Murderotica: An avalanche in D Minor

A little while ago I was confronted with a very disturbing concept – that God allows moral evil. As an educated man and an RE teacher the problem of evil was not new to me. I was well acquainted with the philosophical arguments against the existence of God from the perspective of moral evil. However, my own beliefs about this problem were brought into question. It is one thing for an omniscient, all knowing God to permit the continual existence of evil. It is something else to believe a Holy and Just God would allow it. You see for all the philosophical arguments for and against God, whether centred on the existence of evil or not many of the arguments define God in purely classical language of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. But I believe, as the Bible teaches that God is not just an abstract evanescent spirit, but a personal, loving and Holy Creator. This challenge to my deeply held convictions brought me to the precipice of despair – was God in some way responsible and even guilty for the evil this earth has experienced ever since man became a conscience being? Is the blood of innocent lives on God’s hands?

The problem of moral evil encompasses more than just the existence of God – it encompasses the nature and purpose of humanity and the reality of moral laws. In short it leads us to question everything we understand about life, the nature and purpose of suffering and the reality of justice and hope. Good always seems to have a way of overcoming evil in films and literature. Is this just a fantasy we play out for the sake of giving humanity some semblance of hope in an ever increasing world of violence, bloodshed, neglect and abuse? A world in which prostitution, human trafficking, drug barons, murder, genocide, masochism, witchcraft, war and even playground bullying tear through the very fabric of society and bring people to the brink of sanity often resulting in depression and suicide.

So how can we reconcile belief in a God of love and justice with the existence and continual perpetuation of evil? The book of Daniel in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) speaks of God ultimately being in control and limiting the time of irrepressible evil. The book of Revelation in the New Testament speaks of the time of the anti-Christ and the Beast before the creation of the New Heaven and the New Earth; Jesus prophesised that there would be suffering and tribulation before His return and the Apostle Paul prophesied a terrible falling away from the faith of many who are deceived by the spirit of anti-Christ. So the Bible does not deny the existence of evil or its dreadful effects upon human society. Indeed the Bible gives several warnings of the evil to come; evil this world has seen in every generation and epoch. The question is why? What is God’s purpose for allowing evil to continue and even grow in the extent of its destruction and devastation? This is perhaps one of the most challenging issues facing the Christian faith. Many atheists would argue this is proof of the non-existence of God: as the premise of the argument goes:

(1) If God exists then he is omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent.
(2) If God were omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent then the world would not contain moral evil.
(3) The world contains moral evil
(4)Therefore: God does not exist.

So let us consider the alternatives: If God does not exist as atheists claim then how does this change our understanding of the existence and nature of evil? Jean Paul Sartre in his work ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’ propounds: “Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders.” Sartre believed, as an atheist, that man first exists then defines himself afterwards. There is no ‘essence’ of humanity as we are not made in God’s image. Therefore we are who we make ourselves to be and we alone are solely responsible for who we become. Again Sartre reiterates this sense of responsibility: “When a man commits himself to anything, fully realising that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind – in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility.” Many humanists and secularist would agree with such a view that the potential lies within humanity to better ourselves and we do not require some divinely appointed moral law to guide our judgements. Right and wrong, good and evil are the creation of humanity and we shape our moral laws as best as we see fit depending on the times and circumstances that we live in. However what do we conclude from this existential subjectivism? Surely it has failed to produce that conscience necessary to eradicate evil? We are responsible for the way this world is and as such, without any higher being or laws with which to be accountable to evil has multiplied. Sartre understood this failing of existentialism with his own critique: “The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men.” (my emphasis)

So without God there is no objective moral good with which to guide and inspire humanity, only moral subjectivism that does not have the necessary ‘a priori’ authority to overcome evil. Evil will continue as humanity flagrantly denies and rejects its moral obligation to do good as well as twisting and distorting our perception of good and evil in its own perverse justification for evil. There is little hope then in atheism for a solution to the problem of evil. Conversely modernism as a philosophy still exists that espouses that through human progression, whether technologically or scientifically humanity will overcome its more base instincts and inhumanity, racism, genocide and war towards our fellow human beings will become a thing of the past. Humanity will ‘come of age’ and along with superstitious notions of religion and God will evolve into a higher state of morality. This philosophy was prevalent in the 19th century but was greatly undermined by the outbreak of WWI. As new technology redefined warfare and the parameters of war, thousands upon thousands of soldiers died at the hands of machine guns, gas attacks and shelling. Soldiers often suffered from ailments and diseases in the trenches from the terrible conditions they had to fight in and an entire generation of young men were killed. Technology, rather than being the herald of progressive morality and creating a new world of peace and harmony had become the harbinger of destruction and chaos, sending the entire world into war, tearing apart whole countryside’s and destroying the environment. More recently we now realise that global warming was brought about through the overdependence and reliance on fossil fuels to power the industrialisation of Europe and Asia.

