Evil

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EVIL is an older form of the word ‘ill’; used, both as substantive and adjective, to tr. [Note: translate or translation.] various synonyms and ranging in meaning from physical unfitness to moral wickedness. The former is archaic, but occurs in Gen_28:8 (AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), Exo_21:8 (AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), Jer_24:3 (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ), and Mat_7:18, though the two last passages are not without an ethical tinge. But the word almost invariably connotes what is either morally corrupt (see Sin) or injurious to life and happiness.
1. In the OT the two meanings are at first scarcely differentiated. Whatever comes to man from without is, to begin with, attributed simply to God (Amo_3:6, Lam_3:38, Eze_14:9, Isa_45:7). Destruction is wrought by His angels (Exo_12:23, 2Sa_24:16, Psa_78:49). Moral temptations come from Him (2Sa_24:1, 1Ki_22:23), though there is a tendency to embody them in beings which, though belonging to the host of heaven, are spoken of as evil or lying spirits (1Sa_16:14, Jdg_9:23, 1Ki_22:22). The serpent of the Fall narrative cannot be pressed to mean more than a symbol of temptation, though the form which the temptation takes suggests hostility to the will of God external to the spirit of the woman (2Co_11:3, cf. Gen_3:1-3). Then later we have the figure of the Adversary or Satan, who, though still dependent on the will of God, is nevertheless so identified with evil that he is represented as taking the initiative in seduction (Zec_3:1, 1Ch_21:1, but cf. 2Sa_24:1). This marks the growth of the sense of God’s holiness (Deu_32:4 etc.), the purity which cannot behold evil (Hab_1:13); and correspondingly sharpens the problem. Heathen gods are now identified with demons opposed to the God of Israel (Deu_32:17, Psa_106:37; cf. 1Co_10:20). This tendency, increased perhaps by Persian influence, becomes dominant in apocryphal literature (2Pe_2:4 and Jud_1:6 are based on the Book of Enoch), where the fallen angels are a kingdom at war with the Kingdom of God.
2. In the NT moral evil is never ascribed to God (Jam_1:13), being essentially hostile to His mind and will (Rom_1:18-21; Rom_5:10, 1Jn_1:5-7; 1Jn_2:16; 1Jn_2:29; 1Jn_3:4; 1Jn_3:9); but to the Evil One (Mat_6:13; Mat_13:19, 1Jn_5:19), an active and personal being identical with the Devil (Mat_13:39, Joh_8:44) or Satan (Mat_4:10, Mar_4:15, Luk_22:31, Joh_13:27), who with his angels (Mat_25:41) is cast down from heaven (Rev_12:9, cf. Luk_10:18), goes to and fro in the earth as the universal adversary (1Pe_5:8, Eph_4:27; Eph_6:11, Jam_4:7), and will be finally imprisoned with his ministering spirits (Rev_20:2; Rev_20:10, cf. Mat_25:41). Pain and suffering are ascribed sometimes to God (Rev_3:19, 1Th_3:3, Heb_12:5-11), inasmuch as all things work together for good to those that love Him (Rom_8:28); sometimes to Satan (Luk_13:16, 2Co_12:7) and the demons (Mat_8:28 etc.), who are suffered to hurt the earth for a season (Rev_9:1-11; Rev_12:12).
The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges (see Butler’s Analogy, i. 7, cf. 1Co_13:12). Pain is justified by the redemption of the body (Rom_8:18-25, 1Pe_4:13), punishment by the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Heb_12:7-11), and the permission of moral evil by the victory of the Cross (Joh_12:31, Rom_8:37-39, Col_2:15, 1Co_15:24-28). Accept the facts and look to the end is the teaching of the Bible as a guide to practical religion (Jam_5:11). Beyond this we enter the region of that high theology which comprehensive thinkers like Aquinas or Calvin have not shrunk from formulating, but which, so far as it is dealt with in the NT, appears rather as a by-product of evangelical thought, than as the direct purpose of revelation (as, e.g., in Rom_9:1-33, where God’s elective choice is stated only as the logical presupposition of grace). St. Paul is content to throw the responsibility for the moral facts of the universe upon God (Rom_9:19-24; cf. Job_33:12, Ecc_5:2, Isa_29:16), who, however, is not defined as capricious and arbitrary power, but revealed as the Father, who loves the creatures of His hand, and has foreordained all things to a perfect consummation in Christ the Beloved (Eph_1:3-14 etc.).
