of trial, and a third kind of knowledge of good and evil in falling from good and doing evil. As Milton writes, “O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give eare / To that false Worm, of whomsoever taught / To counterfet Mans voice, true in our Fall, / False in our promis’d Rising; since our Eyes / Op’nd we find indeed, and find we know / Both Good and Evil, Good lost, and Evil got.” (Paradise Lost IX.1067-1072) In other words, the best kind of knowing would be to have a mature experience of acknowledging God as sovereign, of being happy not to “become gods” and claiming to be arbiter of what is good and evil, yet to do so in a chosen fidelity. So, it turns out the story, on the traditional reading, is not about the move from a lack of reason to having it, but from modes of being in possession of reason, whether innocent, mature and robust (what we never had and what is restored in Christ), or guilty.
Anselm says much the same, I believe, of the fall of the angels. One of the things no created being can truly have is being his own goodness. Any good he has is good received. Yet, there is a kind of perfection in being, if you will, the source of your own good. One cannot get this by self-assertion against God, for this is contrary to the truth and to one’s own happiness. But, it can be had by holding fast, with a knowing decision, to a good one knows could be lost. By choosing not to forfeit the good one has as gift, one can, Anselm argues, be said to share, in an analogous way, with God’s being his own goodness.
In light of your worry above re: where the serpent came from, Genesis 3 neither asks nor seems to care about the question. In other words, it tells of the human loss of innocence and Paradise, not the origin of evil as such.
So, even if you do not care for these specific readings, I think it rather too much to suggest that the traditional reading makes no sense.
So, then, what I am missing is that test set up to snare Eve was one that would based on the *quality* rather than on the *quantity* of intellectual discernment? Stipulated. What I am still not seeing, however, is: a) why it was ever necessary for the issue to come up in the first place; and b) why God would not have foreseen the inevitable result and have gone to Plan B from the git-go.
Futhermore, I think that I *have to* wonder about the presence of the serpent in the Garden. The serpent is clearly a metaphor for something. In order for the story to simply be about human loss of innocence, the serpent is superfluous. Eve could have taken the fruit, despite being told not to, simply on the basis of appetite. Like any child, having been told not to eat the cookies before the party, she could simply had her desire to please her father overcome by her desire for a “treat.” What we are left with, then, is a God so vindictive as to condemn a child to death for acting as a child will act. And not only the guilty child, but all subsequent children, many of whom will be repeatedly tortured on the way to the grave.
I realize that the questions raised by contemplating the Problem of Evil are as old as language itself. But the reason for their longevity is that they’ve never been satisfactorily answered.
Rodak, these are good questions you ask, but I think the answers are more satisfactory than you imagine. First, I would avoid calling the Tree a “test”. I always understood it to represent knowledge in the world which Man is able to seek, but ought not because it interferes with human freedom (e.g. nuclear weapons are possible, but it would have been better had we never sought that knowledge). The “test” is an inevitable conflict, but it was not created as a test. I don’t think that there could have been a plan B, but speculation on that point is discouraged since it presumes to question the mind of God. “Why?” will never be answered. “In principio creavit Deum caelum et terram” is the best we have.
As for Eve’s loss of innocence, I’m not sure if child is the right image. Any just punishment (for I think we can assume the punishment was just) assumes full knowledge of the wrongness of the act, so Eve knew she was disobeying. Nor was it a matter of appetite, but, according to Augustine, a sin of Pride.
I do wonder, though, if any answer could be satisfactory. I am not too wedded to (human, darkened) reason that I require a satisfactory answer for everything.
I was determined not to say anything before I saw the direction of the comments here. I thought it might be a minefield, instead it seems like earnest young class discussions in Dr Fermin Peinado’s Medieval Philosophy class I had in 1983. So it seems safe to simply say this: that this whole notion of evil as privatio boni is practically unknown in the rest of Christendom, especially in the East, where its especially Augustinian apotheosis, is looked at with explicit suspicion. Also, I promise you if you went to any Protestant seminary and tried to explain it to someone — except maybe a guy who happened to read something about it for a ‘historical” theology class — they would think you were nuts. It is, in the end, a recondite corner of Catholic theology, which is used essentially as a “get out of jail free card” (a la Monopoly) in day-to-day praxis for the Roman Church. Lastly, this is one of the few areas where science really is quite dispositive on an issue relating to religion. If one accepts the developments in science in any way for the last, say three hundred years, the notion of evil as privatio boni is pure fantasy. And as that comedian says, I mean it in a good way, Henry.