Richard Dawkins author of ‘The God Delusion’ conjectures in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ that memes (from what I understand a scientific and evolutionary concept for ideas) act in much the same way as genes – selfishly and in competition with other memes for survival: “Selection favours memes that exploit their cultural environment to their own advantage. This cultural environment consists of other memes which are also being selected. The meme pool therefore comes to have the attributes of an evolutionary stable set, which new memes find it hard to invade.” This has implications for morality and the problem of evil. If morality is merely a mechanism for the survival of human society, as some anthropologists and Darwinian biologists believe then evil could be construed as a natural evolutionary process of the strong overpowering the weak. Dawkins sees memes as acting much like genes insofar as memes are also selfish and their instinct is for their own survival and replication. Eugenics, homophobia and anti-Semitism to name but a few of the worst ideologies to have impacted human society may all just be particularly dominant memes that by their very nature of human selection for one reason or another find great success in certain circumstances and cultures. Dawkins concludes pensively: “even if we look on the dark side and assume that individual man is fundamentally selfish, our conscious foresight - - our capacity to simulate the future in imagination - - could save us from the worst selfish excesses of the blind replicators... We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” However much Dawkins wishes to believe that humans are capable of pure altruism simply by virtue of our capacity for foresight, his scientific convictions and meme theory potentially reduce evil to an evolutionary process that in the interest of biological advancement could be justified. There is very little solace or comfort in this idea. Evil, experientially, is cruel, malevolent and totally unjust.

So it seems that western philosophical beliefs in existentialism, humanism, modernism and Darwinism have been unable to resolve the problem of evil. Evil may be a peg with which to hang their atheistic beliefs on but it is helpless to prevent it. Evil then will always be a problem in human society and although its existence is firmly believed; its effects cannot be erased. This seems to me to be a huge travesty of justice. Where is justice for the innocent victims of cruelty, genocide and racism? If death is the end then human history is replete with miscarriages of justice. So let us turn to a more eastern perception and understanding of nature. Buddhism, as well as other Eastern mystical beliefs such as Hinduism and Taoism, affirms that life is but an illusion. However if life is illusory, the product of the ego and reality is really spirit – the impersonal energy force that lies behind our material world then that also means that evil must be illusory.

Hinduism and Buddhism both reject the material universe as being the ultimate reality. Hindus seek oneness with Brahman and the reuniting of atman – the permanent soul – with Brahman the eternal spirit. Buddhists seek to overcome reincarnation through enlightenment and reach the state of nirvana – the complete transcendence of suffering and the material universe. Nirvana is equivalent to death. To eastern pantheists material reality is called maya, which means illusion. Logically if the ultimate reality is an impersonal spirit (as in Hinduism) then so is man. It is the atman that is reincarnated not the individual body, along with its personality that houses it. Buddhists meditate to dissolve the self, to transcend the limitations of the mental boundaries that the ego erects, keeping people in ignorance. The distinction between good and evil is a false dichotomy as ultimate reality is just one impersonal spirit. I have read a quote by Siddhartha Gautama the founder of Buddhism as saying this:

“The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it...therefore it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly.”

Similarly a central tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism is the belief in Karma. Karma is often described as the moral law of the universe that governs peoples’ fate and the state of their rebirth. At its most basic and mechanical Karma is cause and effect. Good actions will be rewarded and bad actions will be punished. But as many eastern religions teach that ultimate reality is an impersonal spirit then karma is not truly a moral law for morality is but an illusion. Karma therefore does not administer justice. In one respect karma perpetuates evil (as most westerners understand it) as bad deeds lock a person in the cycle of reincarnation and further darken their minds and prevent them from reaching enlightenment. There is no real justice for evil in eastern philosophy as the sole aim of human life should be a letting go of the self and an embracing of the impersonal, non-material reality. Justice requires that the individual or group of people who have been victimised are recognised – their cause and their plight is upheld and the perpetrator(s) of such crimes against them are brought to account and are judged as culpable and responsible for their actions. Compassion, charity, altruism and love are not the goal of humanity but just another illusion.

