Paul Hunt

An Open Letter on The Nature of Evil

By Paul Francis Hunt

A note to the reader. This letter concerns theology; it comes from the scriptures but also goes beyond what the scriptures clearly declare and includes speculation. Exper-ienced Christians will understand this and understand when I am speculating. I caution new Christians to ask your pastor if you are unsure what is settled doctrine and what is speculation. Do not assume all points I discuss are settled doctrine, they are not.

The question of evil is old, age old. Indeed, if you accept the Christian account of evil, it predates mankind, not even beginning with man. Many have pondered it and quite a few deny its very existence. Yet evil is pervasive, and every so often an event occurs that jolts even today’s moral relativists back to reality. I can still remember a shocked Matt Lauer mumbling “This; this is evil.” after witnessing the second plane hit the South Tower on 9/11. Today’s moral relativists may pontificate all day long on the inherent goodness of man and the absence of true evil; still they instinctively recognize and recoil from it when placed face to face with it. In other times and other places evil has seared our minds and our consciences with its malevolent, lurking presence. The rape of Nan-king, the ovens of Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Hutu-Toosti genocide, Tianamen Square all evoke the same recognition that true evil is present and dwells here on this small, crowded blue green orb.

But what exactly is it? Where did it come from? Why is it? Why did God allow it to take root? These are the questions I hope to address here, however inarticulately. Yes inarticulately, for I know full well that far greater minds than mine have grappled with these questions. I only hope to distill some of their conclusions into a manageable letter that will, with their help, illuminate some of the issues surrounding the nature of evil. It is my hope that in viewing evil with me, you and I will better understand the good, and understanding the good draw closer to the God who embodies it. If, at the end of this letter, you and I can affirm at least that then I am content.

So then, what is evil and does it indeed exist? Not according to our learned psy-chologists and psychiatrists. According to them, evil consists of an absence of good. They are good at stating the obvious aren’t they? How any quality such as good can exist without its antipode also existing seems to escape their musings. Perhaps the realm of Greek philosophy can enlighten us. Plato once stated “Ignorance is the root and the stem of every evil.” Oh if it were only that simple! Aristotle, the pupil who surpassed his teacher, at least recognized God as the “unmoved mover.“ Unfortunately, he also thought of evil as a product of either ignorance or laziness. As if the evil in man could be van-quished with a little instruction or stringent reproof. Perhaps evil in the ancient world was so pervasive and unrelieved by any hope as to be obscured. Certainly, neither Aris-totle nor Plato seem able to see the forest for the trees. Yes, but surely modern philoso-phers can do better at defining evil? Jean Paul Sartre lived in France during World War II. If any modern philosopher faced pure evil he did. In his play No Exit other people create and compose hell. Hell is no more than bad companions to Jean Paul. His novel Nausea is a testimony to the meaninglessness of life. There is no real evil because no-thing has meaning. He once stated, “Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.” As if the evil of the Nazis can be reduced to a miscon-strued state or characteristic. Living through the greatest evil since Tamerlane, Jean Paul failed even to take notice, so consumed with himself was he. Neitzsche though, was cer-tainly more nimble with words. “God is dead.” and “In truth, there was only one Chris-tian and he died on The Cross” are two examples of his banquet of false, vapid non-wisdom. The oft revered Neitzsche managed to miss the entire point of Christianity- if people could live like Christ we wouldn’t need The Cross. Never turn to an atheist for the meaning of evil, they’re too depressing and self-absorbed.

But what of Christians who became philosophers? At least Immanuel Kant recog-nizes evil, calling it the ‘Radical Evil’. He seems to reject original sin though, claiming that each man falls independent and unconnected to Adam. So too, his answer that each man must himself change his moral condition sounds more than a little Pelagian in tone. Then there is Soren Kierkegaard. He agrees with Kant that sin and evil exist. Moreover, he views all sin as a result of the exercise of human freedom of will. In saying that an-xiety precedes sin he perhaps touches on a key truth. Still, his statement, “Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes back-wards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.” What nonsense! Let’s see, we have gone from ignorance to laziness to abstraction to boredom. That’s it? Twenty-five hundred years of philosophical investigation and that’s it?! A high school debate team could have done better. It seems that not all Christians who become philosophers retain the coherence of their Christianity. Philosophy defines evil as the product of boredom or ignorance. A truly pitiful showing on a subject so crucial. Perhaps, we must turn to Christian philosophers instead of merely philosophers who happen to call themselves Christians. But first, what do the other religions have to say about evil?