Peter
It is found in the East, and indeed, the East is far more Platonic. Look to the quote: Athanasius. I could have quoted others like John of Damascus, too.
Henry,
Your Athanasius quote is precisely why I thought this might be a minefield. Because you seem to be alluding with it to the way the East does deal with it. And your use of literary insights would seem to augment this interpretation. But then you fall back on the very Western view which you don’t seem to get is quite distinct. In the East it is about the faulty or destructive capacities of the mind. In the West it became a question of Ontology, and had its height in Aquinas. You are jerry-rigging this thing between the two traditions, and I can guess, for apologetical purposes. That is your right, but it is a contradiction of the history of (theological/philosophical) ideas.
Also, by the way, when you say “Platonic” you are meaning Realist in the sense of Medieval philosophy. Also something quite fraught with much more “mystery” in the East than the West. And surely you don’t think that Plato with his daimonic ideas would have agreed with the Medieval view!
Peter,
You certainly find ontological categories in the East and you find that the great chain of being promoted by the East even as the West. How Augustine formulates it with his conception of original sin will be the debate, but not the whole ontological scheme. The East really engages this issue and follows the Platonic over Aristotle — you can read how this debate is engaged in the medieval era with the writings of Bessarion and Plethon. The East is Platonic, and in its Platonic tradition (even if Christanized) it still follows with this basic understanding of being.
Henry,
Please take no offense, we are just debating things here. But generalizations like “the East is Platonic” are so vast as to be simply wrong. It is not the same thing as saying, perhaps, that “The West is Aristotelian”. Theological speculation is so much greater in Western history that one could at least make a case. If generalizations like “the East is Platonic” are allowed then a corollary generalization would be vastly more correct that aspects of Greek mystery cults are in evidence in the conceptions of the Eastern Christianity. This also is over-broad and needs nuance, but it is again, more true than “the East is Platonic.” And of course Plato’s contiguity to the realm of mystery cults is relevant there too, but as a background.
It is only in the West that these categories were refined further and further till they meant nothing else but pure ontological ultimatums. I personally feel this has been a very bad thing for the West, and affects even the day-to-day capacity of denial of real problems that afflicts Western cultures. In my view it is a lamentable offshoot of an idea few even know exists: evil as privatio boni. As all savvy people have long understood, history is made by events. But ideas make things happen as well, and to such an extent that it might be called a close second to events.
While it is a generalization, the East really is Platonic.
Henry,
Rather than keep arguing this point myself, I hope you will allow a rather colorful exemplar to bolster my assertion. It comes from the website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and it is, appropriately, a description of their view of exorcism. Please take special note of the point in the middle of the first paragraph which seems to make my exact point:
“Exorcism in the Orthodox Church
Rev. George C. Papademetriou, Ph.D.
THE DOCTRINE OF EVIL
To understand the Orthodox view and practice of exorcism, one must know the Orthodox presuppositions of evil and its doctrine of Satan. The patristic evidence points to the fact that the cause of evil in the world is the devil. The devil was created by God as an angel, who was free, and as a free agent chose to oppose the plan of God. That is, the devil is a fallen angel. Satan is not evil by nature, but by will and action. In Satan there is no truth whatsoever; he is absolute falsehood and deception. Satan is not just a negation or deprivation of good [!!!!], but a positive force [!!!} with free will that always chooses evil. The devil has the ability to recognize divine power, as in the incident of recognizing Christ as the Son of God (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-3). Satan has under his leadership legions and invisible powers, with their own “satanic teachings.” The devil and evil spirits know that God exists and recognize true and devoted Christians, but pious Christians discern the plans of the devil. The devil, however, constantly employs every method of deception to enslave man to satanic forces and causes rebellion against God. He is the cause of corruption and disorder, a parasitic power in the world that will ultimately be destroyed by the power of God in the “last days.” Because there is no compromise between God and the devil, the struggle will continue until the end.