The belief that the material world and morality are illusion is anathema to me! It goes against reason, it goes against experience and it goes against empirical observation. It also denies the existence of evil as a real entity as just a construct of the human mind. The suffering and death of countless billions of lives throughout human history and the many millions who suffer even today is all too real. To say that this material world is not real and that the person is not real but only the soul or atman (Buddhists don’t even believe in a permanent soul) is not only antithetical to my most deeply held convictions but also devalues the person as a unique and sacred human being. Those who suffer suffer in vain and those who die at the hands of evil people have no justice either for their families in this lifetime or in the next. This belief is not only counterintuitive but also immoral.

Having considered both atheistic and pantheistic answers to the problem of evil neither appear sufficient. One sees evil as a problem but is helpless to prevent it while the other denies its existence completely. So we must return to a theistic understanding of the problem of evil. A theistic understanding of the problem of evil entails the ramifications of free will and the issue of the sovereignty of God.

Free Will is one of the central tenets of Christianity. The Genesis account of creation describes how God made humanity in His image and that He allowed Adam and Eve to live freely in the Garden of Eden with only one command – not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Every other fruit (and presumably vegetable) were available to eat; Adam and Eve had free reign to enjoy the delights of the Garden that has ever since become synonymous with paradise. We can only speculate to its serenity and beauty, but what the Bible does make clear is that in the Garden Adam and Eve enjoyed being in the very presence of God. Genesis chapter 3 is arguably one of the most famous chapters in the whole Bible where the snake (traditionally interpreted as Satan) persuades Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It is curious how even in our infancy humanity has had a propensity to desire that which we cannot have. The snake used Eve’s naivety to sow seeds of doubt in her mind – the integrity of God was brought into question and by successfully undermining God’s commandment the snake accomplished what it sought to do turn Adam and Eve against God. Having eaten of the fruit Adam and Eve understood the difference between good and evil and became ashamed. Having disobeyed God Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, never to return. But Adam and Eve lost more than just their home: the lost their innocence and as a result their relationship with God.

This event is known by Christians and Jews as ‘original sin’. God allowed humanity to take responsibility for their own actions – He gave Adam and Eve autonomy. On the one hand, obedience was rewarded with an intimate relationship with God living in paradise, while on the other disobedience brought with it separation, not just from God but from Eden and more importantly than their habitat separation from each other. The bond between man and woman had been severed as they learnt shame and Adam turned against his wife and blamed Eve for what had happened. Yet Free Will has implications – what is the extent of our freedom? Is there such a thing as total freedom? Are our actions predisposed by our upbringing, culture or genetics? Humans make best fit decisions based on their circumstances. We might be free to eat anything we want but if we go into a restaurant we are limited to the choice given to us on the menu. Or we might be free to eat anything we want but have an allergic reaction to a particular type of food, which while we are free to make the choice to eat it we know we will suffer for it. We might be free to do anything we want but if we commit a crime then our freedom could be infringed when we go to jail. We might be free to drive any car we like but our financial circumstances may limit our selection and we may be forced to compromise. Therefore nobody is really free. While total freedom as an ideal exists within the comprehension of every human being the reality is different. So how does this affect the problem of evil?

God created humanity to be autonomous creatures in charge and responsible for their own actions, as such God is therefore not totally free to rule His creation as He sees fit. It was God’s will that Adam and Eve not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; it was God’s will that humanity prosper and thrive in the habitat He had created for them and it was God’s will that humanity would be blessed in communion with Him. But God could not impose His will at the expense of our autonomy. As independent creatures we were given the capacity to shape the society we lived in and must live with the consequences of those actions. God can guide us through using willing receptors of His will – commonly this took the form of prophesy in the Old Testament but was ultimately revealed through Jesus Christ. God understood and knew that in order for His total revelation to be communicated He needed someone who was totally free and would freely obey without fear of rejection and rebellion. That is why God sent His Son – Jesus who was fully God and fully human, as the Apostle Paul refers to Him as the ‘new Adam’. Jesus freely and voluntarily left His heavenly home and came to earth in accordance with God’s will, He freely chose to listen to God rather than indulge in sinful actions and thoughts and communicate God’s will. He became the transmitter, the vehicle for the wisdom of God, teaching those who would choose to listen to and follow Him. His teachings have been recorded for us by those disciples and early Christians so that humanity can make the decision whether or not to follow God.