The existence of evil is not in the least jeopardy if an analysis of the world’s relig-ions were a yardstick. In the Hindi Upanishads evil makes its appearance in the concept of negative Karma emanating from ignorance. But in the Vedas evil gains form as de-mons interacting to corrupt the world. We’re at least getting closer to the truth here. Tao-ism brings forth the concept of yin and yang, evil representing a failure in the balance of the two opposing states. Sounds very similar to Karma doesn’t it. Buddhism, being atheistic, contains no personification of evil. Nevertheless, Buddha thought of all life as suffering, and the greatest good involved merely minimizing the inevitable suffering. One suspects that Buddha was not a ‘cup half full’ kind of guy. In Zoroarstrianism, once more we see evil personified- the coequal gods Angra Mazda (evil) and Ahura Maszda (good) in opposition to each other. Islam personifies evil in the form of the Dajjal, an antichrist-like figure to be condemned at the end of time by the Madhi. The Dajjal would be the last of thirty false prophets to plague mankind. Finally, Judaism and Christianity share the same rich history of evil personified by Satan and his fallen demons. Clearly, religions the world over recognize and incorporate evil into their paradigms. Something is obviously there, but what? Regrettably, we are no closer to understanding the truth of evil.

We have achieved one objective though. One of the strongest arguments for the existence of God is the universally acknowledged existence of evil we’ve just chronicled. The pervasive and pernicious presence of evil simply makes no sense in an atheistic worldview. All of nature lacks the malevolent capacity for evil manifested on a daily basis by mankind. In all of nature we are unique; we alone kill for reasons other than food or alpha dominance, we even kill for no reason at all (incidentally, most alpha dominance combat by animals is not fatal). In all of nature such horrors as Auschwitz and Nanking are unknown, let alone the multitude of petty cruelties that define our daily relations with each other. Yet, all of existence is not evil. Alongside the evil in creation there is tremendous good. Just as nature is not intentionally cruel, only in man does love abound. Numberless missionaries, mothers, fathers, and the noblest of us have given their lives for others. The greatest act of love in history, The Cross, exists only in the realm of man. After all, Christ did not come to earth as a propitiation for the polar bears. If there exists a power greater than us that explains evil, then there must also exist a greater power to account for the good that does exist in the presence of such evil. Both the good and the evil in the world are testimony to the existence of God and Satan. Or are they? Could God be the sole author of both good and evil? Only in the Judaeo-Christian God has evil been examined in such rich detail. Only within the Christian paradigm can the truth of evil be found.

In Christianity there are two interpretations of evil. One is the Irenaean Theodicy, an outgrowth of process theology. Originally the ideas of Irenaeus, a contemporary of Augustine, popularized by John Hick, Irenaean Theodicy contains one view evil’s origins. God created man imperfect, but with the capacity, through suffering, to grow into the moral image of God. The world is a ”vale for soul-making” that contains both good and evil as a means for maturing human souls toward perfection and a resulting communion with God. God alone is responsible for the presence of evil in the world; but he did it in order to provide an environment in which man could reach his full potential.

The other theodicy is Augustinian, composed of four main points. First, evil is not a positive reality in its own right. Does evil have being? Not according to Athanasius in a statement conforming to Augustinian Theodicy in On The Incarnation of the Word, “God alone exists, evil is non-being.” Augustinians believe evil exists as a privation or deprivation of something that should be but is not. Evil is an absence of that good which is a part of God’s reality. Incidentally, Pope John Paul VI would take issue with Saint Augustine on this point. “We are not dealing with a deficiency, an evil caused by the lack of something. We must realize that we face an efficiency that is evil in itself; an existing evil, an evil that is a person; an evil that we cannot classify as corruption of goodness. We are speaking of an affirmation of evil, and if this does not frighten us, it should.” Augustine’s second point is that evil’s origin is in that free will imparted by an eternally perfect God to his limited, derived, created beings. Nevertheless, his third point is that it was still right that God made a creation with the capacity for evil. The Principle of Plenitude states that the richest and most desirable universe contains every possible kind of existence, both higher and lower, ugly and beautiful. If this is so, then why does God promise us a rest in heaven and on earth where there will be no evil and the lion and lamb will lay down together? Just a thought to ponder. We’ll get back to this later. Finally, Augustinian theodicy is aesthetic. All events, conditions, and realities, even sin and punishment compose a universal harmony that is, unfortunately, only perceivable by those in heaven.

But how to differentiate between the two. Is evil an intentional part of God’s cosmic plan or the result of a fall that introduced evil into a plan complete without it? Or is there a third element we need to consider? Ah, there’s a thought. To answer this we must begin at the beginning; Genesis right? Wrong. The answer to our conundrum lies not in Genesis but in Ezekiel and Isaiah, Ezekiel 28:11-19 to be exact. “The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the sovereign LORD says: “You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, tur-quoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from a-mong the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you cor-rupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spec-tacle of you before kings. By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you, and I reduc-ed you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching. All the nations who knew you are appalled at you; you have come to a horrible end and will be no more.”

