On the Nature of Good and Evil
It was common in the days and months following September 11 last year, to speak of some good that had “come out of” the terror attacks. Now, if speakers who said that meant it in a literal sense—“emerged from” or “escaped unharmed”—then they are of course correct. “The gates of Hell shall not prevail” against good.
But if they meant it in the usual sense, a Pollyanna-ish belief that even evil can create a good, then they are quite mistaken. There is only one Creator, and he reserves the power of creation to Himself. This is not a petty semantic distinction. It is a fundamental statement about the nature of the universe, and understanding or failing to understand it can make the difference between yielding to evil or conquering it.
It is basic to a Christian understanding of the universe that Creation is inherently good, but it is also fallen. The fall does not make Creation bad, for nothing could change the essential nature of Creation, but the fall does allow Creation to be used in corrupt ways. (Misunderstanding this fact has led many people to suppose that outward appearances are indicative of a person’s internal nature. But in truth the corruption of people happens at the level of the soul, and need not leave any physical mark on the body.)
The Devil, being a fallen creature, and not the Creator, cannot create. He cannot make so much as a single atom. (Thus, all his promises cannot but be empty. He has quite literally nothing to offer.) But he can use that which already exists for his own ends, and by virtue of the physical and metaphysical laws of the universe, even offer the illusion of creation to a mind unaware of the distinction. But all his works must use as their tools the essentially good things produced by the Creator.
Thus, the marvel of safe air transport becomes a crude weapon. The virtuous desire of an airline captain to save the life of a crew member becomes the bar that pries him from his cockpit. The selflessness of a fireman leads him too high in a building to escape its collapse. The list is as long as the list of the dead, and of those who sought to help them.
What evil on a grand scale sometimes does, however, is reveal its true nature, because to be grandly evil it often requires grand good as its tool, or as its counterpoint. “I never understood how evil evil can be,” said one of the firemen in the CBS 9/11 special.
The great evil that has befallen our Church shows the same thing, even though the grand evil of the present scandal is not the product of grand goods, but venal ones. The laudable desire of bishops to protect Christ’s pilgrim church on earth was used as a tool to allow the defilement of the innocent. But who can doubt that heroic virtue, a virtue that might otherwise have gone unnoted, will ultimately be the Creator’s tool for setting things right?
And in the meanwhile, many goods that had been obscured are once again cast into stark relief by the terrible light of the Light-bearer. It is ever so much easier to be humble about being Catholic today than it was a year ago, just as it is very much harder to look down on cops and firemen and EMTs.
It was common in the days and months following September 11 last year, to speak of some good that had “come out of” the terror attacks. Now, if speakers who said that meant it in a literal sense—“emerged from” or “escaped unharmed”—then they are of course correct. “The gates of Hell shall not prevail” against good.
But if they meant it in the usual sense, a Pollyanna-ish belief that even evil can create a good, then they are quite mistaken. There is only one Creator, and he reserves the power of creation to Himself. This is not a petty semantic distinction. It is a fundamental statement about the nature of the universe, and understanding or failing to understand it can make the difference between yielding to evil or conquering it.
It is basic to a Christian understanding of the universe that Creation is inherently good, but it is also fallen. The fall does not make Creation bad, for nothing could change the essential nature of Creation, but the fall does allow Creation to be used in corrupt ways. (Misunderstanding this fact has led many people to suppose that outward appearances are indicative of a person’s internal nature. But in truth the corruption of people happens at the level of the soul, and need not leave any physical mark on the body.)
The Devil, being a fallen creature, and not the Creator, cannot create. He cannot make so much as a single atom. (Thus, all his promises cannot but be empty. He has quite literally nothing to offer.) But he can use that which already exists for his own ends, and by virtue of the physical and metaphysical laws of the universe, even offer the illusion of creation to a mind unaware of the distinction. But all his works must use as their tools the essentially good things produced by the Creator.
Thus, the marvel of safe air transport becomes a crude weapon. The virtuous desire of an airline captain to save the life of a crew member becomes the bar that pries him from his cockpit. The selflessness of a fireman leads him too high in a building to escape its collapse. The list is as long as the list of the dead, and of those who sought to help them.
What evil on a grand scale sometimes does, however, is reveal its true nature, because to be grandly evil it often requires grand good as its tool, or as its counterpoint. “I never understood how evil evil can be,” said one of the firemen in the CBS 9/11 special.
The great evil that has befallen our Church shows the same thing, even though the grand evil of the present scandal is not the product of grand goods, but venal ones. The laudable desire of bishops to protect Christ’s pilgrim church on earth was used as a tool to allow the defilement of the innocent. But who can doubt that heroic virtue, a virtue that might otherwise have gone unnoted, will ultimately be the Creator’s tool for setting things right?
And in the meanwhile, many goods that had been obscured are once again cast into stark relief by the terrible light of the Light-bearer. It is ever so much easier to be humble about being Catholic today than it was a year ago, just as it is very much harder to look down on cops and firemen and EMTs.
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