They were friends, the kind of friends that only teenagers can be. They did everything together, hinged like a gate to a fence post. These two young friends from a quiet, middle-class neighborhood in northern Indiana wanted to run away to Arizona so badly, prosecutors say, that they shot a stepfather who stood in the way of their plans.
The two alleged killers — ages 15 and 12 as I write this — hadn't shown any signs of violence before the older boy's 49-year-old stepfather, Phillip Danner, was shot to death in his home, according to neighbors and family members. One moment they were quiet and calm friends; the next moment they took a pair of handguns (after planning a month) and shot Danner in the eye, in the wrist and twice in the chest.
Evil, by definition, is that which is morally bad, corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked. Clearly evil is the opposite of good. The teenagers sole motive was all of the above: morally bad, completely and wantonly destructive to their families to their young lives, totally selfish in trying to accomplish what they wanted to accomplished and by its very definition, wicked.
When seven persons in New York City walk by a person lying on the ground bleeding, when a fetus is found in a drainage system in Baton Rouge, when shootings occur without thought or remorse, clearly evil exists.
On a different level, evil to me is the opposite of that which is holy, God-like.
Evil, it seems to me in the end, is simply the opposite of love. If indeed we are capable of love, through divine guidance and especially through the reception of grace into our lives, we are incapable then of doing true evil.
If Paul had it right about love in 1 Corinthians, then evil is its opposite.
Let me explain:
Evil is not patient and is never kind. It is jealous and boastful and rude. Evil constantly demands its own way. Evil is irritable and always keeps a record of how it has been wronged. Evil loves injustice and hates truth. Evil gives up easily and has no faith, in anything. Evil never endures and quitting is a part of what it does best.
Many feel that the presence of evil in the world appears to place the Christian doctrine of a just and loving God into a no-win situation. In other words, how can God allow evil to exist. How can a loving God allow the Holocaust? How can God allow serial killers? How can God....
But there is more. I believe in a literal Satan and demons. Yes, I do. Do I give them credit for all the wrong that humanity has done and will do, no I do not. But it seems to me in what scholarship and study I've done that Ephesians 6:12 is pretty consistent with what I believer. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in heavenly places," Paul wrote.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had a long interest in the subject often asking, "Whence came evil?" Without any semblance of impiety, Wesley sought to "justify the ways of God to man" and ultimately saw theodicy as an important test of God’s ability "to extract good out of evil."
Wesley believed in "evil angels," as his writing on the scripture of Ephesians 6:12 tells this: "This single passage seems to contain the whole scriptural doctrine concerning evil angels. I apprehend the plain meaning of it, literally translated, is this: "Our wrestling," the wrestling of real Christians, "is not" only, or chiefly, "against flesh and blood," weak men, or fleshly appetites and passions, "but against principalities, against powers," -- the mighty princes of all the infernal regions, with their combined forces: And great is their power, as is also the power of the legions they command, -- "against the rulers of the world."
So what are we to make of this thing we call evil? What is it?
I believe it to be ultimately the aftermath of a fallen world. Anything that is not of Christ, it seems to me, is evil. There is the sense that if you are not for him, you are against him. Evil doesn't need to come in degrees. It simply is. If you're not in the corner of the Messiah, you are in cahoots with evil.
Does that mean everyone who is not a follower of Christ is evil, then? In the very broad sense of the term. It does not mean that they are serial killers or terrorists. But, again, removing shades of grey and looking strictly at two sides of a coin, evil is the opposite of love. God, according to John's letters, is love. Therefore, evil is anything that opposes God.
It exists. It strives. I believe it to be growing.
No comments:
Post a Comment