God cannot control our actions but He can guide and inform our actions as long as we have receptive and open hearts. Humanity since the Fall is in total comprehension of our choices and decisions – we understand the difference between right and wrong; the power to do good and evil are now in our own hands. So is Free Will incompatible with an omnipotent God? If we have free will then does that by very virtue of our independence and potential for noncompliance with the will of God reduce God in some way? What implications does Free Will have for the sovereignty of God? In one respect evil does limit God because God then has a decision between condoning evil and condemning it. As a Holy God who is the sum of and total essence of perfection and goodness He cannot condone evil. Therefore God must condemn it. This condemnation comes in the form of judgement – death is one form of judgement so the Bible teaches. Our mortality is a judgement from God to reduce the potential amount of evil any one person can commit. Another form of judgement came on the Cross where Jesus died for the sins of humanity. Jesus became our substitute so that through faith and repentance humanity can have redemption from our sins, free from the condemnation that our sin previously accrued. Finally God’s judgement will be completed at the second coming of Christ when God totally recreates heaven and earth. This new heaven and new earth will be totally perfect as the book of Revelation prophesises because it is inhabited by human beings who in this lifetime freely chose to obey God through faith. They used their free will to follow God’s will rather than reject it. Thus God is able in cooperation and collaboration with his redeemed humanity to create the perfect society, totally free and void of evil.

So does this mean God is not omnipotent? Only in as far as God chooses to act within the confines of His own divinity. As the philosophical conundrum goes can God create a square circle? Or a wall He cannot look over? Or a stone He cannot lift? These are things God cannot do because they are incompatible with His nature. They are illogical. God is not illogical. This also means God cannot sin as He is good and holy. So God is not omnipotent as long as we understand omnipotence to mean free to contradict and go against His character. Does this mean God is not sovereign? Absolutely not! Sovereignty is the supreme and independent power of a ruler. A sovereign therefore is a supreme ruler. It says in Genesis that God saw what he had made and remarked that it was “good”. God chose to create our universe freely and independently of other agents. Before God there were no other agents or beings as He is the prime mover or cause of all that exists. This means that God is sovereign over His creation; as He says to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare to Me, if you have and know understanding.” (Job 38:4) Just as a King, Queen or President is Head of State; so too God rules over His creation. This is why as the theologian R.T. Kendall puts it ‘God has the right to be God’. Just as Governments and rulers create laws to abide by for a prosperous, safe and harmonious society; so too God established His laws – both physical and moral, most famously the 10 Commandments. Through a covenant with an ancient Semitic people who became known as the Israelites God established His Laws for human society. Israel was meant to be a beacon of light for the wider world; Israel was meant to act like a Priesthood upholding God’s Laws as an example for the rest of human society to follow. Israel was meant to be a blessing to rest of humankind, having had the privilege and distinction of being the people group God chose to reveal Himself to. However, as fallible human beings Israel failed in its calling and broke its covenant with God. Again God knew that in order for His Laws to be fully explained and upheld as a witness and example for all humankind to follow He would need someone to embody those Laws and demonstrate their effectiveness for the future of humanity to live by. Thus Jesus was born into a Jewish family, brought up within the Jewish tradition and was able to become what God had intended Israel to be all along.

What bearing does this have on the sovereignty of God? No one can be sovereign without a state or Kingdom to rule over. As primary cause of the universe God alone has sovereignty over His creation. Conversely, His sovereignty is also reinforced through creating what was once a theocracy in the people of Israel and now what Jesus described in the Gospels as the “Kingdom of God.” The Kingdom of God is not a defined set of geographical or political parameters and boarders. It transcended the state of Israel long ago and has since expanded all across the world through God’s Church. It is through the Church that God’s Laws are upheld and disseminated. This is not to say the Church is a flawless representation of all that God’s Kingdom is meant to be. Like Israel before it, the Church too has often betrayed its fallibility either through war, clerical abuses or sheer hypocrisy. But that does not mean God is not sovereign over His Kingdom. Just as in human states people commit crimes, so too in its earthly incarnation the Kingdom of God is not perfect. But an imperfect system is better than no system when governing society as complete social and political anarchy creates chaos in which nothing can be achieved.

This is an important point when addressing the problem of moral evil. Moral evil exists but it is in conflict and direct contravention to the moral laws that govern and hold a society together not in the absence of such laws. To be able to define moral evil first a distinction needs to be made to what it is not. What it is not is the moral ‘good’. As has been explicated earlier God is the very essence of Holiness and is therefore the intrinsic essence of goodness. I have heard it said one does not need to believe in God to be good, but God needs to exist in order for there to be good. God is not only sovereign but He is the arbiter of moral goodness: God is the a priori authority of moral goodness that atheism lacks. However this distinction does not resolve the problem of the existence of evil, it merely identifies it. So if God is Holy and sovereign over His creation then what has He done or is doing to solve the problem of moral evil? In answer to this, one of the most crucial questions we can ask of God, I want to refer to what has already been enumerated: God’s Law, the Kingdom of God and the person of Jesus Christ.

