Thomistica

How to Approach Evil

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Due to the evident presence of evil in its various forms in the world, it is questionable to many that anything evil can exist in a reality which has a perfectly good first cause. Most people affected by trauma or misfortune have an emotional tie to this dilemma. The emotional aspect will be revisited briefly following the logical portion of the article. There are several things to note prior to the presentation of three arguments for the compatibility of evil in creation with God. We will apply each of these three outcomes to temporality and aeviternity. 

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We first must begin by defining evil. Evil is the contrary of goodness, and goodness is convertible with being. Evil is not a thing in itself but only exists subsequent to the presence of goodness. Evil is defined as such: “a lack of being” or “privation of goodness.” To the extent that being lacks in a thing is also the extent to which it is evil. In the same way that darkness is merely the absence of light, evil is the absence of being. Actuality and potentiality can be taken in two ways regarding evil. In the first way, actuality and potentiality are intrinsic to the thing considered in itself. In this regard being is actual and non-being is potential. If something is completely actualized it is in a state of perfection in every aspect proper to its nature. If something lacks complete actuality, some potentiality, and therefore some evil, exists in it. Relative to human nature, complete perfection is beatitude and any imperfection is sin. In the second way, actuality and potentiality are relative to the state of the thing considered, supposing that the thing considered transitions from one state to the next. All things that transmutate exist in a state of potentiality toward the actualization of a state not yet possessed. It can be said that they can potentially be further actualized or unactualized, augmented or reduced in the fullness of their capacity to be actualized. Now, regarding perfection, there is absolute perfection and formal perfection. Absolute perfection is proper to God alone who is pure act with no admixture of potentiality. All other perfection, creaturely perfection, consists in perfection proper to the given restrictions of the quiddity of that form. One perfection is infinite, the other finite. This distinction is essential in understanding what it means to lack being. All things that aren’t God lack absolute perfection and therefore lack being in some way. This lack of being can be accounted for in two ways. Firstly, there is a natural lack of being that is a consequence of the restrictions of a given form. Secondly, there is a freely-willed lack of being that is a consequence of the agency permitted by God in an individual. This pertains to rational creatures. The first is commonly called “deprivation.” This is an irreversible and easily justifiable consequence. The alternative to this evil would be non-existence. Would it be better for something not to exist? To remove the form of a thing is to make it something else. And to make it something else makes it not that things considered. The thing considered then wouldn’t exist concretely if we manipulate its essential form as such. But if existence is convertible with goodness, then it is good for a thing to exist. For anything that exists shares with all other things a likeness to the goodness of God whether it exists imperfectly and imperfectly. Hatred of existence is nihilism. Those who uphold evil as incompatible with God due to deprivation are nihilists. Such a view is relative to the nihilist and inherently false. If it were true then nothing would exist since the goodness of existence is determined by Him who reality is subjected to, God. But since something exists, it must be false that existence is bad, since existence itself, God, determines truth. And His arbitration is evident in that He gives existence to things other than Himself. Privation taken as freely willed is also the consequence of deprivation. In this case the specific deprivation is the corruptibility of the will in human nature. Therefore, it differs from deprivation in that it belongs to rational nature and is a self-inflicted kind due to the allowance of intellectual agency. We can call this “evil of the will.” Now the various deprivations of independent natures have effects on each other which results in a deprivation of nature, that is, all of created reality together. The whole of created reality is also not absolutely perfect lest it fail to be distinct from God and thereby not exist. So whether the parts of reality or its whole be considered, deprivation is necessarily concomitant with the distribution of existence to all things.

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The will has both an immediate and long term aspect. Its long term aspect directs all things toward a particular end, an end which is either apparent to the individual falsely perceiving that end as the optimal good or and which is truly and properly its optimal good. Each thing has a capacity for goodness according to its nature. The immediate aspect of the will makes use of immediate things to reach its long term end. Evil of the will consists in the depravity or defectivity of either of these two aspects. Firstly, respective to its long term aspect, if the end sought is not the maximal goodness which the nature is capable of, then sin results. And secondly, respective to its immediate or short term object, which is a means to its final end or final cause, if the object of the means to the end are disproportionate to the end in mind, then sin results. This unactualized potency that subsists in the immediate will is often more difficult to actualize because it has many things demanding its attendant. The long term will can therefore be fixed at once while the immediate will requires properly ordering manifold things in priority according to how effective they are in actualizing the nature’s optimal end if that optimal end is perceived. This is why the best practice for filling oneself with being and thereby warding off evil is to remember the optimal end if properly perceived, which is beatitude. 