J. G. Simpson.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909


is distinguished into natural and moral. Natural evil is whatever destroys or any way disturbs the perfection of natural beings, such as blindness, diseases, death, &c. Moral evil is the disagreement between the actions of a moral agent, and the rule of those actions, whatever it be. Applied to choice, or acting contrary to the moral or revealed laws of the Deity, it is termed wickedness, or sin. Applied to an act contrary to a mere rule of fitness, it is called a fault. The question concerning the origin of evil has very much perplexed philosophers and divines, both ancient and modern. Plato, for the solution of this question, maintained, that matter, from its nature, possesses a blind and refractory force, from which arises in it a propensity to disorder and deformity; and that this is the cause of all the imperfection which appears in the works of God, and the origin of evil. Matter, he conceives, resists the will of the supreme Artificer, so that he cannot possibly execute his designs; and this is the cause of the mixture of good and evil, which is found in the material world. “It cannot be,” says he, “that evil should be destroyed, for there must always be something contrary to good;” and again, “God wills, as far as it is possible, every thing good, and nothing evil.” What that property of matter is which opposes the wise and benevolent intentions of the first Intelligence, Plato has not clearly explained; but he speaks of it as ξυμφυτος επιθυμια, an intimate propensity to disorder, and says, that before nature was adorned with its present beautiful forms, it was inclined to confusion and deformity, and that from this habitude arises all the evil which happens in the world. Plutarch supposes the Platonic notion to be, that there is in matter an unconscious, irrational soul; and this supposition has been adopted by several modern writers. But the writings of Plato afford no evidence that he conceived the imperfection of matter to arise from any cause distinct from its nature. Such a notion is incongruous with Plato's general system, and is contrary to the doctrine of the Pythagorean school, to which he was probably indebted for his notions on this subject; for the philosophers of that sect held that motion is the effect of a power essential to matter. Some of the Stoics adopted the notion of the Platonists concerning the origin of evil and ascribed it to the defective nature of matter, which it is not in the power of the great Artificer to change; asserting, that imperfections appear in the world, not through any defect of skill in its author, but because matter will not admit of the accomplishment of his designs. But it was perceived by others, that this hypothesis was inconsistent with the fundamental doctrine of the Stoics concerning nature. For since, according to their system, matter itself receives all its qualities from God, if its defects be the cause of evil, these defects must be ultimately ascribed to him. No other way of relieving this difficulty remained, than to have recourse to fate, and say, that evil was the necessary consequence of that eternal necessity to which the great whole, comprehending both God and matter, is subject. Thus, when Chrysippus was asked whether diseases were to be ascribed to Divine providence, he replied that it was not the intention of nature that these things should happen; nor were they conformable to the will of the Author of nature and Parent of all good things; but that, in framing the world, some inconveniences had adhered by necessary consequence, to his wise and useful plan. To others the question concerning the origin of evil appeared so intricate and difficult, that, finding themselves unequal to the solution of it, they denied either that there is any God at all, or, at least, any author or governor of the world. The Epicureans belonged to this class; nor does Lucretius allege any other reason for denying the system of the world to be the production of a Deity beside its being so very faulty. Others again judged it to be more rational to assign a double cause of visible effects, than to assign no cause at all; as nothing, indeed, can be more absurd than to admit actions and effects without any agent and cause. These persons perceiving a mixture of good and evil, and being persuaded that so many inconsistencies and disorders could not proceed from a good being, supposed the existence of a malevolent principle, or god, directly contrary to the good one; hence they derived corruption and death, diseases, griefs, mischiefs, frauds, and villanies, while from the good being they deduced nothing but good. This opinion was held by many of the ancients; by the Persian magi, Manicheans, Paulicians, &c.
2. Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his “Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God,” deduces from the possibility and real existence of human liberty an answer to the question, What is the cause and original of evil? For liberty, he says, implying a natural power of doing evil, as well as good; and the imperfect nature of finite beings making it possible for them to abuse this their liberty to an actual commission of evil; and it being necessary to the order and beauty of the whole, and for displaying the infinite wisdom of the Creator, that there should be different and various degrees of creatures, whereof, consequently, some must be less perfect than others; hence there necessarily arises a possibility of evil, notwithstanding that the Creator is infinitely good. In short thus: all that we call evil is either an evil of imperfection, as the want of certain faculties and excellencies which other creatures have; or natural evil, as pain, death, and the like; or moral evil, as all kinds of vice. The first of these is not properly an evil: for every power, faculty, or perfection, which any creature enjoys, being the free gift of God, which he was no more obliged to bestow, than he was to confer being or existence itself, it is plain the want of any certain faculty or perfection in any kind of creatures which never belonged to their nature, is no more an evil to them than their never having been created, or brought into being at all, could properly have been called an evil. The second kind of evil, which we call natural evil, is either a necessary consequence of the former; as death, to a creature on whose nature immortality was never conferred; and then it is no more properly an evil than the former; or else it is counterpoised, in the whole, with as great or greater good, as the afflictions and sufferings of good men, and then also it is not properly an evil; or else, lastly, it is a punishment; and then it is a necessary consequent of the third and last sort of evil, namely, moral evil. And this arises wholly from the abuse of liberty, which God gave to his creatures for other purposes, and which it was reasonable and fit to give them for the perfection and order of the whole creation; only they, contrary to God's intention and command, have abused what was necessary for the perfection of the whole, to the corruption and depravation of themselves. And thus all sorts of evils have entered into the world, without any diminution to the infinite goodness of its Creator and Governor.
3. This is obviously all the answer which the question respecting the origin of evil is capable of receiving. It brings us to the point to which the Scriptures themselves lead us. And though many questions may yet be asked, respecting a subject so mysterious as the permission of evil by the Supreme Being, this is a part of his counsels of which we can have no cognizance, unless he is pleased to reveal them; and as revelation is silent upon this subject, except generally, that all his acts, his permissive ones as well as others, are “wise, and just and good” we may rest assured, that beyond what is revealed, human wisdom in the present state can never penetrate.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


If Christians believe in a God of love and power who created and controls the world, how can they explain the presence and power of evil in the world? This question commonly puzzles people, but the Bible gives no direct answer to it. As usual the Bible’s response to the problem is practical rather than theoretical. It is more concerned with helping people develop character than with satisfying intellectual curiosity. And as people accept that help, they receive answers to some of the problems (cf. Joh_7:17). (Concerning the superior knowledge that Gnostics claimed to have regarding good and evil see KNOWLEDGE.)
Human nature
God created the world good and he wanted the people of his creation to enjoy it with him (Gen_1:31; 1Ti_4:4; Heb_4:4; Heb_4:10). But since he created them as morally responsible beings with a freedom to make their own decisions, the possibility existed that they might misuse their freedom. They might choose to do what they knew they should not do (Gen_2:15-17). Maturity would come through making correct moral choices. The self-denial involved in rejecting tempting alternatives would strengthen character (cf. Heb_5:8; Heb_5:14).
God wanted people to live in a relationship of love with him and with their fellow human beings; but they could not love if they were not free. If they were robots, they could do what their maker programmed them to do, but they could not love or enjoy anything. However, as freedom produced the possibility of devotion and goodness, so also it produced the possibility of rebellion and evil. Evil was not a product of the creative activity of God, but a product of the wrong use of freedom by morally responsible beings (Gen_3:1-7; Jam_1:12-13).
Life in a spoiled world
The Bible commonly speaks of evil in two different but related ways. Firstly, it speaks of evil in a moral sense similar to that considered above, where evil is the opposite of moral goodness (Pro_8:13; Jer_7:24; Mic_2:1; Mat_5:45; Mat_15:19; Rom_7:19; Rom_7:21; 2Th_3:2; for details see SIN). Satan, through whom this evil entered the human race, is fittingly called ‘the evil one’ (Gen_3:1; Mat_13:19; 1Jn_2:13; 1Jn_5:19; see SATAN).