The Orthodox doctrine of God is that He is eternal, uncreated and incorporeal. All other creatures, both visible and invisible, were created by God as free. The power of the devil will ultimately be destroyed by the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of creation. Salvation from all evil will be attained by obedience to God and His plan. This world is a battleground between the acceptance of good and evil. It must be pointed out that the world as the creation of God is not evil. What is evil is the satanic power, destroyed by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ.”
The words themselves do not contradict what I have said.
“Satan is not evil by nature, but by will and action. In Satan there is no truth whatsoever; he is absolute falsehood and deception. Satan is not just a negation or deprivation of good [!!!!], but a positive force [!!!} with free will that always chooses evil.”
Saying _he_ is not _just_ a negation or deprivation of the good does not say _evil_ is not that. _Satan_ by his existence contains a good within him (positive force). Existence is good. This doesn’t contradict anything but is a different question entirely, and follows the norm (Satan is not pure evil, he can’t be, he exists!).
Henry,
I don’t think in this forum that one can do better than the explicit assertion of the Greek orthodox Archdiocese of America. There is no doubt that this is a vastly complicated matter, as Brandon’s rather jejune assertion oddly implicates, but there must be some sense of honesty about what the Easterners believe. It is there in their own words. No offense. Just deal with it.
I am an Easterner, and I am quite well connected to Orthodox theology. What I said is quite true.
What’s there in their own words is entirely consistent with what Henry said — Satan is not just a deprivation of good; he is a positive force insofar as he has free will. Satan and evil are not synonymous; but this is logically what would be required for the particular portion of the passage that you emphasize to contradict Henry’s claim.
Since you don’t say in what way my claim is ‘jejune’, there’s conveniently no way for me to respond, clarify, or further argue my point.
Brandon,
To answer your points let me start by saying I see no particular reasons to buy the view that Thomas was especially coherent. One can appreciate a vast and very brilliant proximate coherence. This distinction could not be better evinced than by the very issues you are raising. To wit, Thomas in the Summa: ““evil is not of itself knowable, forasmuch as the very nature of evil means the privation of good; evil therefore can neither be defined nor
known except by good.” Now I am impressed by your cleverness in inveigling in what sounds like a Bentham-like explanation for the whole matter, but this quote shows it is grounded more in basic epistemological assumptions. In Thomas’ schema Satan may have a sort of free will, but since it is great involved with evil, which is per se unknowable (even to a Satan’s own self) the question by any modern reading becomes completely moot. It might have a proverbial “angels dancing on the head of a pin” meaning”; but not one with any meaning we could possibly be clear on. To say otherwise using a Thomistic schema would thus challenge Divine Omniscience.
This whole privatio boni matter is one that, as I said, is one of the few areas where science really does dispose of a religious matter. But one hardly needs science even to show its fault. One just needs diligence to the contradictions inherent in the historical sources.
I am thoroughly baffled by the claim that one can make a case for “The West is Aristotelian” that would not allow one to make an even stronger case for “The East is Platonic”.
In any case,we should be wary of any attempt to treat privatio boni as an essentially Augustinian doctrine; it’s a Neoplatonic doctrine, with Augustine merely being the most influential Western proponent. It can be found in plenty of Eastern thinkers; e.g., the Dionysian text on the Divine Names (chapter 4, sections 18 and following) is one of the classic loci for the doctrine.
Henry and Brandon,
Believe me, I am not trying to be rude here. but bear with me if a certain level of exasperation is evident in the “down the rabbit hole” feeling this simple matter of religious Ideengeschischte seems to engender. I am well aware that in the roman Catholic realm there is a great desire to see their metaphysics on such matters as undergirding everyone else’s. but it ain’t so. Henry, again with due respect, you are a Uniate Catholic, and there is a reason the Orthodox are not Uniate. They have a very different vantage point on quite a few things, and this is one of the most famous. I find it amazing you would deny it.
