The Problem of Evil

(Artwork in this post by contemporary artist Jr Korpa)

Life's Big Questions

​Like you, I've questioned the meaning of life.  What are we doing here?  Does anything matter?  Why is dipping french fries in ice cream so good?

Between bouts of existential crisis and cosmic hunger, I keep coming back to the fact that the whole of creation is an exploration of love.

What if the purpose of our existence was to dream bigger, love deeper, and hope higher?

If you think about it, everything we do involves expansion and intensification of experience (i.e., increasing our intelligence).

From embryo to all eternity, we appear to be on a path of progress and growth.  But have you ever wondered what kind of Being we're becoming?

This isn't a solo flight.  The scriptures teach that spiritual progress is accomplished as a family, in a soul group.

Now, my greatest lessons have not come from loving the Lord, but from trying to love the lepers and schoolyard bullies and sinners who make life interesting.  And I have been all those things myself.  Indeed, life seems to be a masterclass for learning to love ourselves.

After all, it's easy to love saints, but what about the cheapskate or the lunch lady in the cafeteria who ladles only half a portion onto our tray?  Heaven help the teenage Taco Bell worker who keeps forgetting the extra red sauce on my bean burritos (for as we all know, the sin next to murder is . . . dry crusty beans).

   Let thy love abound
   unto all men.

​(D&C 112:11)

While divine love extends to "all men," the love of devils is reserved for favorites, for the in-crowd and those who can help them 'get ahead.'

This puts God in a tight squeeze, you can say, since He is the ultimate way we can "get ahead."  How does He know we love Him, and aren't just buttering Him up out of self-interest?

Even Lucifer wanted to use God as a stepping stone along the ladder (Moses 4:1).  Many of us are seeking heaven as hired guns, willing to kill for a seat at God's table.

I have learned, sadly, that we often try to use love like Satan, in a transactional manner ("I'll do X if you give me your honor").  We barter with God as if our love were a poker chip.  How often do our prayers resemble a hostage negotiation?

When the wicked measure and weigh love as a commodity to be traded, earned, deserved . . . well, when we treat love as a reward for obedience, it cheapens it; our conditions turn love into a means of control.  Then love becomes a minefield, a territory rife with manipulation and abuse.

Erich Fromm said: "True love does not say, 'I love you more than the whole world.'  It says, 'I love the whole world through you.'"

The problem of evil is actually a problem of love.  Evil twists God's pure love into a noose.

Evil and love are entwined: in the face of evil, love can burn more brightly or be extinguished entirely.

This is why, in order to learn to love in a more godly manner, we need to understand the nature of evil.

For, while charity "thinketh no evil" (1 Cor. 13:5), charity must become wise to evil's design.

   - Is evil eternal?  Has it an origin?  Where does it come from?

   - Can evil be eradicated?  Has it an end?

   - Is evil redeemable?  How is evil different than sin?

These are important questions if we want to love like Christ.  Sunday Schools distract us with softcore theodicies, shuffling sins around while evil remains undetected.

Wisely did Jesus teach us to "resist NOT evil" (Matt. 5:39).

Why would He say that?

"Know Thyself"

I recently came across a story from ancient India that is worth retelling here.  It took place long before Christ was born, at a time when the Mahajanapadas were young, around 500 B.C.

Like most great stories, it begins one fateful night with the birth of a baby.  The babe was born to the Garga clan, one of the priestly castes in India.  He entered this world under dark omens: every weapon in the city sparkled and gleamed ominously at his birth, as if foreshadowing a future filled with violence.

The boy’s father, Bhaggava, a servant of the king and an astrologer, gave his son the name Ahimsaka, which means "the harmless one."

The boy grew into a young man and was sent to study at the fabled university of Taxila.  He was smart and dutiful and had a wonderful teacher who loved him as a member of his own family. 

But the other students were jealous of Ahimsaka's favor with their guru, and they devised a cruel plot.  "Respected Teacher," they said, "We hear troubling stories.  Ahimsaka boasts he has grown wiser than his Master."

Over time the students' lies sowed doubt and soured the teacher’s mind.  "Honored Guru," the students said, "Forgive us for speaking of such shame, but Ahimsaka has been seen with your wife.  He claims he will soon replace you entirely."

Because of the lies told him, the teacher came to hate Ahimsaka.  But he could not openly accuse his pupil without proof, so when the time came for graduation, the teacher gave Ahimsaka an impossible task.

"To complete your education," the teacher said, "Bring me the fingers of a thousand men."

The words were like a death sentence.  Ahimsaka should have walked away, but being conditioned by years of obedience to his master, he merely bowed his head.