In this lament against the king of Tyre, the LORD begins by lamenting the human king (verses 1-10). But then the LORD transitions to an indictment and personal address aimed directly at Satan (verses 11-19). God ordained Satan as a guardian cherub, the or-der of angels tasked with ministering personally to God around his throne. I do not know if Satan was the first angel in rank as Milton asserts in Paradise Lost. Nevertheless, Satan was certainly among the foremost of the angelic host, an awesome and great angel, beau-tiful and powerful, fearsomely, wonderfully made. God describes Satan as being made the “model of perfection.” But he goes further; God states that Satan was blameless until the day wickedness was found in him. Clearly, God stresses here that Satan was created perfect and perfectly good. There was no flaw in Satan’s creation. Indeed, one can al-most hear the sadness in God’s words and the sense of betrayal he felt at Satan’s corrup-tion. For indeed, Satan’s corruption was no less than a total rejection of God’s love be-stowed upon him. This passage leaves little doubt as to where the blame lies however. God places the blame for Satan’s corruption squarely on Satan. Satan was “filled with violence” and Satan “sinned”. Further, God delves into the motivations and causes be-hind Satan’s corruption. God explains that Satan’s tremendous beauty filled him with pride, sinful pride. Instead of thanking God for his beauty, Satan reveled in it, beauty he did not earn or create but was given to him as a gift of love. God focuses in on the key-stone sin from which all other sin is descended, pride. Pride in his own beauty and maj-esty, pride in his own splendor corrupted Satan; and HE FELL. Satan’s capacity for love was not turned outward and upward toward God, the author of all Satan possessed as it should have been. Rather, his love became twisted, turning inward upon himself. This turning inward of love, this self-love was, and is aberrant and poisoned Satan from with-in. In The City of God, Augustine addressed this aberration of love. “For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil- not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.“ Here lies a great truth. Augustine sees this as hierarchical; but I also insist that the turning of love inward instead of outward is aberrant as well. God is the only being who is worthy of and secure in turning his love inward. In all other beings it is a poison. The word narcissism comes to mind. But even God does not desire an inward turning of his love as I intend to show.

There is another passage that helps us to understand Satan’s fall. In Isaiah 14 the LORD instructs Isaiah to taunt the king of Babylon, and the LORD once again turns from addressing humanity to an address directed at Satan (Isaiah 14:12-15). “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heav-en; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of as-sembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.“ It is here that God raises the full specter of Satan’s rebellion against his creator. Here God accuses Satan of scheming to supplant God- I will make myself like the Most High. Here Satan stands convicted of rebellion, rebellion most foul. Here is the critical point; here is the first fall; here is the first imperfection to mar the beauty and glory of creation. It is clear from these two passages that Satan chose to sin. Satan turned his back on his creator. He turned his back on all the gifts God showered him with, seeking domination over all creation and even over God himself. Satan’s pride and his desire to be like God caused his fall. But not only his fall, for Satan’s fall directly led to the fall of countless other angels. Satan would, in the fullness of time, use this very sin to cause the fall of man. It is interesting that Satan used the very same sin of envy that had ensnared him to ensnare man as Genesis 3: 5 makes clear. I suspect a psychologist could make a lot of hay with that one. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” It is apt that Solomon would have something succinct to say on the matter in his apocryphal 2^nd Book of Wis-dom. “But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world.” Sums it up quite nicely doesn’t it?

III

We have answered the question of where and when evil began, but not how it be-gan or why God allowed it. For make no mistake, God did knowingly allow it. To un-derstand how and why God allowed evil we must first understand a truth about God. Yes, he is self-contained, eternal, in need of nothing outside himself. But God can have de-sires, not to fulfill a lack or need, but to add to that which is good and pleasing to God. God is not a statute, he is a being. One thing he desires is to increase the plentitude of goodness, not diversity’s plentitude as Augustine asserts. It was for this reason that God created the universe, the most sublime act of love in all history short of The Cross. More on this later.

Having found the point of the fall, I must say the weight of the evidence favors the Augustinian view over the Irenaean theodicy. Nowhere in the Bible does God indicate that he placed an intentional flaw into the fabric of creation. True, he is not compelled to offer this information up. Still, God emphasizes exactly the opposite in the Ezekiel and Isaiah passages. God stresses Satan’s perfection, as if to infer that his fall was not due to any plan but rather stemmed entirely from Satan’s choice. But God goes further in Gene-sis 1:31. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning- the sixth day.” To understand how good creation was you must understand this statement from God’s perspective not ours. After all, he said it not us. We imperfect, fallen, unregenerate creatures did not say it. The perfect, and perfectly good, perfectly just, omniscient God of the universe thought it was very good, even for him. What does it mean when a perfectly good God says creation is very good? Perfect! That what it means. Here there is no hint of incompleteness, no shadow of work undone. God made man in his image; and God rested. Period! Nowhere does it say God made man an immature being that needed to develop a ‘worldly view‘ to become God‘s image. Not there, not even implied. We have no corresponding account of the angelic creation, but we do have Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 among others. They are consistent with Genesis. God made his beings complete and as he intended them to be. I challenge you to find a statement at odds with this view.

