The Nature of Evil

[VIROS 2915]

 

 

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The Nature of Evil

Defining Evil and Its Threefold Expression

By Monsignor Fabian Virosi the Lesser

 

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     One of the more difficult tasks of a theologian in speaking with an unbeliever or a devotee plagued by doubt is justifying the “problem of evil,” in which God permits suffering despite His infinite power, knowledge, and benevolence. This is a vexing task that requires deep study and scholarship. Assuredly, God is infinitely wise and infinitely powerful, for He could not create the world without these abilities, and proof of His might surrounds us every day. This leaves the astute but uneducated pupil only to question His infinite benevolence, a path which too often leads to the sin of denial. Why does the plague afflict virtuous men? Why does the lion hunt gentle creatures like the lamb or the child? Certainly, it is just for God to punish the wicked, but why do the virtuous suffer as well? We cannot deny that the blight is an evil, nor the hunting of men by beasts. And if all things arise from God, have not these as well?

 

     First we must address that while the Lord makes clear to us the nature of virtuous living, and furthermore the nature of sin, we often find these definitions inadequate in describing “evil” as an abstraction. While certainly, to commit sin is to commit evil, not all evils are sinful-- sin arises only from the choices of free willed descendants, and is meaningless in regard to the natural world. Both the beast and the babe cannot sin, because they lack moral judgement. By definition, to sin is to trespass God, and not all evils in the world result from this. Poverty, disease, ignorance, famine, and injurious accident may all transpire without motivation from mortal choice. Likewise, these evils befall the virtuous and the iniquitous alike. Thus, we are engendered to broaden our definition of evil beyond merely the moral evil of sin, but to all suffering and failure, be they manmade or natural.

 

     In this regard the author has found it useful to divide evil into three classifications: moral, physical, and metaphysical. Moral evil is the evil of sin, or trespassing the commands of God, and is the only evil that results in the damnation of its perpetrator. Murder, theft, blasphemy, adultery, and diabolism are all moral evils, and their consequence is punishment in the hereafter. Physical evil is the evil brought into the world by the fall of the descendents to Iblees; the evils such as disease, poverty, mortality, and want, which are spawned by demons, and are a result of the sins of our forefathers. Its consequence is the worldly deprivation of the blessings God granted us, such as food, long life, or beloved friends. Metaphysical evil is the “natural” evil of the world, inherent in its nature. This evil arises from our realm’s distance from God, as decreed by Him. When He rendered the planes, He named that which is with Him the Seventh Sky, that which is farthest the Void, and between them the World. The Lord is perfect, lacking no knowledge or ability. The Void is a place of oblivion and helplessness. Accordingly, the World between contains a mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of ability and inability; men build mighty kingdoms, but each soon falls; they measure the world’s width, but cannot traverse it; they love and are married, but sometimes desire others. This is metaphysical evil, the suffering which comes simply by being unlike God, and its consequence is that we are tested by temptation.

 

     The existence of a “metaphysical evil” may be somewhat counterintuitive to the layman, as we are aware of the Lord’s infinite benevolence. However, in further defining the three evils, we will find that they are wholly absent in God. He commits no moral evil because moral evil is to choose to trespass the will of God--He cannot trespass His own will. He contains no physical evil because physical evil is to be deprived of the blessings of God--none can deprive the omnipotent Lord. He experiences no metaphysical evil because metaphysical evil is the imperfection of what is distant from Him--God is wholly perfect, and cannot be far from Himself. Thus, these evils arise not because of God, but because we do not fully apprehend Him.

 

     Through Him, however, we may overcome the threefold sufferings. Through His Virtue, we resist the temptation of moral evil. Through faith, we resist the pains of physical evil. Through nearness to Him in the Skies, we overcome metaphysical evil. By His benevolent nature, any who draw closer to God through virtue will find the pains of life fade, not only in this world, but in the hereafter.

 

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