"As you command, Guru-ji.  It shall be done."
​
Ahimsaka left Taxila and, alone and forsaken, became extremely bitter.  He descended into madness, his spirit and mind broken by the betrayal of his master and friends.

All he had now was the vow he had made to return with the fingers of 1,000 men.  (Back then, remember, people took their vows seriously.)

He retreated to the Jalini forest and lived like a feral animal.  He made his den near a busy road, well-traveled by traders, so that when someone passed by he could rush out and kill them, severing their fingers.

At first, he tried hanging the fingers on a tree branch, but birds stole them.  So he strung the pinky fingers into a necklace ― a growing garland of death that swayed as he walked.

The nearby villagers, as you can imagine, became terrified.  As word of Ahimsaka's crimes spread, the people began calling him Angulimala, which means, "the one who wears a finger necklace."

Soon no one took the road, they feared Angulimala so.  He had become a monster in his anger and bloodlust.  At night he stole into their villages and murdered the people in their beds, collecting their fingers.

His reign of terror spread, year after year, death upon death, until, at last, Angulimala's necklace stretched to 999 fingers.

Just one more.  He needed but one final finger to be complete.

Putting the "I" in Evil Eye

Most of us never really think about what makes something evil.

Is an earthquake evil?  Does evil require volition, agency?  Is evil always malevolent?  Or can there be something like ambivalent evil?

A falling rock may crush my leg; a horse may break my back; a psycho may put ketchup on his french toast instead of syrup: but are they evil?

If we go back to Augustine and Aquinas, they approached evil from the perspective of (wait for it) God.

If God is an ideal, perfect, and unchanging Being, then evil is anything that corrupts His goodness or deviates from His attributes.

In other words, the medieval concept of evil began with goodness: evil was goodness malformed or misapplied.
 
Back then, much of Christian theology was developed under the belief of creation ex nihilo, original sin, and creedal notions of God's nature.  Evil, understandably, had to fit into that messy landscape.

Theologian Thomas Oord said, "Most theists believe God is omnipotent.  But believing God is all-powerful, is 'in control,' or can control others leads to unsolvable conundrums.  The problem of evil is the most obvious.  We ask, 'Why doesn't an all-powerful and all-loving God prevent genuine evil?'" 

But what if evil is part of the texture of reality itself, co-existent with God, a natural condition of intelligence?  We normally associate 'intelligence' with 'the light of truth,' and does evil shed light on the nature of truth?

Instead of seeking to eradicate evil, we might seek an alternative path towards its synthesis (as the Cross showed).

This is why I don't hold the non-dualistic tendency to downplay evil, as if it were illusory or part of virtual reality (which the Gnostics and many contemporary thinkers believe), where no one actually gets hurt in 'real' life, as though we’ll wake up from a simulated nightmare and shrug it off.

For me, evil is real (from the relative view), and yet evil is not to be feared (from the objective view).

So a person whose tooth touches nerve experiences real pain; misery is not imagined.  At the same time, I don't think evil defines us, neither does our pain.

But what we must decide is what to do with evil.  It can't be ignored.  Our response is required.  Personally, I would like us to develop a more sacred orientation towards evil, as Christ had.

How did Christ deal with evil?  Well, He sought to alleviate it, for starters.

   (1) Like Christ, we can practice harmlessness (as His "doves," see Matt 10:16).  We can subscribe to the eastern philosophy of ahimsa, which means harmlessness.  We can stop acting like crusading Christians, enacting social and spiritual violence in God's name.

   (2) After we have looked to our own conduct, we can look outside of ourselves to succor those in need, as Jesus did so beautifully.  We feed and clothe and shelter and heal and teach and rescue.

But harmlessness and helping is only part of the solution.

As we press forward in Christ's footsteps, we encounter greater and greater manifestations of evil.  You see, the Strait and Narrow Path cuts through hell.

Becoming a child of God brings us into the company of demons, ironically.  Remember, our capacity for both good and evil grows the more intelligent we become.  In other words, the higher we ascend, the greater the efforts of the devils to get us to use our intelligence for evil.  Heaven is riddled with hell's recruitment centers.

But the greatest protection we have is love.  Jesus was not swayed on the Mount of Temptation by the devil's offer.  But don't think it's easy: the devil knows how to tailor a compensation package to make us feel like it is a win-win, that we can somehow accept his signing bonus and still be on God's errand.

It seems the closer we come to God, the more we must work with shadow, sculpting the darkness, incorporating the contrast, as Christ did, to bring forth greater light.

This is magical work, weaving holiness that hallows evil, as Christ showed in Gethsemane.