But, Irenaeus does have a point. If first Satan, then a part of the angelic host, and finally all mankind fell from communion with God, then God, being omniscient, had to know this would happen. You see, unlike us creatures, God lives outside of time and a-cross time all at once. As we turn to the right or left to see in different directions in three dimensional space, God can turn to the right or left and see past, present, and future. Fur-ther, he can see the future effects of each decision before he makes it. Omniscience at work again. Lets look at Psalms 139, “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You dis-cern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely O LORD. You hem me in- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Also read Hebrews 4. “No-thing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Clearly, an omniscient, omnipotent God possessed of perfectly discerning judg-ment knew before anything was created that large portions of his creation would fall. Above I said the creation was the greatest act of love short of The Cross. How much more precious and loving was that act given God’s omniscient knowledge of how much pain and anguish the fall would cause him? Irenaeus is correct; it cannot be otherwise. God knew, even as he formed Satan that he (God) was setting into motion a chain of events that would lead to rebellion in his own throne room and eventually to Auschwitz on earth. Still, he did it. God did not make a mistake here- perfectly discerning judgment at work. Perhaps, he judged that it was better to create and have part fall irredeemably and part redeemably than not to have created at all. Is this the true origin of the phrase ‘better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?’ I am certain that God loved Satan before his fall, and Satan’s remembered perfection afterwards as well. But Irenaeus then goes too far in saying that God had to have planned it all. Awareness of the future fall does not imply approval of it. That is an unwarranted conclusion. Yet God is nothing if not light on his feet. Since Satan’s fall, God has tirelessly been turning evil towards good. One has only to read of Joseph’s travails at his brother’s hands to see this dynamic at work. But just as Irenaeus errs, so too has Augustine. Augustine’s Principle of Plenitude implies that God’s creation was incomplete, not completely good in and of itself. His plenitude implies that God’s creation needed ‘seasoning’. Ridiculous! Be-cause God chose to allow Satan to fall does not infer that his original paradigm of a sin-less creation was invalid, inferior, or incomplete. The fact that God created a new para-digm for creation after the fall does not condemn that paradigm he originally created. Indeed, to suggest so implies a failure on God’s part. This now enters dangerous terri-tory. Rather, it is a testimony to his flexibility. Omniscience combined with fleet footed-ness and perfect judgment.

But how did both the angels and mankind fall? If God created Satan perfect and man in his own image, how then did they fall? If God can only create that which is good, how did it become bad? We’ve identified where it went wrong but not why it went bad. To uncover these answers, we must first answer the question- Why did God create man and the angels? God does not say why he created the angels, but I wager the motives for the twin creations of man and angels are similar. So why was man created? As with so much else, the Westminster Confession of Faith comes to the rescue. “What is the chief and highest end of man? Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.“ This answer is simple and direct, but its implications are far-reaching and bear further illumination. John 17 beautifully answers our need through Jesus’ own words to the LORD. “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And the glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name- the name you gave me- so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be sanctified.

My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

I apologize for the length of this passage. Each time I shortened it, I lessened it. As with so many of Jesus’ passages, there is a unity here that should not be impinged. It is clear what God wants. He wants a companionship and communion with the sentient creatures of his creation. It is pleasing to him to enjoy us as we enjoy him. He never needed to do this; it pleased him to do it. Isaiah (Chapter 41), writing God’s words- But, you O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend. God seeks an intimate communion with us; not a relationship of equals, for there can be no equality between creature and creator, but one as father to son, mentor to disci-ple, loving to beloved. From this proceeds the great dilemma that surely would have vex-ed God if indeed he could be vexed. To create a creature worthy of a relationship with God, he had to endow that creature with his two highest gifts. The power of choice, free-dom of will and sentience. It is not coincidental that God endowed both angel and man with the freedom to decide ones own course in life. God gave us the power to either love him or reject him. God chose to endow us with all the majesty of his sentience if not all the power thereof. He seeks communion not with robots incapable of anything else, but with free and independent minds who share the majesty of his sentience and the ability to be an independent moral agent.