Having defined evil and the various distinctions that can be made, it is important to demonstrate the obvious flaw in using the following statement to disprove God’s existence: “God is good yet bad things happen; therefore, God cannot exist.” Whether this statement is dishonest or carries over through a propagandistic, atheistic anthem is beside the fact that it is evidently absurd. If that which is outside of God is naturally privated of being to some degree, it does not mean that God himself is evil. A defect in one thing does not mandate the same defect in the actually distinct thing which we are relating it to. A product can be alike to the principle from which it is produced either to the same degree or to a lower degree but never more and never at all lest we abandon the relationship between principle and product or terminus. Therefore, the absence of infinite goodness is the presence of evil. But this defection is in that which God produces outside of Himself, not God himself. Since God is pure act, by virtue of the necessity to posit a first cause in any possible reality, He must be purely evil, or purely good, and cannot be an admixture of the two lest He be composite. But if He were maximally evil, there would not exist anything good except for the sake of evil. And if He were maximally good, as we know him to be, then there would not exist any evil except for the sake of good. But good is that which God is objectively, and not relatively to us. So those who agree that God is good agree with God in truth and those who deem God to be evil disagree with God and reality in their own falsity. For Good is that which is and evil is that which is not. 

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Evil is also not a substance but an accident that inheres in the nature of a thing. Or, rather, it is the lack of an accident that should be present to perfect the form of the substance which it subsists in. As Dionysius says:

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Evil has no place in the things that exist... for if all things come from the Good, and the Good is the source of all things, then either evil is not among the things that exist, or it is in the Good… Evil does not even exist as a being, nor is it in beings... Evil per se is nowhere. It exists only by the power of the Good, and its very being—if we can call it that—is a parasitic one, for it lives off the Good… No one does what he does with his eyes on evil... Even he who does the worst things does them for the sake of the Good—for instance, he seeks some pleasure or thinks he is doing something right. Thus, evil is an accident; it is a side-effect, and not the intended goal. Evil is a departure from the right way, a failure to hit the mark, a weakness, a lack of proportion. It is like a disease of the soul: it is not a part of the soul’s nature, but an accidental defect that happens to it. (The Divine Names, Chapter 4)

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Through this it is also proved that evil is potentiality where there should be actuality, only with respect to accidents in particular things

 

Good Coming from Evil

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Evil is used as an instrument for good in three ways. Firstly, in bringing about greater goods; secondly, in making the good known; and thirdly, as a means to sanctify human nature.

The first way, is that in which God Himself is not evil but rather permits it in His creative act to bring about goods otherwise not possible. Therefore it can be said that evil corrupts the good for the sake of earning a greater good. It is commonly said that if God brings about a good that is equal to or greater than the evil permitted then He is justified in doing so. To this point we agree with Augustine:

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For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He could then bring good even out of evil. (Enchiridion, Chapter 11)

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And concerning evil of the will specifically:

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For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish. (The City of God, Book XI, Ch. 23)

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Since evil is necessary for certain goods to exist, Goodness is revealed or communicated through reality in its most manifold form if evil exists. In other words, a reality that maximizes goodness is one in which evil is permitted. God is able to articulate Himself most completely to those that He wishes to reveal Himself to in a reality where evil exists. For courage does not exist without danger and forgiveness without enmity. And this principle can be applied to countless examples, particular examples of which we could not fit in a dictionary. 

