On Evil

What do we mean by “Evil”?

There are some popular thoughts running through modern society, in “polite society” today that nobody is evil.  I mean, other than mid-twentieth century Germans and their leaders…and maybe certain Republicans, right?  But, nobody is or should be called “Evil”.  At heart everyone is good and wants to be good if you just give them the chance, or so the story goes.  If you give a child a choice between candy and a carrot the kid will pick the carrot every single time, right?  Every so-called “sin” is understandable.  Every villain is just misunderstood and relatable.  We should condemn no one and no behavior.  Everything is a pastiche of grey.   There’s no black and white.  “Good” and “Bad” are just matters of opinion.  Right?  Who can judge?

The problem, of course, is that God judges, has judged, and will continue to judge what is Good and Evil.  The bad news is, of course, that He and we do not agree.  We want to minimize categories that God specifically wants to maximize.  We see something like the Ten Commandments and think God just wants to ruin our fun; when really it’s a list of who we were always meant to be, what our mission is; what our heritage and destiny as God’s created beings was intended to become.  

Why did God bring the flood to wipe out humanity?  Because we became the exact twisted opposite of what he intended us to function as in the same way as Lucifer.  Was this because the “Sons of God” mixed with the “Daughters of Men”?  The Nephilim reality was only a factor that sped us in the direction our sinful hearts were already shouting for us to go.  

Most men follow rules and laws because they fear punishment by a stronger force.  In essence the virtue of most men is based not on whether they agree that a law is correct or not, but in their weakness and fear in the face of a greater strength.  Why don’t you tell your boss to go do something nasty, or back hand him whenever you see him?  For many it isn’t because they don’t want to or think that it is morally wrong to do so.  It’s because they fear the consequences at the hands of someone greater.

Imagine for a moment that someone is endowed from birth with awesome and mighty strength.  They know nothing but success, nothing but being stronger than others, and no one tells him that he can’t do a thing that he wants to do.  Does he become more virtuous as this pattern continues or less?  Mighty men such as these gain followers.  And let us say that these mighty men decide that the rules don’t apply to them, the rules of men nor the rules of God.  What happens?  Those following them descend into whatever is permitted by the strong men.  Every evil erupts.

In my reading I’ve noticed that it is the very rare man who gains popularity, power, and prestige and remains virtuous.  These men of power eventually realize that anything is permitted to them.  So they drink a little, do drugs a little, cheat on their wife, take a mistress, pay a prostitute, abuse the prostitute looking for that next thrill, that next forbidden taboo line to cross, and make a lifestyle of debauchery.  There is something terrible within every one of us that whispers in its seductive, siren call, “What can you get away with?  How much before we get caught?  What if we never get caught?  You deserve better.”  We are driven to wicked things if we are not restrained from within or without.  

And in the time of the Nephilim, no one was restrained.  The scriptures tell us, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.”  That’s an amazing passage.  The wickedness of man, the Evil mankind chose to be engaged in was so bad that the divine being was grieved.  God was sorry, God regretted, and was moved to pity via disgust at the choices made by what He created to and intended to be and cause Good upon the earth.  

The word for “wickedness” and the word for “evil” are the same word in the Hebrew.  “Ra”.  

I find it to be a very interesting word.  It means something that deliberately causes distress, misery, injury, and/or calamity.  There is a certain amount of willful intent to do harm.  We recognize this on an instinctual level as evil, though we may not talk about it that way.  A man who beats a woman or a child within an inch of their life didn’t make an “oopsie”.  He made a choice to cause distress, misery, and injury.  An abusive woman who emotionally terrorizes her husband and children is making a choice to harm rather than nurture.  A dictator orders the genocide of a group of people within his own borders for political or monetary gain. Someone takes advantage of the elderly.  We know these things to be wrong on a fundamental, animal level.  It makes us sick to watch happen or hear about because it is Evil.  Interestingly we have the same reaction to extreme evil as God does.