We finally got around to free will didn’t we. You knew we would. But God’s decision to endow us with free will triggered an inevitable crisis; one he knew he would create. Omniscience at work again. Earlier I asked how a perfectly good God could create a very good creation, even for him (ergo perfect), containing sinless creatures that would chose to sin. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. I’ll answer it now. To explain this I need to introduce here a concept that I adapted from the realm of statistics. In sta-tistics, a Y result (chose to sin) is certain, even if it is highly improbable, if you make N (number of free moral agents) large enough. I call this the Principle of Infinite Fallible Determinism. This principle states that if God creates an infinite number of free moral agents possessing sentience, the capacity for curiosity, and lacking omniscience, exper-ience, and perfect judgment, inevitably one free agent will chose to sin. One will be enough. Two caveats, billions are sufficiently numerous to be considered essentially infinite. Second, curiosity is an inherent quality of sentience but I want to draw attention to this aspect of sentience; it is the lynchpin. Free will is only part of the answer. It is free will mated to sentience and curiosity in the absence of experience and discerning judgment that triggers the principle. Sadly, the creatures most likely to chose to sin are those who are most intelligent, most endowed with the gift of innovative thinking. In history it is axiomatic that the highest quality leaders often suffered the most spectacular failures in judgment. Only Alcibiades would expand the Peloponnesian War to Sicily, dooming Athens, only Alexander the Great would explore until his army revolted, only Napoleon would decide to invade Russia without first finishing Spain, and only Hitler would decide to invade Russia after Napoleon failed and without first finishing with England. In history, those able to think ‘out of the box’ as it were, often suffered the greatest failures alongside their tremendous successes. In an environment suffused with perfection, I’m sure you’ll agree sin was definitely ‘out of the box.‘ In other words, the greatest beings created by God were the ones most likely to fall. His most gifted servants. The angelic prince, Satan.

Let me give you an earthly example to illustrate this principle in operation. Anes-theologists and Nurse Anesthetists are extremely bright people and, usually, innovative thinkers. Daily, they deal with narcotics and propofol, the drug that killed Michael Jack-son. They know these drugs inside and out. And yet, estimates are that ten percent of these professionals become drug addicted, and the drug of choice they abuse is propofol. A case of addition is usually discovered when the addict is found dead of an overdose. Why initially start abusing a drug you know will eventually kill you? Curiosity mated to high intelligence and over weaning self-confidence, even in the presence of experience. How much easier to misjudge in the absence of experience? Do you understand some of the dynamics of this principle now?

You see, God faced a terrible paradox. He could avoid triggering the fall only by limiting both the number and quality of his creatures. In other word, to create a creation that was less than that he was capable of. But, once embarking on the task of creation, to do less than he was capable of would have been sinful in and of itself. This was truly a quagmire worthy of the Greek Titan Tartarus who was condemned forever to roll a boul-der up a hill only to watch it roll back down again. The very perfection, majesty, and scope of God’s creation inevitably doomed it. Once having decided on creation, God could, without sin, only create a universe that was doomed to fall. God wanted commun-ion, not with a handful of limited creatures unworthy of it, but rather with a multitude of creatures made in his image, with all the majesty of his sentience if not all his power or perfectly discerning judgment. Any less majestic a creation would have been unworthy of his communion. In the end, God knowingly triggered the Principle of Infinite Fallible Determinism by creating a creation worthy of communion with him. His judgment call. Why, I think, is answered below.

Companionship alone is an inadequate answer to our inquiry. God is infinite, self-fulfilled, and content within himself. But, there is one thing that God, by his very nature, seeks to increase and chooses not to fulfill within himself. Let me explain in the Apostle John’s words- “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, be-cause in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.”

The answer is LOVE. God is infinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite knowledge, infinite compassion, infinite justice, infinite power, and, above all else, infinite love. The one desire, other than companionship, God has that he chooses not to fulfill within him-self is to increase that infinite store of love that is God. Satan’s love is love turned in-ward, self love, debased, evil love. But God, who is infinite love, could only increase that Holy Love which alone was worthy of him by turning it outward from himself and pour-ing it into a creation and creatures. By speaking creation into existence, God gave his capacity for infinite love an outlet outside of his being and upon which he could focus and pour outward that love. This pleased God. God, by creating an object to love, one worthy of loving in its perfect goodness, fulfilled his desire to pour outward the gift of Holy Love.