Where there is Law and personal freedom there is also responsibility and accountability. We are all responsible for our actions and if they violate the said laws of that state or country then the necessary punishments follow. Human society cannot function without laws. Whether they are God’s Law or not is at this junction irrelevant. What is necessarily true is that human society cannot exist without laws. In ancient societies punishments were harsh and brutal; in Western societies today punishments are more humane. But nevertheless laws exist for the safeguarding of society. Laws may change or be amended but Laws are never extracted from the framework of society. So the fact that God established a moral Law by which He intended human beings to live by should not be dismissed lightly as an ineffective solution to the problem of evil. Laws uphold a certain standard of right and wrong; liberty and freedom. While we act within the law we are free to live without fear of recrimination or harassment by the government. If people lived by God’s Laws then they would enjoy the liberty and freedom which that entails, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. It would also mean that people would not suffer physically or emotionally through moral evil. However, Laws in and of themselves to do not prevent crime. This is why God’s Law is facilitated through the medium of the Church. In the context of the community of the Church – the meeting together for mutual support, encouragement and spiritual growth God’s Kingdom is made a reality here on earth. As Christians apply God’s Law and the Bible’s teaching to their lives they are living within God’s Kingdom. This Kingdom has practical benefits for society as a whole as Christians take seriously Jesus’ call to care for the needy and the poor; to not show partiality or prejudice based on wealth, age or nationality. Jesus’ message from the parable of the Good Samaritan about who are our ‘neighbours’ when thinking about what it means to love our neighbour as yourself is a perfect example of the far reaching effects that the Kingdom of God has for the improvement of human relationships and the reduction of moral evil.

God’s Law is not just given to be blindly followed and obeyed; it is the starting point of a deeper relationship with God Himself that will in turn completely transform our perception of ourselves and of life. God’s Law reflects God’s character – Good and Just. As God freely gave His Son and as Jesus freely died for humanity so too the Church actively seeks to give as it has received. As Jesus said:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? “When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25: 34-40)

However, compliance to God’s Law is not enough for the Kingdom of God to bear the fruit of goodness, charity and justice within the world. Human beings are fallible and all too often Laws are broken and society is fractured as a result. This is why the grace of God is so important. Through Jesus God’s grace is manifested. It is manifested in Jesus’ actions – healing the sick, eating with tax collectors and sinners and in refusing to stone to death a known adulterer; it is manifested in Jesus’ teachings on loving your neighbour and enemy alike and on putting others before yourself. Moreover it is demonstrated ultimately in His sacrifice and death upon the Cross. Jesus died so that sinful human beings may find forgiveness and redemption from their sins. Through the Cross people can be remade and know the peace and joy of the love of God. God’s love is no longer withheld but poured out generously and graciously to all who wish to receive it. Love conquers evil. Love heals broken lives and hearts; love goes the extra mile and seeks the happiness and fulfilment of others without jealousy, resentment or pride.

So God’s Law, God’s Kingdom and God’s grace are intrinsically linked to each other. In a symbiotic way none can fully operate without the other. God’s Kingdom is facilitated through God’s Grace that has the efficacy and power to restore fallen and corrupt human beings. This in turn produces the fruit of selfless action that upholds God’s Law for the peace and prosperity of human society. Not just actions but motives are transformed as people learn, understand and ultimately embrace God’s grace. Without these interventions moral evil would damage and destroy many countless lives unabated. Evil exists and humanly speaking too many people have suffered; but through God’s revelation and Kingdom evil is curtailed and prevented from overwhelming society. We should be thankful for all that God is actively doing throughout the world in order to prevent and banish moral evil.

Yet as long as human beings are free as autonomous and independent individuals to choose to follow God or not there will be moral evil. God does not coerce people into obeying His Laws and many people reject God’s sovereignty over their lives. This rejection is influenced in many ways by the same manipulative conscience that persuaded Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. The existence of moral evil belies an even graver reality – that of the existence of the Devil. This wicked and evil being first began his treacherous and insurrectionary work in human history in the Garden of Eden and continues his ideological and spiritual war against God even today. The Bible refers to this as the Spirit of anti-Christ. To many atheist or agnostic readers the Spirit of anti-Christ may sound extremely farfetched and even superstitious, especially if you prescribe to Professor Dawkin’s Meme theory. But if objective evil exists and as humanity is corruptible, as has been proven throughout human history then, like the universe, there must be some first cause. There must be an explanation for the existence of evil outside of God, who by nature is Good and Just.

