This is part 6 of my series The Trouble With The Elephant. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be found be found by clicking the links. In this post, I am responding to Gloria's comments found in part 5.
Gloria:
I claim to know nothing. It's just my gut feeling, so to speak. I do not question the existence of God. I question the extent to which he directly influences "our" lives. Okay.
And to answer your question in an oversimplified manner: Evil is the presence of ill-will or harm done to other living beings for the pure selfish satisfaction or gain without the presence of necessity.
For example, the natural food chain dictates that a killer whale eats a sea lion in order to maintain survival. I believe this to be not evil because it is necessary. The death of your son during a robbery is unnecessary because it ends in the gain of the robber of your money or property. Now obviously this is flawed because the argument can be made that perhaps the robber was attempting to gain the monetary means in order to feed and clothe him/herself for survival. Hope that makes sense!?
Yes, it makes sense. Would it be fair to say that evil is when things morally are not as they should be?
You see, when people claim there is evil in the world, deep down they mean these things are objectively evil. "Hey man, that's wrong!" When something is objectively evil, that means at least two things. First, the "objective" part means that it is not up to human opinion. For example, the reformers who fought against slavery typically argued that despite the fact that whole societies believed it was right, even if the whole world thought it was right, then the whole world was wrong.
I think it safe to say you and I would have no disagreement and no problem in delcaring the entire world wrong if the entire world decided torturing children for fun was a good pasttime.
The fact that we call it objective evil means that not only is it not up to human vote, but that it is violating some moral rule that is not up to humans to change.
The fact that we call it objective evil means that not only is it not up to human vote, but that it is violating some moral rule that is not up to humans to change.
In fact, I would go even further are argue that deep down, we both actually believe some things are immoral even if no one got hurt by them.
For example, imagine you are a young college coed taking a shower in your apartment. Just for the sake of argument, suppose the guy in the apartment across from you peeps on you taking a shower. And just for the sake of argument, also pretend that (a) you would never find out and therefore never be psychologically hurt, (b) he will never, ever hurt you and so you will never be harmed, and (c) no one else will ever, even find out. Would what he did still be evil? Yes, even though no one got hurt, he violated a moral rule and did an evil.
Yes, I know that it is very possible he might hurt you, or humiliate you if you find out, or other people will find out and snicker behind your back. But just for the sake of argument, we both know that if none of those things happened, he still did an evil.
Deep in our guts, we know this is true.
And objective moral rules are objective moral oughts. Humans ought to do this and ought not to do that, and we humans don't get to change the rules. We might violate them and do evil things, but we cannot change the moral rules.
The very fact we consider many things as objectively evil means implicitly there is an objective and transcendant moral code. And this list of moral oughts comes from a Moral Oughter, a transcendant and Personal Source that demands adherance to this moral code. Nature, or matter, cannot give a list of moral oughts. It must be Personal, as natural law can only tell you the way things are, not the way things ought to be.
When people complain, How come God doesn't stop the evil in the world?, the are usually complaining about the evil that other people commit. But if God is going to forcibly stop the evil in the world, He is going to stop all the evil in the world, not just the pet evils of others we want stopped. People want God to stop the murder and rape, but also want God to ignore their adultery, or crushing gossip, or lies, or stealing, etc.
I know we think that you and I are basically decent people, but if we got ticketed every time we committed a little evil, and a judge were to look at the whole long list, it would add up to a very serious matter.
Evan the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa, two people whom I consider FAR better people than myself and near paragons of virtue, are humble and honest enough to admit that their list of misdeeds is far longer than they care to admit, or would want public.
Fact is, God has dealt with the problem of evil in a manner that allows Him to be both perfectly just and holy, and merciful at the same time.
And yes, as you get older you must suffer many labels. Respectable is hardly the worst of them.....
Man, in college I never thought the day would come when I would be labeled respectable.
In any event, I won't bore you with anymore of my diatribes unless you ask.
Jarrod
Jarrod
P.S. Happy new year!
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