F 01 Definitions of Evil
1. Definitions of Evil. To the question, What is evil? we may reply generally, that it is the antithesis or negation of good. It is not possible to give other than a negative definition or description of it. It is not something positive. In the abstract, evil is want of conformity to good; in the concrete, it is anything that is opposed to or comes short of actual good. Good is something positive, evil is simply the absence or negation of good. In this all are agreed. " All evil," says Origen, " is nothing, since it happens as not being." l " No nature," says Augustine, " is evil, and this name is only of the privation of good/ 2 a statement which he after repeats in the course of his writings. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero all taught that by nature all things are good; evil arises when there is a dereliction from nature or a negation of it. " Evil," says St. Basil, " is not a living substance and endowed with soul, but an affection of the soul contrary to virtue sprung from the desertion of good, so that we have no need to seek for a primitive evil." 3 " Properly speaking/ says Leibnitz, "evil formally has not an efficient cause, for it consists in privation, that is, in that it is not made by an efficient cause. Hence the schoolmen are wont to call the cause of evil deficient." 4 But I have nowhere seen this point more clearly and accurately exhibited than by the French philosopher Bartholmess. " Considered in an abstract manner," he says, " evil is the negation of, or the antithesis of, good. Now, good in any being is the entire and facile development of its nature conformably to itself, to its end, and to its law. God alone realizes for us the idea of the absolute good, because He possesses the plenitude of being, and encounters no limit to His attributes. God also enjoys absolute and boundless felicity. The idea of a perfect being, therefore, excludes the possibility of evil as its proper negation. With created and finite beings evil consists in their very imperfection, or in the disagreement between their nature and their end, their actions and their law. The complete, regular, and facile accomplish ment of all the particular ends concurring to a general end is order, or the general good; the derogation from order, the infraction of the universal law, or of those which regulate each being in particular, constitute evil. It thus appears that evil is not in itself anything positive; it is resolvable into either a negation, an imperfection, a defect, or a discordance between the end of beings and their development." 5 A threefold division of evil has been signalized, viz. into 1 Ha/rot, vi KKXIOC, ol^ iv inrriv, Ifit xa.} olx. i v rvy^Kvu. De Princip. 2:2.
2 " Cum omnino natura nulla sit malum, nomenque hocnon sit nisi privationis boni." De Civit. Dei, 11:22.
3 In Hexcem. Horn. 2:4 Theodicee, Ft. 1:20.
5 Dictionnaire ties Sciences Philo&ophiques, T. iv., p. 61.
Metaphysical, Physical, and Moral. The first, malum metapliysicum, has been defined by Leibnitz 1 as "in the general consisting in the imperfection of things, even such as are non-intelligent; " the second, malum physicum, as relating " specially to what incommodes intelligent substances; " and the third, malum morale, as " belonging to the vicious actions of such." Stapfer defines them thus: " Malum metaphysicum is defect of ulterior or greater perfection in a thing, and consists, therefore, in limitation of essential determinations; " or it may be called " the absence of ulterior reality and per fection in creatures; " Malum physicum is "whatever is thought to render the state of things as respects natural effects more imperfect than they would have been had they been other than they are; " and Malum morale is " that on account of which men’s actions are said to be vicious." 2 Or we may state the distinction thus: Every existence has an ideal or ulterior perfection; when it comes short of that there is evil.
Every sentient being has happiness as its end; whatever impedes or destroys this is evil. Every intelligent being is bound to be morally good and virtuous; wherever there is a departure from this, or a coming short of it, there is evil.
It may, however, be doubted whether the first of these should not, as well as the last, be restricted to intelligent existences; inasmuch as it is only as it affects them that imperfection in themselves, or in other existences, is an evil. It may be further observed that even in reference to intelligent exist ences imperfection is not so much an evil as a possible cause or occasion of evil; for limitation, or even defect, if it do not lead to unhappiness or sin, and if it do not hinder the due development of the being towards its proper end, cannot with strict propriety be called an evil. All creature perfection is necessarily relative perfection; absolute perfection belongs only to God; consequently, if imperfection were in itself an evil there would be no creature, however exalted and holy, who would be free from evil. Not only so, but it may be better for a creature to be imperfect, as compared with an
1 " Metaphysicum generatim consistit in rerum etiam non intelligentium imperfeetione; physicum accipitur speciatim de substantiarum intelligentium incommodis; morale de earum actionibus viciosis." Causa Dei Asserta, 30-32.
2 Stapfer, Institt. Theol. Polem., T. 1. p. 110. ideal or absolute perfection, than to be perfect, because thereby bore fitted for the position he has to occupy in the universe.
(i.) We may satisfy ourselves, then, with a twofold division of evil physical and moral: the former being whatever is opposed to or less than good, in the sense of happiness; the latter whatever is opposed to or less than good in the sense of rectitude, virtue, or holiness. We may further distinguish between the absolutely good and the relatively good; the former of which is to be desired for its own sake, the latter of which may be desired as a means to an end. A correspon dent distinction of evil may be made; the antithesis of the absolutely good being the absolutely evil, which cannot be chosen by perfect wisdom and holiness, either for itself or as means to an end; and the antithesis of the relatively good being the relatively evil, which, though not to be chosen for itself, may be used by infinite goodness and wisdom as a means to an end, and which in the case of physical evil may be even desired as the means best adapted to secure some end that is good.