Evil is a corruption of good. Evil is a reactionary force – jealousy is a result of the inflation of the ego and of selfish pride over and against affection, delight and love for another person and joy for their achievements. Hatred and revenge are often emotions produced by a perceived damage to one’s pride, whether that be as trivial as a game of football between two rival teams or the prejudice felt towards another people group who are ‘taking advantage’ of the limited supply of resources and benefits that a country or council offer. Evil is a negative force – it is destructive not constructive; it is damaging rather than life affirming. Bitterness eats away at a person and hatred consumes them until they burn up from within as all love and positivity are scorned. Jealousy creates factions, bullying and a propensity for underhanded measure to seek any form of revenge believed to purge the overwhelming sense of inferiority and insecurity. So if evil is a corruption of good that must mean evil and good are not two equally opposed opposite forces like the Yin and the Yan symbol. Dualism is both unbiblical and not philosophically sound. Evil was not the primary force in the world or the universe. Evil came afterwards. The first recorded act of sin after the banishment from Eden was between Adam and Eve’s two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel’s sacrifice pleased the Lord and Abel was considered righteous. In jealousy, because his sacrifice was considered unworthy, Cain murdered his brother. Evil is always destructive; it has no power for good. Satan, originally an Arch Angel, turned against God in Heaven. The Bible is not explicitly clear about why, most likely out of jealousy in desiring to become like God Himself (which would explain his contempt of God’s command to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden). But this is conjecture. No matter the actual reason, at some point in his heavenly existence Satan rebelled against God. Satan was even able to convince some of his fellow angels to join in his mutinous actions. Satan had influence over other beings even in Heaven! These corruptions of the Laws of God have pervaded human society ever since the expulsion from Eden.

Society is fluid and organic; as human’s progress technologically, scientifically and creatively, as well as the migration of people across the world spreading their cultures to new places, so society evolves and changes. But throughout this evolution in human relationships there has been a spirit of anti-Christ at work – in religion, in philosophy, in art and culture and in morality and ethics. Fashion has become increasingly provocative in order to stimulate lustful intentions; the boundaries of art and film have been increasingly pushed and tested in order to desensitise society making it more tolerant of violence, harsh language and sexual promiscuity. The old adage ‘sex sells’ is the mantra of most media businesses. This spirit of anti-Christ has succeeded in marginalising the Church, the seeds of which were arguably sown in the Enlightenment of the 18th Century. As the Church has been pushed to the fringe and periphery of society with spiritual apathy ever increasing with the acceptance of Darwinism and utilitarian materialism the Laws of God are once again brought into question – are they necessary? Are they relevant? Are they dangerous to 21st century society? The Kingdom of God is scorned in favour of humanist values that promote aggressive secularism in all areas of life. As spiritual apathy grows so too does the potential for great evil.

In conclusion, one blog can never comprehensively do justice to the problem of evil. This issue is global in scale and has far reaching and profound consequences for human society and human history. The pain loved ones and family members face as someone close to them suffers, whether it be through cancer or at the hands of wicked people cannot be soothed by one essay. Nevertheless through heartfelt soul searching and meditation one can reach some preliminary insights into the problem of evil and its solution. This blog is but my first conscious attempt to get to grips with the problem of evil and to try and find some peace to be able to cope with a world that will never be perfect. I believe that while this world may never be free of evil, God is neither the cause of evil, nor is He powerless in the face of evil. In His love, grace and holiness God has been actively at work throughout human history in order to lead, guide and enlighten people to seek and live a loving, safe and peaceful existence. God knows that evil is a problem and has taken measures to eradicate it. God is not, as the character Bruce from Bruce Almighty says ‘a mean kid sitting over an anthill with a magnifying glass’. Ultimately God is a suffering God, Jesus took our sickness and sin upon himself. Jesus was mocked, ridiculed and tortured; he was deserted and abandoned by his closest followers on the night of his arrest. He even cried out on the cross “Father why have you forsaken me?!” Jesus did not just feel forsaken upon the cross – he was forsaken. God has never forsaken humanity. God gave of Himself to secure humanity’s redemption and salvation from evil. God will not let the Spirit of anti-Christ continue spreading lies and destruction forever. One day God will bring His judgement to bear on Satan and for Satan on that day there shall be no escape. No mercy. God’s justice against evil and sin is at work every day through the power of the cross. God is active in sustaining His creation seeing to it that it never succumbs to the power of evil. All other explanations are inadequate. Atheism is powerless to prevent evil and only offers small hope that humanity can one day resolve the problem of evil on its own. Eastern philosophy denies the existence of evil and instead promulgates the world view that life is both immaterial and impersonal. Neither worldview provides justice or restoration for the victims of evil. Thus Christianity to me offers the best possible worldview on the problem of evil as well as the surest way of overcoming it.