Secondly, the Bible speaks of evil in a more general sense, where it refers to calamities, conflicts, sufferings, misfortunes and even to things such as bad health and bad fruit. The word again means the opposite of good, but with a non-moral meaning (Deu_7:15; 2Sa_15:14; Mat_7:17; Luk_16:25). Yet there is a connection between these two uses of ‘evil’. Because the evil of sin has infected the world, calamities and misfortunes have become part of life in the world.
When the Old Testament says that God sends both good and evil, it is referring not to moral good and moral evil, but to life’s blessings and troubles. Israelites in Old Testament times acknowledged God’s overall control in all the affairs of life, both good and bad (Job_2:10; Isa_45:7). They saw that the evils of conflict, disaster and destruction were often God’s means of punishing the wicked (1Sa_16:14; Jer_35:17; Amo_3:6).
No cause for despair
Although the entrance of sin into the world has spoiled God’s purposes for the human race, it has not overthrown them. God can bring good out of evil (Gen_50:20; Rom_8:28). The troubles of life are not always God’s judgments for specific wrongdoings. God usually does not explain why particular evils occur or why people suffer from them. Nevertheless, he consistently uses those evils to bring positive benefits (Hab_1:13; Hab_3:17-19; Luk_13:1-5; Joh_9:2-3; 2Co_12:7-9; see SUFFERING). This, however, does not excuse the people who cause the evils (Isa_10:5-11; Jer_51:5-10; Jer_51:34-36; Mat_26:24; Act_2:23; Rom_3:8).
Probably the most feared of all evils is death, but God uses even death to fulfil his purposes for good. Through death he has conquered death and delivered people from the power of evil (Heb_2:14; see DEATH). Through Christ’s death, believers can enjoy victory over evil while still living in the present evil world (Rom_6:7-11; Rom_6:14; Gal_1:4; see SALVATION). They will enjoy final victory when Christ returns to remove all evil, even to its last trace, and bring in God’s new heaven and new earth (1Co_15:25-28; Rev_21:4; Rev_21:27; Rev_22:1-3).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.


ēv?'l, ē?vil רע, ra‛; πονηρός, ponērós, κακός, kakós, κακόν, kakón): In the Bible it is represented as moral and physical. We choose to discuss the subject under these heads. Many of the evils that come upon men have not been intended by those who suffer for them. Disease, individual and national calamity, drought, scarcity of food, may not always be charged to the account of intentional wrong. Many times the innocent suffer with, and even for, the guilty. In such cases, only physical evil is apparent. Even when the suffering has been occasioned by sin or dereliction of duty, whether the wrong is active or passive, many, perhaps the majority of those who are injured, are not accountable in any way for the ills which come upon them. Neither is God the author of moral evil. ?God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man? (Jam_1:13). See TEMPTATION.
1. Moral Evil
By this term we refer to wrongs done to our fellowman, where the actor is responsible for the action. The immorality may be present when the action is not possible. ?But if that evil servant shall say in his heart? (Mat_24:48, Mat_24:49), whether he shall smite his fellow-servants or not, the moral evil is present. See SIN. ?All these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man? (Mar_7:21-23). The last six commandments of the Decalogue apply here (Exo_20:12-17). To dishonor one's parents, to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness and to covet are moral evils. The spiritual import of these commandments will be found in Mat_5:21, Mat_5:22, Mat_5:27, Mat_5:28. ?But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness? (Mat_6:23). Words and deeds are coined in the heart before the world sees or hears them (Mat_12:34, Mat_12:35). The word ought or its equal may be found in all languages; hence, it is in the mind of all people as well as in our laws that for the deeds and words we do and speak, we are responsible. ?Break off thy sins by righteousness? (Dan_4:27) shows that, in God's thought, it was man's duty, and therefore within his power, to keep the commandment. ?Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well? (Isa_1:16 f). We cannot think of God commanding men to do what He knew they had no ability to do! God has a standing offer of pardon to all men who turn from their evil ways and do that which is right (Eze_33:11-14 f). Evil begins in the least objectionable things. In Rom_1:18-23, we have Paul's view of the falling away of the Gentiles. ?Knowing God? (Rom_1:21), they were ?without excuse? (Rom_1:20), but ?glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened? (Rom_1:21). ?Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools? (Rom_1:22). This led the way into idolatry, and that was followed by all the corruption and wrongdoing to be instigated by a heart turned away from all purity, and practiced in all the iniquity to be suggested by lust without control. Paul gives fifteen steps in the ladder on which men descend into darkness and ruin (Gal_5:19-21). When men become evil in themselves, they necessarily become evil in thought and deed toward others. This they bring upon themselves, or give way to, till God shall give ?them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting? (Rom_1:28). Those thus fallen into habits of error, we should in meekness correct, that ?they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will? (2Ti_2:25, 2Ti_2:26).