Love is the loom; evil is simply one of the threads in the warp and woof of creation.  God's atoning miracle does not cut the evil threads, but integrates them.

What emerges is a creation made more beautiful than if only light existed.  

"Accept Thyself"

Back to our friend Angulimala, the finger necklace brigand.  One day a man walked through town wearing a simple robe and carrying a begging bowl.  He was headed towards the forest where Angulimala dwelt.

"Don't go that way, Venerable Sir!" the people called, warning the monk.  "A murderous, bloody-handed man waits there.  A demon he has become!  He wants just one more life.  We don't want it to be yours."  

Gautama listened to the villagers and said, "If I go not, who will?"

​"Please, Reverend One!" the people cried. "He wears a necklace of fingers, collected from his victims.  No one who enters that forest returns alive!"

The Buddha gave a nod and kept walking.  "Just one more finger he needs?  He will remain unfulfilled unless someone goes."

​From the clifftop, Angulimala watched the man approach as he made his way up the winding road.  Angulimala placed himself in the middle of the road and yelled, "Here is death!  Do you hear me?"

But the Buddha simply continued walking forward, a gentle smile on his lips, as if he were greeting an old friend.

Angulimala flexed his necklace, displaying the rotting fingers proudly.  "Do you know who I am?"

"I have heard about you," the monk said.

"Stop!" Angulimala yelled.  "Where do you think you're going?"

The Buddha looked the man in the eyes.  "I am not going anywhere.  I stopped long ago, Angulimala," he said.  "It is you who are trying to go somewhere."

Angulimala laughed with disbelief.  "You're completely insane!  You move your feet and claim you're going nowhere, but I stand still and you claim I am going somewhere?  What kind of riddle is this?"

"I seek nothing, and am not running from anything," the Buddha said.  "I have arrived where I am meant to be.  But you, Angulimala?  Do you think you will find fulfillment through a thousand lives?"

For some reason Angulimala did not strike.  Instead he froze, a look of bewilderment on his face.

The Buddha started walking.  "You want my finger?  Or my head?  Take them," he said without any fear.  "I am not this body.  Whether I am physically here makes no difference.  If that will fulfill you, then do it.  What is the problem?"

War in Heaven

The battle between love and evil is not between God and the devil, Michael and the Dragon.  The War in Heaven involves all of us, and occurs primarily within us.  The battleground is our own heart.

For God did not create the world in six days, then allow it to Fall into ruin, and skip town.  Did we think He walked away from the less seemly parts of Himself?  No, never.

Richard Rohr made an interesting observation when he said, "Note that when God first divided light from darkness, God did not call it 'good' (Genesis 1:3).  From the very beginning, we are warned that we cannot totally separate light from darkness, or the two have no meaning.  The whole of Creation exists inside of one full cycle: 'Evening came and morning came and it was the first day' (Genesis 1:5).”

The point I want to make is very subtle: the creation was God's own body; He created Himself as the world.

As Doug Scott said, "God loves things by becoming them." 

God is in all things, around all things, above all things.  Cast out of Eden?  But never out of God's heart.

This means God is still here, creating with us.  The creation is ongoing; we are co-creating with Him a "better world" (Ether 12:4).

In an evolving creation, our choices really do matter!  But listen, we can't eliminate the conditions that make evil possible without also eliminating the creative advance of the universe.  Agency, after all, is the First Law of heaven.

To eradicate evil would be to consign us to hell, trapped in a stagnant creation.  "But Tim," someone says, "Where is God in all of this?  He doesn't seem very hands-on."

Divine agency operates through persuasion rather than coercion, luring the universe towards greater consciousness, seeking to harmonize ever-greater complexity, ever-expanding differentiation of life, ever-deepening rivers of intelligence.

Love invites but does not control.  There are no demands in love, only burnt offerings freely given.

Because "God is love" (1 John 4:8), He doesn't force creation towards a predetermined end, but rather "beckons all beings toward the highest beauty that is possible for them given the limitations of their finite situations," according to Matt Segall.

​In other words, love is luring; it calls us to seek our highest potential.  But it does not force, and if we choose evil (as we often do), God suffers alongside us.  The love of God is boundless.

"But Tim,” someone asks, "How can God be unchangeable and perfect, and yet evolve?  If God is the summation of all creation, then how is He progressing?"

I would respond with my own question: "If infinity evolves, does it stop being infinite?"
 
   There is no such thing
   as immaterial matter.
   All spirit is matter,
   but it is more fine or pure.

