May 032011
There’s an interesting conversation going on over at my Facebook wall & I thought I’d open it up here at the blog, because let’s face it, most of you aren’t worthy to be called my Facebook Friends.
I keep hearing that Osama bin Laden was evil, to which I completely agree. But, in that conversation, there’s seems to be this sort of underlying idea that he was evil, but we are not. A friend of mine tried to make the distinction between being sinful & being evil. I’m not sure there’s much of a distinction if any there.
Your thoughts?
By the way, feel free to friend me on Facebook & Twitter. My entire self-worth is determined by those numbers.
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To an ant, a beetle is a giant. But to a person, they’re both just bugs.
If we run with that and parallel evil / good with tiny / big then the any is evil-er than the beetle. Osama is worse than your run-of-the-mill sinner. But is he uniquely evil? Well, we’re all at the same, wrong end of the scale. That’s why every one of us needs Jesus who lived entirely at the good and giant end of the scale.
It’s not an answer to “what is evil”, but since most of us are really wondering “who is evil” perhaps it’s a start.
I think Vernon answered the “what is evil” question, being the absence of good. The thing I think a lot of people would argue is that we can make ourselves good or better than other people. I disagree with that. After all, an ant can’t just become a beetle, right?
Perhaps an ant can’t become a beetle. But if we scale up appropriately we’d really need to go past person, past tree, past mountain and get to the solar system. So ant or beetle, you both still statistically round to zero.
If that’s the case one of us may be better at some point than another. In fact, that will certainly be the case. But relative to an objective measure of good we will all come up wanting over and over. Quibbling over who is more not-bad won’t change the objective reality, though it will certainly distort the truth of the matter.
Clearly you think you’re better than me.
I would think that before we can determine one person “evil” and another “not evil” that the terms would have to be defined? We are not the first to think about this distinction.
Augustine, writing from a distinctly Christian worldview (but following logic introduced by Plato) followed a series of statements from a reasoned argument (syllogism) that because God is good and created all things, then evil is not a created thing but more akin to an absence of being. Essentially his conclusion was that evil is an absence of good.
In this worldview (which I share) we are all evil – there is an absence of good – until we are redeemed. Therefore Osama bin Laden was evil, but no more evil than me.
I agree. The fact that Paul says, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst,” and Jesus says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” I can’t help but believe that I am evil.
I think it’s completely appropriate to recognize acts of evil in other people, but we have to also recognize that it is the absence of good, like you said, that caused those acts. Likewise, without Christ, there is nothing good in us, no matter how well we attempt to keep ourselves from doing acts of evil – or visible ones anyway.
It’s dangerous when we start seeing other people – even terrorists – as worse than we are, (That doesn’t mean we don’t hold them accountable & even rejoice in justice.) because it’s a slippery slope to works based Christianity, and that makes me question why Jesus had to die for me.
BTW Chris – your self worth should have nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter – a much more accurate measure would be FourSquare – not who knows you, but where have you been?
God has given every person a conscience.(Romans 2:15-16) It make us WANT to follow the 10 commandments, but because of our sinful nature we do things that we shouldn’t even know we know they are wrong. When people turn away from their conscience they turn away from God which if done enough it hardens and stops warning us of wrong doing. I think the difference between sinful and evil are is the lack of conscience and thinking that you are above the laws of God. Therefore evil is ultimately a choice. My question is, Do you think people can be born evil or is it always a transition?
Wow, And when I say “know we know they are wrong ” I mean ” though we know they are wrong”
Hey Kristi! I believe scripture teaches that we are not only born evil/sinful, but that we are sinful from the time we are conceived (Psalm 51:5 – Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.)
I still don’t think that sinful and evil can be interchanged equally in today’s society. Sin being a transgression of divine law or regrettable action whereas evil being wicked and cause suffering. Evil is a much more sinister word. Even though a sin is a sin and there are no levels of bad or worse, I do think there is a point where a person can turn evil. At some point in every persons life they loved and felt loved, At some point evil takes over and they don’t (as Jjiminy Cricket so eloquently put it) let their conscience be their guide. When there is no remorse…. there is a lack of Jesus. When you are evil you are sinful but, if you are sinful, as we all are, it doesn’t mean we are evil.
( I also find this a very interesting topic that my youth group has been discussing as well)
I have been chewing on this quit a bit, maybe more than is healthy, who knows. But my mind kept going back to two verses from scripture. The first is Genesis 6:5 prior to the Flood. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The second is Paul in Romans 7:19 “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” My conclusion is that I may not ‘be” evil, but I am certainly capable of committing great evil. When I am honest with myself, there is a very, very thin line between me and bin Laden, or Hitler. It is a fascinating study to look at how a huge group of educated, sophisticated, modern, Europeans could get caught up in methodically carrying out the Holocaust. They were people not unlike me in many ways. I am not ready to say that bin Laden was evil. I think that kind of identification belongs on Satan. Osama bin Laden was certainly capable of doing evil things. But then, so am I. So are we all.
Thanks for that comment. I agree. Not to make excuses for evil acts, but I think so much of what causes people to commit great evil is the circumstances of their lives. If I were born in a predominantly Muslim country and I was taught to hate the United States, what’s to say that I would not have many of the same motivations as someone like bin Laden? I am a sinful person, capable of doing great harm to other people & so is everyone else. If they say they aren’t they are just fooling themselves & being extremely arrogant.
That’s what makes God’s call for us as Christians to be salt & light to the whole world so necessary.