2. Physical Evil
Usually, in the Old Testament the Hebrew word ra‛ is employed to denote that which is bad. Many times the bad is physical; it may have been occasioned by the sins for which the people of the nation were responsible, or it may have come, not as a retribution, but from accident or mismanagement or causes unknown. Very many times the evil is a corrective, to cause men to forsake the wrong and accept the right. The flood was sent upon the earth because ?all flesh had corrupted their way? (Gen_6:12). This evil was to serve as a warning to those who were to live after. The ground had already been cursed for the good of Cain (Gen_4:12). Two purposes seemed to direct the treatment: (1) to leave in the minds of Cain and his descendants the knowledge that sin brings punishment, and (2) to increase the toil that would make them a better people. God overthrew Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, cities of the plain, making them ?an example unto those that should live ungodly? (2Pe_2:6). In the Book of Isa the prophet, we find a number of ?burdens?: the burden of Babylon (13:1-22); the burden of Moab (Isa_15:1-9); the burden of Damascus (Isa_17:1-14); the burden of Egypt (19:1-17); the burden of the Wilderness of the Sea (Isa_21:1-10); the burden of Dumah (Isa_21:11, Isa_21:12); the burden upon Arabia (21:13-17); the burden of the Valley of Vision (22:1-25); the burden of Tyre (23:1-18); the burden of the Beasts of the South (Isa_30:6-14); the burden of the Weary Beast (Isa_46:1, Isa_46:2). These may serve as an introduction to the story of wrongdoing and physical suffering threatened and executed. Isa contains many denunciations against Israel: against the Ten Tribes for following the sin introduced by Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and the threatening against Judah and Benjamin for not heeding the warnings. Jeremiah saw the woes that were sure to come upon Judah; for declaring them, he was shut up in prison, and yet they came, and the people were carried away into Babylon. These were the evils or afflictions brought upon the nations for their persistence in sin. ?I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Yahweh, that doeth all these things? (Isa_45:7). These chastisements seemed grievous, and yet they yielded peaceable fruit unto them that were exercised thereby (Heb_12:11).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Evil
is discord or disturbance in the order of the universe. Leibnitz divides it into metaphysical evil, i.e., imperfection; physical evil, i.e., suffering; moral evil, i.e., sin. Origen defined evil to be the negation of good; and in this he has been followed by many Christian thinkers. The distinction into natural and moral evil is the only one now generally recognized.
1. "Natural evil is whatever destroys or any way disturbs the perfection of natural beings, such as blindness, diseases, death, etc. But as all that we call natural evil is not the penalty of sin, nor, as some have supposed, only the penalty of it, such disturbance is not necessarily an evil, inasmuch as it may be counterpoised, in the whole, with an equal if rot greater good, as in the afflictions and sufferings of good men. When such disturbance occurs as the penalty of transgression, it is the necessary consequence of moral evil." The tendency of modern thought is towards the doctrine that the (apparent) disturbances of the physical world are likely to be reconciled with universal law as science advances.
2. "Moral evil is the disagreement between the actions of a moral agent and the rule of those actions, whatever it be. Applied to choice, or acting contrary to the revealed law of God, it is termed wickedness or sin. Applied to an act contrary to a mere rule of fitness, it is called a fault" (Bucky s.v.). On the origin of evil, and its relations to the government of God, SEE SIN; SEE THEODICY.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





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