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In application to aeviternity, the afterlife, in which consciousness subsists unnaturally divorced from the body which it animates but joyfully awaits the realization of the hope of the resurrection by virtue of divine omnipotence, the good thing can subsist without need for the evil which makes it possible. For these certain goods exist in a state of potentiality until faced with the evil that presents the opportunity to exercise this good. Once the good is exercised, it is actualized in the subject and inheres in the subject until the opportunity for that good is re-presented by the corresponding evil that makes it possible. If a subject dies with that good actualized in them, the good remains incorruptible in the subject since the subject is no longer exposed to the evil which triggers its need. This way the subject obtains a good in a permanent state whereas, if the evil were not presented to the subject, they would be incapable of such a good by nature. Therefore, evil enhances a nature’s capacity to obtain goodness in itself.

 

Logical Juxtaposition

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Now, a second way in which evil is not only permissible but absolutely necessary is portrayed well in movies but not theologically. Good and evil are contraries and each extremity cannot be known without the presence of the other. Therefore, evil is in service to good by illuminating it. For no act is known to be good unless it is compared to evil and without the possibility of choosing good over evil, we would not know it to be good. For good and evil are only possible within a reality of diversity, that being diversity of option, possibility, or chance. So if a reality where evil is impossible were to exist and all goodness would be maximized in every particular instantiation then it could not be called good. And in a reality where it is impossible to will evil, and the choice of goodness in every instance be maximized, the will nor the choice could be called good. For what is good cannot be called good unless compared with what it is not. Even though God could make such a reality where there is no evil, his goodness would not be known. Such a reality would only be possible if God were to make all creatures ignorant. For regardless, by creating that which is not Himself, and this is precisely the definition of creation, some defect exists relative to infinite goodness which is God alone. But enlightenment is a good and ignorance an evil. Even more so, a reality where evil is not permitted may not maximize goodness because it would inhibit goods otherwise not possible. It can also be argued that the degree to which evil is permitted is also the degree to which good is illuminated. In a reality where more heinous evils are permitted, their potency to illumination of the good corresponds as such. 

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To apply this to the afterlife, heaven and hell, heaven cannot exist without its contrary and therefore heaven is made possible through a place in aeviternity relatively opposite. For if all went to heaven, could it really be called heaven unless some knowledge of a lesser place of subsistence existed? Moreover, heaven and hell are no places but states of consciousness that are justly served by God according to merit. For the good which the will identifies as its end, whether apparent or proper, is what is achieved ultimately. However, if the apparent good or object of the will is something finite, that it does not fulfill the longing of the human heart since more remains to be satisfied. Separated from transitory states in life, the soul cannot be in anguish due to the permanent lacking in the satisfaction of the soul due to the privation in the object of the will. But if the object of the will is something infinite, then it is satisfied and there is only one such being. Hell is not an eternal torture chamber as unlearned heretics portray it but separation from the ultimate good which is possessing in oneself a resemblance to the infinite good fully, according to the capacity of that things nature. Though the anguish is commonly depicted through imagery since tangible things are often used to represent spiritual realities by God, as in the sacraments. The necessary juxtaposition in life manifests in a form proper to a necessity after death. Though, all in hell remain in a net positive state because they possess being, only, they possess it in a deprived form. So, all that they are remains good and they themselves as well as their existence are good. Perfect goodness also entails perfect justice, and it is through this that physical punishment could theoretically be mandated, but only in proportion corresponding to the merit lest the justice of God be imperfect. Can a reward truly be a reward if everyone receives it? And can justice truly be justice if no one receives their due? This may seem dualistic in nature. However, this cannot be so because evil has no substance. For the justice of hell is by virtue of the good, that being the good of the souls punished. This is love but in a different form than that which the saints receive. Temporal choices do not merit aeviternal punishment. However, Choices known to have aeviternal implications do merit aeviternal punishment. If the intellect is ignorant of the aeviternal merits of sin, then it is not held accountable for aeviternity but likely temporally in purgatory. However, willful ignorance can be considered one of the most grave sins for this reason: that it is the greatest abuse of grace. It is a spite toward God and turning towards self to a high degree which can merit aeviternal punishment. Regardless of the outcome, all outcomes serve the good through the form of perfect justice. Christ gives the best illustration of the perfect justice of God:

