The origin of good and evil
1. God is the primary source of all that exists, is the highest wisdom, goodness and justice. Everything that comes from Him must differ in the same properties, because wisdom, goodness and justice cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil and unjust. It turns out that the evil that we see should not come from Him.
2. If evil was a special belonging of any creature, no matter how they call it, Ahriman or Satan, then it would be one of two things: either this creature would be equal to God and, as a result, as powerful and eternal as He, or it would be below Him.
Taking the first case, there would be two rival powers in constant struggle and each striving, on its part, to destroy what has been done by the other and, in this case, are in constant mutual opposition. However, this kind of assumption is incompatible with the unity of purpose that manifests itself in the entire order of the universe.
Taking the second case, this being, being lower than God, would be in His submission. And since, not being equal to God, it could not be eternal, then it had to have a beginning. If he was created, then, of course, it would be none other than God and, therefore, God created the spirit of evil, which would be a denial of His infinite goodness.
3. But evil exists and has its cause. Physical and mental suffering of various kinds that besieges a person can be divided into two categories, namely, those that people can avoid, and those that do not depend on their will. The latter include all natural disasters.
People whose abilities are limited cannot penetrate and understand the totality of the goals of Providence. A person judges things from the point of view of his personality and those artificial, conditional interests that he created for himself and which do not coincide with the laws of nature; for this reason, he often finds it bad and unjust what he would consider righteous and beautiful if he could understand its cause, purpose, and end result. Seeking the cause and benefit of any phenomenon, he will have to admit that everything bears the stamp of infinite wisdom, and bow before this wisdom even in that which he cannot yet understand.
4. People got a lot of reason, with the help of which they are able to avert or, in extreme cases, significantly weaken the consequences of natural disasters. The more a person learns and advances in enlightenment, the less destructive these disasters become; and with a prudent and wise social organization, he can paralyze, if not completely avoid them. For the sake of these scourges, which bring certain benefits in the general order of nature and in the future, but also striking in the present, God gave people the abilities that enable them to fight them.
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Thus, people improve unhealthy areas, eliminate harmful miasms, fertilize barren lands and keep them from flooding; thus, they build for themselves healthy dwellings that are able to withstand the winds so necessary to purify the atmosphere, and learn to protect themselves from bad weather; in the end, they little by little, out of necessity, create sciences with the help of which the conditions of existence on Earth are improved and the sum of the general welfare increases.
5. People must progress, and therefore the suffering they endure serves as an incentive to exercise their abilities, both physical and spiritual, and encourages them to find ways to avoid this suffering. If they had nothing to fear, then nothing would induce them to strive for the best, and their minds would have died out in inaction. A man would neither portray nor discover anything new. Suffering is the spearhead that motivates people to move forward on the path of progress.
6. But the most numerous sufferings are created by the person himself, his own passions, which stem from his pride, selfishness, ambition, greed and all kinds of excesses: this is the cause of wars and the calamities they generate, strife, injustice, oppression of the weak by the stronger, and, after all, this is also the cause of most diseases.
God has established laws full of wisdom that lead only to good, and a person finds in himself everything that is necessary to follow them; his conscience shows him the way, since these laws are inscribed in his heart. In addition, God constantly reminds him of them through His prophets and messiahs, through all embodied spirits who have received the mission to enlighten, instruct and improve him, and in the last times and through all fruitless spirits that manifest from all sides. If a person strictly adhered to these Divine laws, then, without a doubt, he would avoid the most acute sufferings and live happily on Earth. And if he does not want to do this due to his free will, then he experiences the consequences of his actions.
7. But God, full of mercy, gave help alongside illness, that is, He extracts good from evil itself. A moment comes when an excess of moral evil becomes unbearable and brings a person to the need to change his paths: taught by experience, he begins to seek healing in good, and when he takes a better path, he does it of his own free will, because he himself is aware of the inconveniences of the previous paths … Necessity compels him to improve morally in order to be happier, just as the same necessity forced him to improve the conditions of his material existence.
8. We can say that evil is the absence of good, just as cold is the absence of warmth. Evil does not constitute a certain property, just as cold is not a special fluid: one is the negation of the other. Where there is no good, evil necessarily exists; not to do evil is already the beginning of good. God wants only good, and evil comes exclusively from man. If there was a creature in creation intended for evil, then no one could escape it; but a person who in himself has the cause of evil and, moreover, possesses free will and is governed by divine laws, will avoid evil when he wants it.
For example: a landowner knows that there is a dangerous place at the end of his field where a person passing by can get hurt or even die. What will he do to prevent an accident? He will place a warning in the vicinity of the dangerous place, which states the possible danger and prohibits further movement. This is also the law; he is wise and prudent. If, in spite of him, a careless person follows on and misfortune happens to him, then he cannot blame anyone, only himself.
The same happens with any evil: a person could have avoided it if he observed divine laws. For example, God has set limits for satisfying human needs: they are determined by satiety; and if a person crosses this border, then he does it of his own free will, and diseases, infirmities, even death that can result from this, are the fruit of his negligence, and not the will of God.
9. But we can be told that if evil comes from human imperfections, and man was created by God, then as a result it turns out that God created, if not evil, then at least the cause of evil: if He had created man perfect, then there would not be evil.
If a person were created perfect, then he would be fatally carried away by good. However, having free will, he is not forced to inevitably strive for either good or evil. God commanded that he be subject to the law of progress and that perfection should be his personal merit and the fruit of his own labor, just as he is responsible for evil done according to his will. So, the whole question boils down to finding out what is the source of a person's inclination to evil.
10. If you study passions and even human vices, you will see that they all come from the instinct of self-preservation. This instinct is present in all its strength in animals and in primitive creatures close to the animal state. There he reigns supreme, because he does not meet with them a counterbalance in moral feeling: these creatures have not yet been born for mental life. But the instinct weakens as the mind develops, dominating over matter.
The purpose of the spirit is spiritual life; but in the first stages of his bodily life he has only material needs; to satisfy them, the action of passions is necessary, serving as a means for preserving the race and the individual, in the material sense of the word. Upon leaving this period, he has other needs, at first semi-material and semi-moral, and then exclusively moral. Then the spirit gains predominance over matter, and when it shakes off its yoke, it will move along its providential path and approach its ultimate goal.
But if, on the contrary, he admits the predominance of matter and obeys it, he will stop and become like an animal. In this state, what was once good, because it was a need of his nature, turns into evil, not only because it is no longer a necessity, but because it harms the spiritualization of the being. So much that was a virtue for a child is a disadvantage for an adult: evil is relative, and responsibility is proportional to the degree of development.
All passions are of some benefit and have a providential purpose; otherwise God would create something useless and even harmful. Evil lies in abuse, and man abuses because of the freedom of his will. Later, when he is enlightened and understands his interests better, he will freely choose between good and evil.
A. Kardek