But let me try to bear down on the matter exactly, using the excerpt from the Greek Archdiocese as exemplar. First, Henry, I think you must admit that is what you are engaging in is a meta-interpretation of the Catholic position. I believe I limn that that you don’t quite buy the Thomistic notion of privatio boni yourself, and thus introduce literary nuances, etc. Fine, no prob, but just admit that is what is going on here. For when we look at the Archdiocese’s statement a number of things are clear. First, their wording is clearly meant to counter the Roman view. The fact that they would even speak of Satan as a “positive” force is clearly meant to answer the view of evil as negation or privation. Clearly they do NOT mean that Satan is anything “positive” like common parlance means with phrases like “positive vibe”. And certainly they do not mean that Satan as evil force is somehow just some la-la concept, but very real. So the very fact that they would come close to such an infelicitous -sounding phrase for Satan tells us that they were felt great need to make their view distinct from the Roman one.
Brandon seems to misunderstand the thoroughgoing nature of the Thomistic development of privatio boni. It means that evil has no reality at all, and that would mean everything ultimately, including will. In that schema, what “will” Satan would have would be only such as the negation of Divine Will. To deny that, would in the Catholic schema, to be to deny Omnipotence. The Greek view is based on admitting the real nature of evil as a metaphysical datum, and is much more appropriate to the energetic
facts in life. In fact I believe the Greek Orthodox view is less likely to bring about fashionable denials of evil’s reality in life.
As a total aside, can I just digress and say that many who have worked in the world of healing will have something to add here. Namely that evil energies, or evil chi as the Chinese like to say, is a reality that can be felt. There is an extreme form of toxicity which I suppose could be called possession. Thankfully, all I ever encountered in my former work was the garden-variety toxic energy that people pick up in a life. There are safe ways to discharge such energies. But make no mistake, they are real. Thus, as an aggregate we can say evil is a very real force, and to stay away from it, and deal with it skillfully is a big part of staying well in life, and close to God’s will. No doubt prayer to the Deity, and invoking Divine Goodness is one of the best ways, but not the only.
Peter
This is not where the disagreement comes from (and btw, uniate as I am sure you know, is a very insulting word). The fact is Orthodox theology is Platonic, recognized as such, and you will find the gradation of being (and evil as privation of good) within the East (again, we have seen two references from the East, key, influential figures in this discussion).
St John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith:
“But, if they say, if such is the case, where does the evil come from? For it is inconceivable that evil should originate from good. Then we reply that evil is no more than a negation of the good and a lapse from what is natural to what is unnatural, for there is nothing that is naturally evil. Now, as they were made, all things that God made were very good. So, if they remain as they were created, then they are very good. But, if they freely withdraw from the natural and pass to the unnatural, then they become evil.
[...]
For evil is not some sort of substance, nor yet a property of a substance, but an accident, that is to say, a deviation from the natural into the unnatural, which is just what sin is.”
Book IV, Chapter 20.
Henry,
I really had no idea that “uniate” had become a term of insult. How and why?? I am very interested in this matter. When I was in the seminary that is how we referred to various non-Latin rite Churches in communion with Rome. Something has changed. Can you fill me in?? In the meantime, I am going to do a little research and try to reply to your quote specifically. My general response is that you are making a forest for the trees mistake in regards the general eastern view. But I will get back and specify. Thanks. Don’t be mad at me, I think you are cool.
http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/125180/Why%20is should be a helpful talk
Henry,
Thanks, I will check it out. In the meantime, I did some quick research which will help me make a quick point. I regret that my other research commitments do not allow me to delve into this matter, because I am really interested in the topic. I acknowledge that this is a complicated matter. But I would also highlight that the Catholic Church has seemingly wanted to treat it as if it weren’t. But one of the ways that it is complicated is in terms of Platonism. The following will give you a sense of the sort of objection I had to you statements about Platonism, and I use it because it jibes with a lot that I have read over the years on this type to topic:
“the relation between Platonism and orthodoxy is to Athanasius an
antithesis, because her regards the divine hierarchy as idolatry…[Yet] the orthodox Christian faith which Athanasius puts in to clear conflict with Platonic idolatry is a kind of Christian faith which to large degrees expressed in Platonic terms.” — Orthodoxy and Platonism in Athanasius: Synthesis or Antithesis, E.P. Meijering., p. 131.