(D&C 131:7)

This is the key: if all spirit is matter, and if we assume all matter contains spirit, then consciousness extends at all levels of existence: the entire universe is alive in varying degrees of complexity.

So what we call the "mind" and the "body" and the "spirit" are all comprised of same thing (they share a common ontology, or nature), but at various densities of light ― all working in tandem, interconnected, as one divine organism.

And if there is only One God (as we believe) comprised of many individuations of the One (us), then the Spirit of God (which is the action of love upon agency, the Second Law of heaven) is divinely guiding us towards ever-greater beauty, which arises from harmonizing new, novel forms that emerge from the synthesis of what was, into new heavens and new earths that can be (what else did we think faith was for?).

"Come, bhikku"

Hearing the Buddha's words, something terrible inside of Angulimala began to crumble.  What joy was there in taking the life of a man freely given?

The weight of nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine deaths pressed upon him.  His necklace began to feel unbearably heavy.  The sword in his hand felt hot.

"Wait," Angulimala said.  "What do you mean?"

The Buddha turned. "You are running toward something that moves you away with every step from what you truly seek."

Angulimala fell to his knees and began to weep, the first tears he had shed in years.  "Teach me."  He raised his sword high and hurled it into the ravine.

The Buddha lowered his head.  "Come, bhikku."  With those two words, Angulimala's life changed forever.

"What must I do?" Angulimala asked as a little child.

"Go," the Buddha said.  "Return to the village where you have taken nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine lives."  The Buddha gave him his begging bowl.  "Seek food, and seek to understand what you have done.  Serve those you have wronged."

Angulimala's hands trembled as he took the bowl.  "Master, they will kill me."

"Perhaps," the Buddha replied.  "But you must face what you have become, so that you may discover what you may yet become."

   ******
When Angulimala entered the village, the very air seemed to flee before him.  In such a small community, every family had lost someone to his hand.

The people watched Angulimala step into the town square, afraid at first, but then they noticed his bowl and shaved head.

The people's fear turned to rage.  A woman whose husband's finger hung around Angulimala's neck picked up a rock.  "Murderer!" she screamed, hurling it with all her might.  It struck him upon his bare shoulder, drawing blood.

"Demon!" a man shouted, casting a stone that hit Angulimala in the head.

Soon a rain of rock filled the air, striking the man from all sides ― his head, his chest, his arms and back.  Blood stained his yellow robe.  Angulimala slowly walked through the village, his bowl extended, enduring their insults and stones.

He did not fight back.  He accepted their punishment.  His was a debt he could not repay.

He staggered and fell to the ground.  The rocks kept coming; he closed his eyes as his life ebbed.

The Buddha appeared.  "Stop," he said to the villagers.

The people were frenzied in their grief and anger.  "This man killed our sons, our brothers, our husbands, our fathers!" they yelled, reaching for more rocks.

The Buddha stood quietly, until silence gripped the crowd.  Then he said, "This is not the same man."

The people lowered their stones, unsure, wondering if it were true, their eyes drawn to the necklace of severed fingers.

House of Order

The important thing to remember is that the creative process is never individual; we create in relation to others, to the world, to our past ―
and especially in regards to our future.

We are symbiotic spiritual beings.  Our bodies cannot exist without electromagnetism and oxygen; likewise, our spirits require a compatible environment in which to expand, as whales swimming through the fiery firmament and yet must surface for air.

The entire universe (this is self-evident) is composed of networks (families) of relationality and mutual influence (resonance).

Now back to evil.  Evil is that which strives without heart.  Evil is the work of entropy upon love.  Whereas love unites, evil separates.

Entropy, physicists say, will result in the end of the universe in what they call the "heat-death."  At some point in the impossibly distant future, the galaxies will no longer have enough energy to make new stars and all the matter in the universe will be absorbed into black holes.

Then the universe will cool to near Absolute Zero, at which point creation shall utterly rest, still as death, everywhere, because all of the energy will be motionless.

What stands between us the heat-death?  Love.  Love generates energy through the grace shared between beings, and is the stuff from which stars are born, that fuels the spinning arms of galaxies, and which is the lifeblood of intelligence.

Evil, though, saps positive spiritual energy (which is light, the Third Law of heaven).  To be clear, light is spiritual energy; matter is made up of energy fields at the atomic level.  Matter, then, is simply tangible light.

The reason evil "darkens" our minds is because evil is closely aligned with fear.  Fear, according to Tom Campbell, is "high-entropy consciousness."  I love that definition.

God's House is "a house of order" (D&C 109:8).  The way we "order' God's house depends upon whether we act from fear or from love.
 