There is another sense of “ra” that comes out if one does a little digging.  Livestock can be “ra”.  If a cow becomes diseased it is considered “ra”; and “evil cow”.  Why?  Because that disease doesn’t just stay in the cow.  It spreads.  It causes injury to the other members of the herd, and furthermore it can cause other members of the herd to become diseased; to become “ra”.  Those diseased in the herd then cause others in the herd to become diseased until all are injured, falling apart, and ultimately dead of internal rot made external.  The sensible rancher does not permit a “ra” cow to remain with the rest of the herd.  He quarantines it, pushes it away from the herd, protects the herd from it, or, if there is no hope of recovery, puts it down.  

This then, is Evil and the nature of Evil.  

Too often in life, and in fiction, we pit “Good and Evil” together as antagonistic forces.  It isn’t Good vs. Evil.  Good is a truly tepid word for this usage.  Biblically speaking, the opposite of Evil, the opposite of “ra”, is Peace…shalom.

Shalom means peace in one sense, but goes beyond it into also meaning completeness, wholeness, flourishing, life expanding; everything that when we are in our right minds we actually long for, crave, and desire.  It is the highest ideal, the highest possible Good.  And Shalom is all wrapped up in coming from God and godly sources.  Man’s entire God-given directive was to protect God’s Shalom that He created, and to cause even more Shalom (fruitfulness) upon the earth.  

Evil turns everything it touches into a toxic, lifeless waste that then touches other things and turns them into toxic lifeless wastes.  It is a disease that is spread in its expression.  It is intentional.  We know what is right and what is wrong.  

Sin is “missing the mark”, making a misstep that causes you to stumble..  It’s a term that is very different than “ra”.  It means to aim at something good and miss, to be walking on the path an falter.  You know the goal you were trying to achieve, and for whatever reason you missed.  You pick up the next arrow and try again.  “Ra” means that you knew it was wrong, you knew it would injure, you knew it wasn’t of God, and you did it anyway with commitment and intention.  

Sin followed by confession, repentance, and reconciliation remains a misstep as one continues along the Path.  

A commitment to sin, the excusing of sin, the acceptance of sin as normal and fine, this all crosses one over into Evil.  All sin is Evil but not all who sin are Evil.  All sin is toxic and damaging, but not all who sin are committed to toxicity and causing damage or negligent in understanding how terrible what they are doing is.  All have sinned…but not all are permissive of sin, commit to sin, wrap their identity around their sin.

There is a moment in “The Island of Doctor Moreau” that asks a question that haunts me to this day.  Moreau has set himself up as the “god” of these half animal half man creatures he has created.  He’s placed in them something that he can control that causes pain at the push of a button if they violate his “Law”.  One creature that is particularly violent and willful is always punished with the pain so much that he grits his teeth through it, digs his claws into his flesh, and rips out the device that causes pain.  He asks the question, “If there is no pain, does that mean there is no Law?”  It’s a question that Law-Giver, a sort of priestly creature, also asks at the end of the book after Moreau has been done away with and the creatures left to themselves on the island.  For us that pain is guilt.  If there is no guilt, is there then no Law?  

These distinctions between sin and Evil can get a little blurry.  It’s hard to believe that we can participate in Evil.  As Dr. Jordan B. Peterson says, most people believe that if they were in Nazi Germany then they would have been a part of the Resistance.  The reality is that most of us are not actually that heroic enough to go against the flow no matter how Evil it is.  If we have no concept of Shalom, if we have no allegiance to Jesus, if our identity is not wholly wrapped around the God of the Bible then of course we would follow the Evil One who seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy.  

These muddied distinctions simply do not apply to what we read in Genesis 6.  All but Noah followed in the Evil paths of the Nephilim.  They all were committed to a life of causing distress, misery, and injury to themselves, one another, and all of creation.  The toxicity of their “ra” was such that it was at terminal levels, unredeemable.  If there was a way other than the Flood then God would have done it, as merciful and loving as He is.  The light of Shalom was about to go out forever on planet Earth.  

Our species was as diseased as it could be, a nearly terminal case, a committed to identifying with the disease.    A Flood and a boat was the only option for God to save mankind from itself and creation from mankind.  

As always, thank you for taking the time to read.  If you think this post with work a like, or a share then I would love to have it.  If it made you think, please leave a comment or subscribe. 

Thank you, always. 

W