(ii.) Moral evil is often identified with sin. It would be more correct to say that sin is moral evil viewed under a certain aspect, viz. as lawlessness (avofjiia), as " illegalitas sen difformitas a lege." ] Moral evil is evil in genera; sin is evil in specie; the former is malum in se, the latter is malum prohibitum; and as the commission of what law forbids entails guilt and exposes to punishment, this latter becomes also malum culpcc.
(iii.) The relations of physical and moral evil may be stated thus: 1. Physical evil is by the divine ordinance the consequence of moral evil, and frequently the outward exponent of what is hid from created vision. 2. Physical evil is malum pcence, the punishment which is made to fall on the being who has been guilty of the malum culpce: " Evil," says Augustine, " is twofold; there is the evil which a man does and the evil which he suffers; what he does is sin, what he suffers is punishment. The Divine Providence moderating and governing all things, man so does evil as he wills that he suffers ill which he would not." 2 3. Physical evil may often 1 Calovius, System. Locc. Theol, v. p. 14.
2 " Dupliciter appellatur malum, unum <piod homo facit, alterum quod patitur; be the means of preventing moral evil, and of securing the opposite good; it may thus become not merely, as Hierocles calls it, TrovTjptas larpiKij, but even a mediate or subsidiary good. 1
4. The converse may not lawfully take place; moral evil may not be resorted to for the averting of physical evil; God never directly wills evil that good may come; and He has forbidden this to us.
5. It is nevertheless possible, for aught we know to the contrary, that moral evil may be the condition without which intelligent creature existence cannot reach its highest and most perfect development, i.e. becomes entirely and for ever superior to all defect and evil; and for this reason, though not directly willed by God, it may be permitted by Him.
(iv.) The distinction between physical and moral evil has by some been subverted. This is pre-eminently the case with the Pantheistic school. With them, indeed, moral evil as such is wholly ignored. According to Spinoza, " Good is that which we certainly know to be useful; and evil that which we certainly know to impede or hinder in any degree our attaining any good." We propose to ourselves an idea of man, or an exemplar of human nature, and good is that which we know to be the medium of more and more approaching to that; while evil is what we know to hinder us from reaching that. 2 Thus, from our concept of good, all notion of moral Tightness or conformity to ethical law, and from our concept of evil all notion of moral turpitude or difformity from moral law, is excluded. Good is simply what is useful, as tending to the more perfect development of our nature; and evil is only what is noxious, as tending in some degree to impede that development. There is thus neither moral good nor moral evil; all is purely physical or natural. Nor is this other than a necessary consequence of the Pantheistic concept of the universe. For if God be the immanent cause of all quod facit peccatum est, quod patitur poena. Divina Providentia cuncta moderante et gubernante ita homo male facit quod vult ut male patiatur quod non vult." Contr. Adimant. 100:26. So also Grotius: " Est autem poena general! significatur malum passionis quod infligitur ob malum actionis." De Jure, 1. ii. c. 20, 1.
1 "Mala physica interdum fiunt bona subsidiata tanquam medix ad majora bona." Leibnitz, Causa Dei Assert., 35.
2 Spinoza, Ethices, Pars iv., prcpfatio. things, and if sill thought be simply God thinking, simply the consciousness of the one infinite substance, there cannot be any real or essential distinction between right and wrong, moral good and moral evil, because that would argue essential distinction in the divine substance, which is impossible.
Pantheism thus leads necessarily to the obliteration of moral distinctions as such, and resolves good and evil into the merely accidentally useful or hurtful. Less pronounced are the conclusions of the naturalistic or sensualistic school on this head; but with them also there is no real place for moral evil or sin. With them all is the outcome of nature; good is that which is in accordance with nature and promotes human happiness; evil is only at the worst defect, a short coming from the abstract ideal, incident in the process of development to a being which is gradually, by purely physical agencies, working towards it the realization of that ideal. As Principal Tulloch has well remarked, " The two conceptions of sin and of development in this naturalistic sense cannot coexist. I cannot be the mere outcome of natural law, and yet accountable for the fact that I am no better than I am.
If I am only the child of nature, I must be entitled to the privileges of nature. If I have come from matter alone, then I cannot dwell within the shadow of a responsibility whose birthplace is elsewhere in a different region altogether." 1 To be in accordance with their own fundamental principles, the disciples of the sensualistic school must hold that pleasure is the only good, and pain or suffering the only evil, of which we have any knowledge. To the other extreme have gone those who would resolve all evil into that which is immoral, regarding pain and all forms of physical evil as mere accidents which the wise man will regard with indifference, or as necessarily involved in that moral evil of which they are the punishment. But it is vain to deny that pain, suffering, disorder, are real evils; and it is a mistake to include that which is the consequence and penalty of sin as part of the sin itself. As the pleasure which God has made to attend on goodness is not itself goodness, so the pain which He has made to attend on sin is a real evil, which must ever be discriminated from sin itself.
1 Christian Doctrine of Sin, p. 5.