If we concentrate on the evil in the world, invariably we become bitter and unhappy. We blame it all on God instead of pressing on to understand the mystery that is life, and yes the mystery, that is God.
Of course, we shouldn't become unconcerned when we encounter evil, no matter how it manifests itself. That would in itself be compounding the problem of evil.
We should, instead, focus on making good out of evil. It also opens up the possibility that some people out there--clever souls they--may be inventive enough to make evil out of good. It all depends what spin you place on each side of the mirror.
It is sometimes said that good is incomplete without its opposite, evil, and evil is meaningless were it not for the existence of good. A reality that consisted of only one of the two would be an impossibility and would be unstable in very little time.
Therefore, it follows, that in a perfect or complete world or reality, we need both good and evil.
Hi, Raul...
ReplyDeleteIt seems clear from the Word that before Lucifer's fall and the entrance of sin, no evil existed. The Bible also envisions the future total eradication of evil.
Given this, was good "incomplete without its opposite, evil," prior to sin? Will good be incomplete when sin and evil are destroyed after the millennium?
Will that new and perfect world "need both good and evil"?
Finally, how will that future reality that consists of "only one of the two" be "an impossibility" and "unstable"?
Trying to understand your post. But thanks for stimulating thought.
Ken, thank you for your interest in my post. I think the origin of this insistence with good requiring evil (if only as a theoretical possibility) started with a comment Dr. James Londis made in a discussion during the 70s at Atlantic Union College. The panel was about the nature of the new world, the afterlife, etc. His comment was that he couldn't understand how it would be impractical to not have the carbon cycle with its decay of organic matter, and reabsorption into new plants, etc., in the New Earth.
ReplyDeleteAlso influential in my theorizing with the existential necessity of good always having evil (if only theoretical or potential evil) as its mirror opposite is the work of Eli Siegel and his Philosophy of Opposites.
As much as we'd like to forever rid our world of evil for once and for all as well as death or decay, all these may be necessary to counterbalance their mirror opposites.
How can you speak of the integral completeness or perfection of such qualities such as rough-smooth, in-out, up-down, soft-hard, were it not that you have always had and always will have them as a pair?
Why break up the symmetry when it comes to life-death, and good-evil? It's almost as if in the case of death as the antidote for too much life you have a solution to problems such as overpopulation. Can you imagine a perfect Earth where you were bound to Earth and couldn't escape to other planets or space stations where no one ever died? The overpopulation would be a form of imperfect life and would, by necessity and overcrowding eliminate the excess humanity one way or another. Death, as distasteful as it may be, is actually a good thing in this imagined perfect world where no one ever dies from an Earth-bound human race.
Unless the universe were truly boundless and ever-expanding with new galaxies always being created to make room for the proliferation of an immortal human race, at some point, overcrowding would also come into existence even though it would take eons to manifest itself.
Also, if no one had ever sinned, the possibility would still have to exist endlessly, otherwise it would be an abnormal world where the only possibility was good.
All the best.