I am hardly an expert on matters of orthodoxy. But as I understand it, it is this very sense of discomfort with philosophical categories which has lead to a more de facto sense of “mystery” in their view, compared to the West. And surely Platonism and all its conceptual derivations is included in that as well.
(the situation with Athanasius reminds me of the Kabbalists who were somewhat against philosophy, but yet had to use Aristotelian terms!)
Of course Athanasius (or the Church Fathers, in general) were not Platonists in the sense of following the pagan Platonic Theology. When talking about Platonism in relation to Christianity, and Christian thought, it is connecting how Platonic ideas are developed in Christian theology itself. Yes, there are some who come very close to actual pagan Platonism in the Christian tradition, but that is not what is being talked about here.
http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1925_304.html
“Foreign to us is both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, we are Platonists by tradition and there is for us no such split between the natural and the supernatural. We believe moreover, that the world and man and all authentic being is rooted in God, that Divine energy pervades the natural world, and that external to God is only sin and evil. After the appearance of Christ there has been a transformation of man and the world, and Creator and creature have become united.”
Henry,
I read over those comments from the Byzantine Forum and it is interesting. I think I understand now about why it has become an insult. I am going to have some delicious gunpowder green tea now because my head is spinning a bit just considering all these complexities, and put on a a CD of Khovanschina of Mussorgsky!
Life is indeed complex.
Brandon seems to misunderstand the thoroughgoing nature of the Thomistic development of privatio boni. It means that evil has no reality at all, and that would mean everything ultimately, including will. In that schema, what “will” Satan would have would be only such as the negation of Divine Will.
I’ve studied Aquinas for years and years; I teach the Thomistic account of privatio boni as one of my standard topics for my college philosophy courses; and I don’t know what you mean by this. Aquinas seems pretty clear that we use the word ‘evil’ sometimes to indicate privations or deficiencies of perfection (not reality, perfection, i.e., completeness), which is evil as such, and sometimes to indicate goods insofar as they are so deprived, which is not evil as such but evil in a looser sense (we identify something good as evil insofar as it is lacking some completing good it should have, which is in general whatever gives it due order and measure). We also don’t have to speculate about what Aquinas would say about Satan’s will; he tells us in both ST 1.63.4 and De Malo 16.2 that demonic wills are what all wills are on Aquinas’s account: good natural tendencies to good as such. The evil of Satan’s will is a voluntary deficiency or privation in his naturally good will; like every free agent, through free choice he is, by his naturally good intellect and naturally good will, his own defective cause, making himself to fall short in his natural intellectual tendency (i.e., will) to the good.
It is notable, incidentally, looking again at Aquinas’s major accounts of privatio boni (in ST 1.5 and 1.48; and in De Malo 1.1-3), how much it is the result of combining Dionysus and Augustine — that is, his major Eastern authority and his major Western authority.
Henry,
One little tidbit of a post scriptum motivated by your Berdyaev quotation. Is it so unreasonable to assume that what may motivate serious Easterners today in terms of philosophy, is the recognition that so much of their “Platonism” came not by way of reaction to “pagan Platonism” but by the ruminations of a “saint” — St. Denis. Otherwise known as the Pseudo-Dionysius. A chimera. Frauds have the effect of making people wary of philosophers, and that is the most commonsense notion one could make. “Mystery” though a bit ambiguous by definition is also something everyone can assume about the Divine. There is the true Divine Service.
So now you accept, through Denis, the East is Platonic?
Henry,
“So now you accept, through Denis, the East is Platonic?”
LOL. Yea, in kind of the same way that Sir Yehudi Menuhin was being very Mozartian when he played, recorded and championed the Adelaide Concerto of “Mozart”.