Entropy is a measure of disorder.  Hell is an oddity in the sense that, despite it being structured rigidly through slave-dynamics (what the scriptures refer to as "captivity") perfected in hierarchical dynasties (that are counterparts to God-groups like the House of Israel), hell is filled with high entropy.
 
In the inverse, God’s heaven is an oddity in the sense that individuals are free and equal without imposed structure, held together by love alone (John 8:29), and yet entropy is kept to a minimum ― all without heavy-handed hierarchical controls!
 
In a metaphysical sense, the purpose of spiritual evolution is to tame entropy.

We might think it would be orderly if all the angels in heaven replicated the same behavior.  Rank and file, no?  But what we find is the opposite: that repetition does not produce growth.  Cloning produces sterility.

Think of the alphabet: if all the letters were simply the same (the letter “g” for example), we could not create any words.  So we need complexity (26 different letters) mixed together in creative ways to create language, even the Logos.
 
Agency introduces differentiation and complexity into spiritual systems, and therefore, allows for the generation of new, greater forms of creativity.  This is how God's glory increases.

"Become the Creator"

Years passed.  Angulimala practiced with tremendous dedication, but peace remained elusive.  Whenever he ventured into public, people attacked him.

Yet he had kept his vow, and never again took another’s life.

One morning, while on his alms, Angulimala heard the piercing cries of a woman in the throes of childbirth.  She was in agony, unable to deliver her baby.  Her life hung in the balance.

Moved by compassion, Angulimala hurried to the side of the woman.  He spoke simple words of comfort and consolation, and immediately the woman's pain ceased and she delivered the child to the amazement of all.

Word of the miracle spread.  The man who had once been synonymous with death had now brought life.

In time, Angulimala achieved his goal and became an Arahant, a saint.

Yet he never removed the necklace of fingers.  He wore it until his death.  Not as a trophy, but as a reminder of what he had been, and what grace had made possible, and what compassion had wrought in his life.

And songs were written and sung of his deeds, and recorded in the Theragatha (part of the Buddhist Pali Canon of scriptures), including these verses:

   Formerly "Harmless" was my name,
   Even as I harmed others.
   I was the famed killer
   and wearer of the finger garland.

   I was swept along . . . 
   [for] I cut off all links of existence
   at their roots.
   ​I stayed in forests, at the root of a tree,
   In mountain caves ―
   everywhere I lived
   with an agitated mind.

   But now I rest
   and rise in happiness,
   free of Mara's snares ―
   Oh! for the pity shown me.

(Theragatha, verses 879-881, 887-888)

A New Understanding of the Temple of God

God is an eternal being (as are we), who encompasses the universe, so one of the problems He faces is how to lower His internal entropy.

His "Plan" accomplishes the goal of lowering entropy through love.

To paraphrase Tom Campbell:
 
Strait and Narrow Path:  Involves lowering entropy, evolving towards more useful and valuable knowledge and wisdom, and thus greater awareness, complexity, cooperation, productivity, and functionality.
 
Broad Path:  Involves raising entropy through de-evolving towards less useful and valuable information and thus less awareness, less complexity, less cooperation, less productivity, and less functionality, eventually spiraling towards randomness and disharmony.
 
Given these two options, the choice seems clear.  God, being intelligent, seeks to lower the environmental entropy and achieve more ordered states by which He can generate our full potential.  "This is my work and my glory" (Moses 1:39).

Spiritual evolution (i.e., lowering entropy) occurs through experiencing divine possibilities in ever new ways and forms (what Latter-day Saints refer to as "having glory added upon").
 
But lowering entropy does not occur automatically.  It requires energy output.  Evolution requires "work."

This might sound strange, but God is not just creating a house of order for us to inhabit, for we are not "in" the house: we ARE the House.

The heavens (universe) I'm describing is a temple, and we ARE the temple.

But this is like no temple we’ve ever seen, as a fish in a small pond cannot conceive of the vastness of the ocean: for the temple we constitute is alive, and is all.  It is the Body of Christ, in which His consciousness dwells, the light of truth.

Sacred Orientation
a poem

​"Matter itself is nothing other than memory." 
  
    ― Matthew Segall
 
Can time be tattooed
like skin? The future
is a scar sagging
into the present.

A scar bears witness
to survival. Instinct
stands between the past
and possible.

We pierce timespace
as cosmic quills within a weaving
wind. We write emet aletheia
truth and the wind cries.

Inhale the ink of each other’s
essence. Life enrobes itself
in a halo of self-becoming
so coincidence appears.
 
Marrow remembers
what shaped our reflexes.
Tomorrow we find ourselves
tattooed inside all.