Summary of text [comment] pages 55 and 56

The Catholic Church has always resisted the temptation to divinize evil. The fourth Lateran Council in 1215 declared that God created all. The devil was created naturally good by God (in terms of dispositions) but became evil by himself (by way of think^group and conscience^lacking). Evil does not have God as its principle.

Similarly, St. Augustine rejected evil as a positive divine substance. “The cause of evil” is “deficiency of some good”.

How could this be?

How could “deficiencies of some good” arise?

St. Thomas thought that deficiencies could be due to the finiteness of the creature. Our limitations make deficiencies evil.

Along the same lines, Tielhard de Chardin thought that our genesis was fraught with evil in terms of both limitations and challenges.

Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55

[Manichaen simplicity eases the exercise of sovereign power.

How?

Think^pro-object and think^anti-object organize society.

They incite two attitudes.

One is passivity (the pursuit of balance).

The other is mob action (the pursuit of imbalance).

The first is useful for controlling people.

The second releases social pressures through scapegoating.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55

[In Manichaeism, evil is regarded as a timeless divinity, co-existent with good.

Contrast this image with the eternal co-existence of the Father and the Son.

The former embodies conflict. The latter embodies family.

The former embodies imbalance. The latter embodies harmony.

The former is fruitless. The latter is generative.]

[To me, this “good versus evil” simplicity eerily matches the moment when an alliance of infrasovereign religions grasp sovereign power. Think^divine is eclipsed. Think^group splits into think^pro-object (substituting for think^divine) and a projected think^anti-object (taking the role of think^group compared to think^divine).

Pro-object is designated good. Anti-object is designated evil.

From all appearances, two co-eternal gods have been designated.

However, there is a trick.

“Evil” becomes “a projection by the alliance in power” onto other persons. The accusation of think^anti-object and conscience^anti-object destroys the accused, whether innocent or guilty.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55

Schoonenberg noted: “Divine causality with respect to evil” must considered in light of God’s transcendent causality.

The notion, that “evil may be a positive entity in and of itself” has been around a long time. It was a key tenet of several non-Biblical religions.

For example, the heresy of the Albigensians displayed a Manichaen dualistic point of view, claiming that good and evil exist in and of themselves.

This notion greatly simplified the world. There were two divinities, one good and the other evil.

Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55

Along with the questions of responsibility and freedom, there is the question of evil itself.

[We already encountered “the idea that metaphysical limitations and physical challenges are implicit to every spontaneous order”. These evils describe “actuality slipping back into possibility”. They are a necessary part of any spontaneous order. Otherwise, a spontaneous order would no longer dynamically bring possibility into actuality. The spontaneous order would become static.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54

Why doesn’t God just destroy evil people?

These types of questions were raised in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the so-called Renaissance was trending into the so-called Enlightenment.

[Of course, these questions were misleading. They pretended that God’s freedom and fairness were actualities that could contradict one another.

Instead, fairness puts actions into context. Actions situate freedom.

God’s existence encompasses all modes of causality.

God’s existence includes normal context, actuality, and potential.

God does not induce sin, even though God supports a world in which evil exists.

God supports a world in which we are free.]

[Only in the realm of possibility can a god be fair and unfair at the same time.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54

Scripture teaches that evil comes into play as “God continually causes the world to exist”.

All the examples in the previous blogs are about the creatures that God created.

We are autonomic selves acting while God sustains us.

What would happen if God were to withhold his sustaining activity.

What if God stopped supporting the existence of one human creature engaged in evil actions?

We would question our freedom and the fairness of God’s judgment.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54

Does God affect sin? Does God cause it, since he is the universal cause?

In Scripture, Yahweh hardened the Pharaoh’s heart. Yahweh inspired David to hold a census, then punished David for it. Paul noted that God can harden the heart of whoever he wills.

In the Lords prayer, we recite “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil”.

In contrast, the epistle of James claims that God cannot tempt.