Tom Bombadil arrived on the Newsvine scene in April of this year. Since then, he has torn up the website with insightful and thought provoking articles, “seeds,” and comments. This time, he asks the reader: Does Evil Exist?:
At 70 years old, he was still vigorous and still loved his work. For nearly 50 years, he had operated a small service station across the bay from Mobile, Alabama; a spot that is not just a place to get your car fixed, but a place to catch up with friends and all the local news over a cup of coffee. He was called the “Unofficial Mayor of Spanish Fort,” a true beloved neighborhood icon who was always generous with his time and money to friends and strangers in need. Tonight, he lays in a hospital bed, fighting for his life, after being brutally and viciously beaten and robbed as he opened his shop at 4:30 this past Saturday morning.
That sounds like evil to me. But what is evil to one man is good to another. How is one to judge the actions of others?
there is a danger in defining evil subjectively or merely from a human perspective. I believe there must be some objective view of good and evil that transcends the human perspective.
Something isn’t evil merely because I define it as evil; something is evil because it is evil – it is an attack on and an affront to Truth and Beauty. Ah, but those things must also be defined as something beyond a mere subjective view or feeling! After all, some people apparently think that smearing feces on a picture of the Virgin Mary expresses truth and beauty.
Therefore, I have concluded – in my own opinion, of course – that I must look beyond myself and even others to understand issues such as truth, beauty, good, and evil. I must find a perspective that is higher than my own. This search has led me to God, and has launched a lifelong quest to understand then the difference between right and wrong, and then to seek to do what is right. In short, those things are defined by Him, not by me.
It was Isaiah, a prophet of God, who said: “Woe to you who call evil ‘good’ and call good ‘evil.’” That catches my attention, because I do not want any more “woe” than necessary in my life, do you? Furthermore, Jesus teaches us to pray to our Heavenly Father: “Deliver us from evil.”
While I cannot always clearly see or define what evil is, I do know that it exists, and that I should beware of it. I believe that I should oppose it and I do not believe that it can be pacified or ignored for very long. I am not merely speaking here of war between nations or people groups, but something that is deeper; something literally spiritual that every man and woman must face at some point in their lives. Because evil exists, and because it actively seeks the destruction of what is good – indeed, it seeks destruction of everything – then I must more clearly understand what it is and how to overcome it.
Well said, my friend. Well said.
Interestingly enough, at this time 35% of Tom’s readers say that evil does not exist. It isn’t surprising to me though. In an article I wrote about teaching religion to children, 40% said it was child abuse.
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