But we must delve further still. Earlier, we asked why God, knowing Satan would fall, still created him? God created all of us who have fallen because by our fall God’s infinite love has been increased. God’s Holy Infinite Love was increased by the creation. It has been further increased by his expressed love of creatures who had rendered them-selves unworthy of his love. This is impossible you say. Not so. Let me explain once again using the Apostle John’s remembered words of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And, “ My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” And, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” It is because love, of all God’s attributes, is special. It is nonlinear in quality and quantity. The very act of expressing it increases it. Holding it in diminishes it. I know this sounds contradictory, but it isn’t. This is a complex mystery not easily penetrated, yet still true. For example, if a mother raises her child in love does not the quantity of love in the world increase? Yet, if she beats the child turning it into a twisted, evil thing, has not evil increased?

God knew/knows/will know this. He chose to increase love even at the expense of great suffering. This was done not through plan, but as a consequence of the choices of free agents, first Satan, then the fallen angelic host, and finally man through Adam and Eve. God though, seized the opportunity offered by sin and rose to the challenge of turn-ing evil to good. Through them God increased his Holy Love until it found its fullest expression in his ultimate act of love, The Cross. Without Satan’s fall there would have been no need for The Cross. Without The Cross, God’s desire to give love would not have achieved its fullest, purest expression. You see there are different qualities of love, some more sublime than others. It is the greatest irony in the universe that Satan, by rebelling against God, gave God the opportunity to fulfill his deepest desire- to give the gift of pure, agape love to an unregenerate creation. It was Satan’s rebellion that allowed God to generate and pour out the purest form of love, that love that is unconditional, self-sacrificing, and totally, completely undeserved. On The Cross, not only did God’s will triumph over man’s sin, God’s Holy Love triumphed over Satan’s hate and rage. Believe me, this was Satan’s worst nightmare fulfilled. Sadly Satan, in his self-absorption, is in-capable of realizing just how much he has enabled God to fulfill his desire by creating the need for The Cross. We speak at length of Satan’s fall from heaven- “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning,” and of man’s fall in the garden. What we do not understand is that by Satan’s and man’s falls God rose. God rose to the challenge of sin and by van-quishing death on The Cross, he enriched the fabric of his creation. In this sense Augus-tine is correct, but not how he perceives it in his Principle of Plentitude. Satan made all this possible. Without Satan, God’s desire to express his gift of Holy Love outward would have remained partially unmet. Creation allowed God to turn his love outward from himself. This pleased him. Then, the twin falls of his highest creatures allowed God to increase the quality of his outward expressed love. In this manner, God’s infinite love was increased. God is much wiser than Satan thinks, for this is the greatest turning of evil to good ever conceived.

To understand our next point it is necessary first to gain some understanding of the beauty, the purity and goodness, the awe-inspiring majesty that is the great I AM. Never seeing God we tend to minimize his majesty. We forget that Moses’ face was radiant at merely seeing the back of God’s glory. And, in Isaiah 6 he gives us a descrip-tion of God on his throne. “I saw the LORD seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another; Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Woe to me! I cried, I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

What were Moses’ and Isaiah’s responses to seeing God? They both fell flat on their faces completely unhinged. After only the briefest glimpse Moses’ face was radiant, causing people to recoil from him. In the face of God Isaiah, the Billy Graham of his generation, could only moan and bewail his own corruption and sinfulness. When we think of God, we gain only a superficial and inadequate understanding of both his Holi-ness and the extent of our corruption. We are far more sinful than we realize; God is far more holy and pure than we can even comprehend. Consequently, God is simply not willing to permit sin in his presence.

So far we have discovered what evil is and how and why it came into being. But why did it grow? Why couldn’t sin have been confined to one bitten fruit on a cloudy day or one envious thought in a corner of God’s throne room? Why didn’t we get a mulligan? The answer lies in the Ezekiel passage quoted previously and also in Romans. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claim-ed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual im-purity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator- who is forever praised. Amen.” Note in both cases God’s separation of himself from sin. When Satan grew proud God removed Satan from God’s presence. When man’s sin waxed great God withdrew himself from them and gave them over to their sinful desires. In both cases God shows us that his purity and his goodness are incompatible with the presence of sin. God withdrew himself from the offending creature, and in doing so the Rubicon was crossed. This is because in the absence of God’s presence, sin is not static. Even though evil has no independent existence, it grows in the hearts of fallen creatures. Sin grows and as it grows it destroys all ability of its host to be free of it. The free will be-comes a will in bondage as Martin Luther so aptly named his book. Look closely at what sin does to the ungodly man in Luther’s Bondage of the Will. “There follows upon this the business of hardening, which proceeds thus: As we have said, the ungodly man, like Satan his prince, is wholly turned to self and to his own. He does not seek God, nor care for the things of God; he seeks his own riches, and glory, and works, and wisdom, and power, and sovereignty in everything, and wants to enjoy it in peace. If anyone stands in his way, or wants to detract from any of these things, he is moved with the same pervert-ed desire that leads him to seek them, and is outraged and furious with his opponent. He can no more restrain his fury than he can stop his self-seeking, and he can no more stop his self-seeking than he can stop existing- for he is still a creature of God; though a spoiled one.”

