Under the heading “Evil and Necessity”, David Birnbaum in his 1998 book “Summa Metaphysica” 1 asserts:
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“With the creation of potential for good, which is required for man to be able to reach his spiritual potential, potential for evil indirectly, but nevertheless inexorably, came into existence as a consequence.” (page 94)
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And some 2800 years ago the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah, reflecting on his mystical connection with the Divine, reports that God had communicated to him the following message related to the issue of good and evil:
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“I form the light and create darkness;
I make peace, and create evil;
I am the Lord,
Who has made ALL THESE THINGS” (emphasis added)
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-Isaiah 45.5
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Between these two dates an academic question emerged that ignored the complex and nuanced “primal organic forest” of interconnectedness as portrayed by both quotes, above, and used an ultra-sophistacated line of argument based on an assumption/assertion made up out of full cloth, as it were, and to be found nowhere in Scripture.
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The question is as follows:
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“IF the definition of God is HE who is ever present, all knowing and all powerful, then how can there be evil in the world without immediately diminishing one of the three attributes whereby God is defined?”
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And, (in contrast to the historic and prophetic voice of Isaiah) IF one accepts the view of God (as all powerful, ever present and all good), and given the recognition of Evil in the world, then it makes no sense to respect, admire, venerate much less pray to such an incomplete and flawed deity. In which case:
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Score one for secular man; zero for the man of religion; God Gone; Game over.
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But as stated above, the interconnectedness of Good and Evil…as interwoven possibilities to be activated or not by the free will of human beings…a set of conditions created by God… there then is indeed room in our complex world for theology to be a part of our philosophic understanding of our world and of our place in it.
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All three Abrahamic faiths..and all world religions… teach us that IF we open our hearts we will experience  love and compassion towards ourselves, our fellow human beings, and all of creation; and we will work in harmony with others, respect the fragility of our eco system, and we will focus our individual and collective energy to maximizing our creative potential in every area of peaceful human endeavor.
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And we are taught that IF we don’t open our hearts to love and compassion what will almost automatically flow into the vacuum are feelings and convictions of anger, rage, lust and envy which collectively lead us to foul our own nests (mother earth) and our relationships with all those around us.
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The glory and strength of being human is our Potential to be able to chose to tip the scales toward peace and harmony. But with this Potential for humans to chose  the good, as Birnbaum describes above,  came the Potential for humans to chose the opposite.
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And again, we have Isaiah’s testimony that God created and sustains both options, and two separate but linked paths for humans to follow.
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Evil then is NOT something that God allows to happen because of inattention, or lack of interest, or of a sadistic part of his divine personality, or because of incompetency, or lack of power. Evil exists in the world because it was God’s will to give human being the dignity and autonomy to live their lives according to their own will/desire/and understanding taking all things into consideration..which is the exact thing that makes us fully human.
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In Freudian terms, the choice is between giving into the selfish cravings of our ID…something  we all possess..and the more refined and civilized prompting of our ego and superego.
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Hard choices, yes, but not impossible ones. To blame God for our failings both  individually and as families, communities and nations, and for our poor choices is a cop out.
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And if we ask: “If God made us this way with the Potential for good and evil, why didn’t He at least give us an owner’s manual and a set of easily read and remembered instructions which would be valid throughout the ages?”
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And the answer is that through the prophet Micah, we have a set of  instructions that are short, easily understood and universal in nature”
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“He has told you, O man, what is good,
And what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your God”
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-Micah 6.8
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Michael Papo
mapapo44@gmail.com
www.PapoBlogSumma.com

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