Many, during various eras, have
asked this interesting question. A number of theologians have endeavoured to
answer this ancient question, which has troubled mankind since the beginning of
time, where in every religion and understanding of our existence, we separate
the world into good and evil. However, does evil exist? And if it does, how
does it exist? Why has God allowed it to exist and prevail (in some instances)?
These are popular questions. Vladimir Lossky, in his book The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, explains:
‘Evil entered into the world
through the will. It is not a nature (φύσις), but a condition (έξις). ‘The nature of good is stronger than the habit of evil,’ says
Diadochus of Photike, for ‘good exists, while evil does not exist, or rather it
exists only at the moment in which it is practiced.’ According to St Gregory of
Nyssa, sin is a disease of the will which is deceived, and takes a mere shadow
of the good for the good itself. For this reason, the very desire to taste of
the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was itself a sin, for, according to
St Gregory, knowledge presupposes a certain disposition towards the object one
wishes to know, and evil, being in itself non-existent, ought not to be known.
Evil becomes a reality only by means of the will, in which alone it subsists. It
is the will which gives evil a certain being. That man, who was by nature
disposed towards the knowledge and love of God, could in his will incline
towards a non-existent good, an illusory goal, can only be explained by some
external influence, by the persuasion of some alien will to which the human
will consented. Before entering the earthly world through Adam’s will, evil had
already had its beginnings in the spiritual world. It was the will of the angelic
spirits, eternally fixed in their enmity to God, which first gave birth to
evil. And evil is nothing other than an attraction of the will towards nothing,
a negation of being, of creation, and above all of God, a furious hatred of
grace against which the rebellious will puts up an implacable resistance. Even
though they have become spirits of darkness, the fallen angels remain creatures
of God, and their rejection of the will of God represents a despairing
intercourse with the nothingness which they will never find. Their eternal
descent towards non-being will have no end. St Seraphim of Sarov, a great
Russian mystic of the last century, says of them: ‘They are hideous; their
conscious rejection of divine grace has transformed them into angels of darkness,
and unimaginable horrors. Being angelic creatures, they possess enormous
strength. The least among them could destroy creation from within, by turning
human freedom towards evil.’ The same saint, referring to an ascetic writing
attributed to St Antony, distinguishes three different wills at work in man.
First, there is the will of God, perfect and saving; secondly, the will of man,
not necessarily pernicious, but certainly not in itself a saving will, and,
thirdly, the demonic will, seeking our perdition.’(pp.128-129).
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