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For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matthew 25:14-30)

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The application of this parable is two-fold, not only dealing with merit, hence the diversity of coins initially distributed to the servants. Not only are reward and punishment proportionate with merit, but also with circumstance: “to whom much is given, much is expected.” So those who do not have access to grace or come from a different background or have extenuating circumstances, will be judged according to the measure given them. And this hints at divine predilection, the natural aptitude that a specific person has toward grace. For all are equal in dignity, but not all are blessed with the same number or magnitude of gifts. God has knowledge of those who are gifted and what they will merit and therefore predestines them but uses their free will to attain the highest attainable goodness in reality for the whole and all things have the pleasure to participate in Him, irrespective of the degree to which they do. Free will is a means to an end. And though God knows all outcomes, he whose will God uses for His rightly desired end is ignorant by nature of the outcome of God’s use of his will for the good of the whole.

 

Evil and Sanctification

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And now, for our third method to justify the permission of evil in creation, we return to where we left off: trauma. It is not the logical aspect that is difficult for most people. Rather, having undergone hardship, it is answering the question, “why would God do this to me? Why me?” It seems as if God is out to harm you. But this is not the case. It is the consequence of the defect of nature. For a lion to exist, it is necessary that it kill, for health to be desired as good, there must be illness, for the sake of the elect there, must be the corrupt, and for the sake of an aeviternity free from all evil, there must be imminent death. The greatest good of all is that all evils handled in accordance with the proper end of human nature, beatitude, produce virtue, and through virtue a share in the glory of God, likeness to him, and participation in his own life. For however grave the sin and difficult the consequences, whether it be rape, murder, or genocide, heroes are born in the face of these things. Saint Maria Goretti was an 11-year old girl who grew up so poor that her family was forced to live with another family. Following the death of her father at such a young age, Maria took on household responsibilities and cared for her younger siblings while her mother worked in the fields next to their home. In the family they lived with was 20 year old Alessandro Serenelli. Attempting to rape her, Maria resisted and Alessandro responded by stabbing her 14 times which caused her death the next day. Prior to her death, when asked by a priest whether she forgave her attacker, Maria responded: “Yes, for the love of Jesus, I forgive him… and I want him to be with me in paradise.” Alessandro remained unrepentant for 11 years in prison before having a vision of Maria in a garden. In this dream Maria handed him 14 white lilies representing the 14 stabs which turned into flames. Upon release from prison, 27 years later, Alessandro sought for forgiveness from Maria’s mother who followed the noble example of her daughter. Alessandro later converted. In this story, is seen an example of someone who uses hardship to reach the rightly identified end in which they desire to rest. And countless more examples come from the saints. In fact, it can be argued that hardship is the most expedient instrument to produce saints because it drives an individual to look beyond the things of this world and seek meaning at its deepest level. There is an evil which results from sin and an evil that is the sin. The former acts as a buffer, directing the path of the sinner of a broken nature, edifying the form of that nature until it is beatified unless it relentlessly resists. The latter is the consequence of a defect in the will itself, it is inherent in the thing. Every operation proceeding from the intellectual faculties and into material reality through the body results in one of two movements: sin, a turning away from God, and virtue, a turning toward God. Sin is either a conversion, a turning toward finite goods, or aversion, turning away from infinite good, God. The logical necessity of punishment is as follows:

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The disorder of guilt is not brought back to the order of justice, except by punishment: since it is just that he who has been too indulgent to his will, should suffer something against his will." (III, q. 86, a. 4, co.)

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In the economy of grace, those who are paid evil undeservingly, having suffered something against their will, justly have the indulgence of their will in grace at God’s disposal if oriented toward the proper end. If not, virtue follows but detached from its optimal end. And so, the response that hardship brings should not be one of self pity or of hatred toward God. Rather, the hardship presented should be used as a means through which virtue is attained for the proper end of glorifying God. And the graces from all undeserved evil done to anyone in this life that go untouched will justly be reserved for the afterlife and translate into the currency of glory in the age to come.

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Written by Matthew Shuler