This is how what started with a simple thought grew into a full scale palace revo-lution and the fall of billions. Just like love, evil can grow. That which has no existence can grow in the hearts of God’s fallen creatures. Evil grows in the darkness that exists outside of God’s presence. Outside of God’s light, after God’s withdrawal, a fallen soul (human or angelic) is doomed to fall deeper and deeper into the delusion that evil creates in its victims’ hearts. This is why Paul says that their hearts were darkened. We humans live for only three score and ten years. Yet in that limited time we are capable of reaching terrible depths of inhumanity and evil. The presence in history of such degenerates as Nero, Tamerlane, Belchazzar, Pharoah, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge leadership, Idi Amin and countless others are a sobering warning. If we, in seventy years can fall so far and so fast, to what depths must the fallen angelic host have sunk in the countless eons since their corruption took hold? There is a saying that after the age of thirty you are responsible for your face. The meaning is that if you are always sad, or angry, or happy, eventually the lines and curves of your face reflect your predominant mood. What must the face of Satan look like after eons of rage and anger and despair. His must be a truly terrible visage to behold. In Satan and his demons, evil has grown and festered since before the dawn of man. Jesus, through the Apostle John, gives us an understanding of Satan. “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” These words are two thousand years old. I seriously doubt Satan has mellowed in the intervening years. Such beings should be both pitied and greatly feared. They are beings of immense evil capable of incredible cruelty wedded to tremendous intellect and power refined over eons of experience. Mortal, frail men relying on their own devices stand no chance against such beings. Jesus gives us an idea of Satan’s malevolence and power in Luke. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.” As the cock crowing prophecy shows, he did didn’t he. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to freeze the marrow in my bones. Anyone who intrudes upon their domain lightly or calls upon them for aid is a fool. Such pure evil must be left untouched or grave consequences will inevitably ensue.

So far we have seen how both love and its antipode evil can grow. We have seen how evil has ensnared and corrupted hordes of angels and all of mankind. And, we have seen God’s answer and response to evil- LOVE. It remains to examine evil in its present form and state. We understand, at least I hope we do, the evil that men do to each other. Hence, I pass over it. But what of angelic evil? Does it concern us; or does it not exist in the realm of man? Let us see what Jesus had to say on the subject in Matthew 13. “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart….The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this’ he re-plied….The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.” Jesus clearly states that Satan is active on earth in the present age (after The Cross). According to Jesus, Satan actively corrupts and poisons souls and fights to undo the work of the LORD on earth. Jesus goes on to say that this will continue until the end of the age when the harvest of the elect will occur.

Satan’s presence on earth is abundantly documented. See Job 1. “One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” Incidentally, I have often wondered how many saints’ oppressions, how much evil God prevented Satan from accomplishing by preoccupying and diverting him towards Job, a man God knew would stand firm against Satan’s furious assaults. Moving on, Peter uses almost identical lang-uage to describe Satan on earth. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are under-going the same kind of sufferings.”

But wait a minute. We understood that Satan was God’s enemy, but how does this concern us? Who in today’s culture even believes in his existence? Yet Paul insists Satan prowls the earth attacking the faithful. How? What battles have occurred? Indeed, Paul goes on to say that saints around the world are oppressed by Satan. Surely, this can-not be. Perhaps James can clarify this. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. No, evidently not. James is also convinced that Satan oppress-es the believers. But James does make it clear that believers have the power to resist Satan. I suspect that the Spirit may have some hand in this resisting that James speaks of. What then does Paul in Corinthians and Timothy say on the immediacy of Satan. “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. And, When you are as-sembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be de-stroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. And, Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” To Paul, Satan is ever present, just around the corner. Paul describes affliction by Satan and deception by Satan’s followers. But not just he is engaged in this battle as Ephesians 6 so clearly describes. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s scheme. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heav-enly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

The imagery here is unmistakable. God’s conflict with Satan has come to earth. In truth, it was always here; but lest you harbor any doubts, Paul seems intent here to put them to rest. He describes us as soldiers, soldiers in battle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We are at war against Satan. This is not a physical war but a spiritual war as Paul makes clear. You can choose to ignore this war, but you do so at your peril. Ignore this war and your place in it and you walk a battlefield everyday un-armed and unarmored. This is not a good place to be as the following image testifies to. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Fools go unarmed where lions prowl. Judas found this truth out the hard way. Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. Paul, in Ephesians, sees this con-flict as occurring right at our door. He sees us as soldiers in the front lines of a conflict that has spread from the heavenly realms into the dominion of mankind. Not only that, Paul insists that we will be tested. If you bow before the Most High, Paul sees you as a military target of Satan. You, me, all the saints have a bulls’ eye painted on our fore-heads. Yet still you doubt. I’m a Christian you say, but surely that part about Satan is a fairy tale. Do you know anything of history? The Medo-Persian Empire was an empire in the Middle East before Alexander the Great conquered it. But, there was another conflict occurring in the shadow of our written history of men. Daniel was shown a glimpse of it. “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude…..Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia ….Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come; but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth.”