A Grand Scene for a colour Film

With the announcement that Alcon Entertainment are in the process of acquiring the rights to the Blade Runner franchise, with the view of producing both prequels and sequels to the cult ‘80s noir sci-fi classic it got me thinking about what is a very large and expansive topic: humanity. Blade Runner is one of my all time favourite films (along with the Matrix trilogy – yes all three!); the film explores the theme of humanity, compassion and even transhumanism. Whilst the film is set in the not- too- distant future of 2019 (bearing in mind the film was released in 1982) it is predominantly about humanity, a subject that is timeless and always relevant. Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is a special enforcement police officer called a ‘Blade Runner’ who works in the dystopian metropolis of Los Angeles (completely unrecognisable from modern day LA), who is brought out of retirement for ‘one last job’ to hunt down four replicants (human like cyborgs) who have returned to earth from the off-world colonies where they work. Due to their similarities yet superior capabilities to humans, replicants are not allowed on earth and so the four must be ‘killed’ before they can do any harm.

However, while the synopsis may make the film sound like it would be a high octane action sci-fi adventure the story unfolds in a far more stylish and personal way. The replicants led by a military class replicant named Roy seek to find their creator in order to barter for more life, as replicants have a very limited lifespan – as the famous line from the film goes: “the flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long”. Instantly the motives of the replicants generate sympathy rather than hate and make them very ambivalent antagonists in the story. Deckard himself, whilst being LA’s finest Blade Runner is caught between his duty and his heart as he falls in love with a woman called Rachel, who it is revealed - unbeknown to her - is another replicant. Whilst the four main replicants story may centre around the concept of mortality and what it means to be ‘alive’; Rachel’s story perhaps epitomises the struggle with and search for the essence of humanity as she has to come to terms with not being ‘real’. The concepts of love and compassion, which are universal, are explored through her relationship with Deckard as he too wrestles with his conscience.

This brings me back to the subject of this blog – humanity. What does it mean to be human? Our ethics and morality so far is programmed and defined in purely biological terms about how we treat other human beings as well as animal and plant life here on earth. But how will the technological evolution change our notion of what is morally and ethically correct and humane? If indeed cyborgs did exist with the level of realism and sophistication that films such as Blade Runner predict then will the boundaries of what defines humanity be blown wide open? The MOD is already concerned about the use of robots in war and the ethical ramifications of unmanned military robots. If those machines were ever to be given AI (artificial intelligence) then would that mean they are equal to ourselves? Is a synthetic, digital form of intelligence any less real than our own sentience? Some animal rights activists’ campaign that animals should have equal rights as humans and that killing animals is tantamount to murder. Currently our morality is governed and regulated by utilitarian liberalism – the belief that happiness is the ultimate pursuit of humankind, specifically the greatest amount of happiness for the majority of society, in which one’s pursuit of happiness does not infringe and cause hurt to another. This usually bears connotations with sexuality where our love is expressed most physically and emotionally, but also includes how we spend our money and what we do in our free time.

Consequently many in society have turned their back on religion, which has been given the reputation, particularly among vitriolic and outspoken atheists and secularists as being outmoded, irrelevant and anachronistic. Science is celebrated as being progressive and religion reactive; religion is seen as incapable of meeting modern 21st century needs and that morality and ethics can be surmised by science. Religious morality is dismissed as bigoted, narrow-minded and immoral. However, this is far from true and is mere hyperbole. Biblically speaking, our understanding of humanity needs to be first put into the perspective of our relationship to God. God is our divine Creator and as such is the very essence and nature of love, compassion and mercy. These qualities that are so important to modern society find their very existence in the person of God. Humanity, as it says in Genesis, is made in “God’s image”. This is not referring to our physical appearances, as our genes and DNA are passed down from parent to child thus creating resemblances between mother and daughter or father and son. Being made in “God’s image” is a metaphysical reality that means our consciences; our comprehension of morality and our ability to love and care for our fellow human beings is a quality that is shared with God. Rather than religion being reactionary towards progressive morality, the truth that we are made in God’s image and are therefore capable of such god-like qualities is the ultimate form of progressiveness. As human beings we should seek to cultivate that divine essence in ourselves and thus achieve the very heights of our human potential to show love and kindness.

