Sunday, June 30, 2013

EVIL



God created the world out of chaos, but some chaos still remains. It’s the factor that transforms the beautiful waves of the ocean into a tsunami, it is why a monster is born among many good  people, or a sick child among the healthy ones. God can’t do anything to prevent this, but we can. Our technology will allow us to predict natural disasters and genetic diseases, and I don’t think that a new Hitler could get away with another Holocaust today, because the human race has been too deeply ashamed of it to let it happen again. 

We can make the world a better place, but this is not going to happen automatically, thanks to “progress”. Technology and democracy won’t protect us from evil. We must be able to recognize it, for Satan is the “Big Deceiver.”                                                                                                                              

Other times, instead, evil is so evident that we are struck by the impulse to act against it forcefully. This usually leads to more evil.  Following Christ and his message of peace seems unrealistic in a world where atomic bombs are built. It’s a challenge, but the gospels teach that evil cannot be confronted as something apart from us, where we are good and the others are bad.

Evil often reaches its climax in the interaction between the two contenders. Even the apostles had their moments of evil, including Peter, the head of the Church. Only Jesus could unmask it and exhaust its power. He did not resist it and didn’t call to the Father for vengeance, but the Father raised him from the dead, not as a reward or a statement about his divinity, but as Satan’s final defeat. Jesus’ resurrection is the first step in the new creation. 

The prophet Isaiah predicted his sacrifice, as we can read in the prophecy of the Suffering Servant. Jesus the Servant will save the world from within, for God is grieving upon His creation gone wrong. But why doesn’t God deal with evil on His own? Perhaps He can’t land in force to defeat it because, to say with C.S. Lewis, when the author walks on the stage the play is over.