Bible notes for this passage describe these princes as demons influencing the affairs of the countries mentioned. As the history of men was being written in Daniel’s day a parallel history was unfolding. As men struggled against men so too angels and demons fought. In Daniel’s one small glimpse the archangel Michael intervened to decide a stalemated angelic battle. This titanic struggle is not mentioned in any history book of Greece or Persia. In Jude another angelic struggle on earth is mentioned. “But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” I find it extremely disturbing though not really surprising that Satan is so vindictive as to desecrate Moses’ dead body. I suspect Satan holds grudges a really, really long time. These passages give rise to a question. How many other angelic strug-gles have gone unrecorded by mankind’s dusty tomes? Did Satan’s minions march with Islam’s banners to Tours? Did Beelzebub accompany Subutai’s Mongols when he laid waste Kiev? Were demons with Tamerlane when he executed one hundred thousand prisoners outside Delhi? Did a demon inspire Napoleon to slaughter his four thousand Turkish prisoners or give him the desire to see Moscow? And last but certainly not least, was Hitler’s Reich actually that evil unaided by any of Satan’s myrmidons? Makes you wonder what isn’t in the history textbooks but should be doesn‘t it? I do not mean to absolve man here, we alone are responsible for much evil in the world. But, the question is, are we responsible for all of it? Not if Paul and Peter, Jesus and James are correct.

We have been warned, warned not once but several times, warned not by one apostle but by several to be on our guard. We have been served notice that Satan and his legions are here on earth, have been here, and will be here till the last trump. You only gain glimpses of this shadow war, Michael’s combats in Persia and Greece, Satan’s temp-tation of Jesus, Satan’s possession of Judas, his temptation of Job and Paul. There are other examples in the Scriptures. Yet today, most of Christianity chooses to be blissfully ignorant and unmindful of this conflict. Indeed, this letter will undoubtedly elicit scoffing and disbelief in many quarters. Why? What passage is misquoted or taken out of con-text? If the Bible says Satan roams the earth destroying men‘s souls, then does he not roam the earth? If Paul says Satan’s demons afflict the believers, then do they not afflict the believers? If Jesus says Satan will corrupt men until the last days, does Satan not corrupt men? Why do we ignore the very reason God needs a Bible to communicate with us instead of doing it personally? Why do we ignore the central theme of the Bible? Sin and the consequences of Satan’s fall. Daily we see our nation’s morality decline, slowly sliding toward a moral abyss similar to that of Israel after Solomon’s reign. Yet we re-main convinced that the choices of men alone are responsible for this. Satan loves the darkness of anonymity. How can we ever win a struggle if we never acknowledge and identify our true enemy? Here’s a question. If Satan is active on earth today, where is he active? If he is not active, then aren’t Paul and James, Jesus and Peter mistaken? Did they lie? Of course not! Aren’t the Scriptures inerrant? But where does that leave us? In the weeds brother, in the weeds and with the thorns, that’s where.

If the evil we see today is partly of man and partly of Satan then what does God require of us? In this event, Paul’s passage in Ephesians is a clarion call to battle. But, this struggle is a battle not to be waged with guns and bombs, with physical weapons as Paul so eloquently emphasizes. Ours is a spiritual struggle, to be waged with spiritual weapons, the word of God, faith, spiritual obedience, prayer, and witness. God is strong enough to ignore Satan and yet he doesn’t. Are we such strong Christians that we can af-ford to ignore Satan? Can we afford to treat him as if he does not exist? I submit to you that to ignore a being as ancient, powerful, and evil as Satan is extreme folly. There is a reason that the Lord’s Prayer contains an exhortation not to be put to the test as Job was. There is a reason the Lord’s Prayer asks to be kept far from the evil one. Jesus, God in-carnate, prepared for forty days before he engaged Satan in battle. How much have you prepared? Are you ready for the test? Offering you good luck will, sadly, not count for much with Satan. That is a good way to get sifted like wheat. Prayer is a better answer. Faith is a better shield. The word of God is a better sword. Sharpen your sword, burnish your shield. Go forth, do battle for the Captain of the Army of the LORD as did Joshua.

God Bless and keep the evil one far from you,

Paul Francis Hunt

pfhunt80@yahoo.com