The problem, unfortunately, with secular liberalism is that human beings are marred by sin and so detached from a relationship with God our morality and judgement are misguided and flawed. Instead we seek the satisfaction of physical impulses and tendencies that are unhealthy and damaging such as lust, greed and pride. While the attitude “live and let live” may seem the most logical way of producing harmony within society, it actually breeds a selfish kind of post-modern rationality. Our rights have overruled our responsibilities and ‘society’ actually becomes fractured as each individual pursues what is best for them first. Divorce, abortion and lawsuits are all consequences of this behaviour. Now I am not saying there are not legitimate reasons for all of the above, but the abuse and trivialisation of the aforementioned actions is a symptom that without God there can be no true harmony.

The Bible also explains that God instructed Adam and Eve to “rule over” the earth. God gave humanity dominion and authority over the rest of His creation here on earth. What does that mean for us today? We must take that responsibility seriously. The flagrant abuse and neglect of animals, the deforestation of our rainforests and the extinction of certain wildlife are totally unacceptable and avoidable. We as human beings should take the utmost care to keep our equilibrium with the world around us while at the same time working for the good and betterment of the world. In this vane we should do our best to reduce pollution, seek to use renewable energy resources and to create the safest, most environmentally friendly world for our children. As has already been mentioned we have been made in God’s image and as such another facet of that truth is that we are inventive, intelligent and creative people. The rapid progression in technology is just one example of that truth. We have the ability to make things in our image and the way in which we relate to each other and the way we view our identity has been irrevocable changed through our technological advancement. But the Bible also uses the analogy of God being the ‘potter’ to humanity’s ‘clay’. God moulded and shaped us (whether you want to believe in the Genesis account of creation or evolution). To this effect another part of our divine essence is that we should care for our own creations with the same level of grace and consideration that God has shown to us. Only once has God caused a fatal, apocalyptic event to purge humanity, and afterwards He vowed to do it never again. Since that episode in human history God has dealt graciously and patiently with humanity. Thus we should do the same to what we have invented and created, if ever we do begin to manufacture machines with AI.

To the ends that we should seek to explore and achieve our full potential as human beings having been made in God’s image - Hindus believe that Brahman (God) has revealed himself through avatars – people or other gods who bear His divine nature. However Christianity teaches that God has only revealed Himself through one man – Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was more than just an avatar; a representation of God, Jesus was God. Jesus was the personification of all humanity has the potential to be - a perfect, sinless human being. He was able to do this because he was be very nature God. Philosophers over the course of human history from Plato and Socrates to Kant and Mills have debated what it means to be both human and what ‘the good life’ means. While many of these highly educated, wise and intelligent people have much to add to our understanding of what it means to be human, none compare to Jesus. Is the example of Jesus or his teachings anachronistic to 21st Century society? Certainly not! For his teachings on loving your neighbour and your enemy reverberate throughout human history as the highest virtues. His embodiment of love found no greater act than in his own sacrificing of himself. Knowing that even despite our best intentions we would never be able to alone, become perfect he gave his life so that through his death justice for all the terrible and atrocious acts of humanity may be satisfied. The sins that we commit on a daily basis are forgiven at the Cross. The imperfections that have stained and blotted out the essence of the divine nature that God originally created us with are cleansed and there is redemption.

Just as Jesus can guide and help us in our search for the true meaning of humanity; so he can in our mortality. At the end of the film Roy saves Deckard’s life. As Deckard sits in humble bewilderment Roy expresses his anguish at the prospect of his own death and the fear he feels that his life would all be in vain: “all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain” (this line is one of my all time favourite film quotes... perhaps even my all time favourite!) before finally adding fatalistically “time to die”. Roy’s poetic lament articulates many peoples’ uncertainty of the purpose of life. Do our lives contain purpose if death is just the end? The Bible teaches that death is not the end. The experiences and memories of our lives are not lost “like tears in rain”. They are part of who we are as unique and loved human beings; they form our identities and God knows us and loves us. Psalm 56 says: “record my misery, list my tears on your scroll – are they not in your record?” God desires that we have a relationship with us so that when we die we can be reunited with Him forever. Jesus makes that possibility a reality. Through Jesus we can, the Bible promises us, have eternal life with God.

Christianity, as the path to a relationship with God, as a way to restore that which was lost through our own short comings is essential for the future of humanity. It is essential for our understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to act as a human. Institutions may be flawed; human beings may be corruptible; but in the person of Jesus humanity is given direction and hope.