A Shallow View of Evil)

Great divisiveness in a culture tends to form ideologies with a naïve and overly-simplistic perception of evil. Festering hatred lures people into a mentality where they conceive of evil itself as propagating outward from “those people” over there. Strict ideologues believe that if they could just convert or destroy “those people,” then the evil would be gone, and society would be a perfect Utopia.

This narrow view of evil is a powerful tool for focusing and concentrating the passion of the ideologues. It progressively motivates them to disparage, dehumanize, and destroy their enemies. Mankind has fallen into the routine of dividing, declaring the other side to be the bastion of evil, and then destroying them for as long as we have a historical record. Yet if the problem of evil is so simple, then why has this pattern never succeeded in the eradication of evil? Why haven’t we finally killed it already? Why do we keep facing it in every generation?

The Christian View of Evil)

For an answer, let us consider the Christian conception of evil instead, taken directly from the words of the Bible.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. -Genesis 6:5

There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. -Mark 7:15

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. -James 1:14-15

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. -Galatians 5:17

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. -Romans 3:10, 12

This view of evil is far more mature, nuanced, and difficult to solve. Instead of saying “evil comes from that group over there,” the Christian perspective maintains that “evil emanates from us all.” It is in me, in you, in everybody. Evil is a super-entity, one that pervades through all of us.

And yes, maybe certain ideologies have a deeper fealty to evil than others; perhaps some dark trains of thought really should be arrested and ceased; perhaps some collectives need to be disbanded; but the true Christian knows that even these efforts will not bring about the perfect Utopia. The true Christian knows that the eradication of “those people” is not the final solution to the problem of evil because even if we stamped all the evil out in one place, it would still seep out from within our own ranks. Eventual corruption is the rule of the world.

The Solution)

Obviously, this conception of evil is much more daunting to wrestle with. If evil will emerge anew in every heart, than what can be done to have victory over it?

Ultimately and universally, nothing.

God will have to claim the victory there because it will always be beyond us. However, on a more individual level, there is something we can do.

This Christian conception of evil, that it arises in every heart, is the very reason why Christianity has always taught that every man ought first and foremost to address his own personal evil before that of the world. That isn’t to say that we don’t concern ourselves with the greater evils of the world, or that we don’t give our energy to curtail it, but our primary concern is to first plug the well of evil in our very own heart. If all of us could just do that, could just get control of the darkness that is within, then that would be the greatest blow against evil we could ever achieve.

It may seem paradoxical, but the fact that evil is so universal means that it can only be remedied individually. It is up to all of us to each do our part.