Just to let you know, I’m really appreciating your contributions lately, Henry. They are substantial and leave me with a great deal to think about. I particularly like all the quotations from Philip Dick. I used to consider myself a “neo gnostic” years ago, and I’ve read him only in passing. I never realized he became a person of faith.
I’m glad you are enjoying the discussions. As I go through his Exegesis, I plan to use it to springboard many of my discussions. I’m about 5/8ths through it right now, so there is more to come.
As for PKD, he’s very difficult to designate. His Exegesis, which is his speculative work based upon his own mystical experiences, is filled with many paths of thought. He didn’t know what to make of what happened and so looked at it under many different angles. He is generally Gnostic but of a kind which looked to and often was influenced by what he would study and learn from the past, and though he had a bias against Catholicism (from how he was raised), it is clear he moved closer and closer to Catholic views (transubstantiation becoming very important to him, and his short story the Pre-Persons brought him into close contact with a Catholic priest). He didn’t get all the way there, but I do think he presents the position of an honest searcher, and as such, I do think he says much of value (which I highlight; other ideas he explores are important, and they engage interesting concepts, but they are not so easily discussed in a blog forum).
To say that “existence is good” is not to say that “material existence is good.” Food can be necessary and good; but food can go bad and become toxic. So can existence. The question as to why there is corruptible flesh remains to be directly addressed and answered. If it was necessary, then it does not deserve punishment for being how it was created. If it is not necessary, then it was a mistake from the beginning.
Material existence contains existence, hence good.
Material existence is the prison of spiritual existence, hence bad.
But many of us are Catholics… so we don’t believe that.
Comrade Rodak,
I had no idea that you took all that Gnostic stuff all that literally. Read the idea of Order at Key West quick, before a daimon bites you on the ass!
If a man was given an important assignment at his place of employment — to design a strategy, or a device, that was crucial to the organization; and if that man designed something that would not fail only if it were never used; and if that man defended his work by saying “But at least I did it; it exists!” — how long would that man keep his job in the wake of that performance?
That is not a proper analogy for what is going on. The aesthetics of the great chain of being also helps explain why material existence is good. And btw, Satan is not pure evil — he can’t be because he exists. Within him is much good, but abused good.
I love that old Woody Allen line: “If there is a God, one thing you can say about him is that he is an underachiever.”
“Satan is not pure evil — he can’t be because he exists.”
Repeating that “X is good because X exists and existence is good” really doesn’t further the discussion. What would further the discussion would be to show why it is necessarily the case that existence is good at all times and in every category.
I think my analogy, which is an analogy to the placing of the forbidden fruit in the Garden and the subsequent Fall of Man, due to Man having been designed possessed of free will, is quite proper. Where does it break down?
The breakdown is that you want to override a good (free will) with android-logic, and confuse lack of freedom as a good. The better world is the one which comes out of the freedom. Moreover, there is always going to be an infinite variety of possible worlds. The Leibniz “best world” scenario is lacking because it requires necessity in God and assumes a limit of good.
No. That’s not at all what I’m doing. I’m saying that the myth has been twisted to displace the blame. There was no reason to place a prohibition on human access to anything in the Garden, since it was all (supposedly) good. It was an arbitrary test, made by a God who is supposedly omniscient and therefore knew the inevitable outcome. It is absurd. If there is blame to be placed, it should be placed on the more responsible party (the creator), with the greater powers (omniscience, omnipotence) not on the weaker, less capable creature, whose temptations were arbitrarily placed in her path; and with a tempter present, apparently created for no other purpose than to tempt. I.e.–everything created in the beginning wasn’t all that good.
I must admit I often find a lot of what Henry posts to be brilliant, but I find the dialogue in the comments extremely frustrating. Henry appears more interested in assertions than argumentation. Rodak, you raise some good questions, but I wouldn’t waste time pursuing this any further. There is very little actual dialogue going on here.
Dan,
I would say it that I, more or less, posit my major understanding in a post, and often (though with rare exceptions) only briefly continue on the discussion in the comments section though I think others can and should work their own thoughts and reactions. If one were to address every issue in every comment, there would be no life.
This was an awesome thing to read Henry. Excellent as always.
Thanks.