Journeys to Evilless World

Do you love the kind of students who come to you out of the class and get into philosophical discussions? I do!  Whenever we get into such talks, as in all philosophical endeavors, sooner or later, the talk evolves into hypothetical situations, and you end up using words like “what if…”, “but, don’t you think it should be like…”. And unless you take the necessary precautions, many times you conclude with grandiose generalizations that either blame or stigmatize “people”. Nevertheless, sometimes topics that are very relevant to life and its meaning come up, and you find yourself speechless in the face of brute reality; waiting for an enlightenment!

The existence of evil in this world has intrigued many minds, and perhaps all minds, that ever took a step on the face of this planet. It is indeed a very fundamental question that relates to the meaning of what we are going through in our daily lives. The burden of evil sometimes pushes people to suggest extra gods as the source of evil, and still others deny the existence of god at all on the grounds that god would not let such things happen!

I went into discussion on this topic many times with many of my students; and sometimes, with the same students at different occasions. Not that I knew all the answers to all possible questions, but the students preferred me, mainly because I allowed them to voice their conflicts in mind. Each time, I find myself zoomed into a different story, like “Alice in Wonderland”. And my memories from that evilless land are what I want to share with you.

So, once I was approached by a student from physics major. His claim was that if God existed, He should have interfered with the occurrence of evil, and that’s how people would recognize God as having power over everything. Apparently, in his thinking, good or bad, things happened on their own, and if God wanted us to believe in Him, this student was suggesting that God should make Himself visible through His actions, such as inhibiting evil.

I stared at the student, and then out of the window. Out of nowhere, my all-time-favorite scenario popped up in my mind: an airplane hijacker getting a heart attack and dying. So, I suggested this to my student, and asked: “would you consider this as an intervention from God?” At first, he said yes. Then I went on asking what he would think if the same thing happened every time somebody wanted to hijack an airplane. He paused for a second, and then started sputtering alternative reasons for such an occurrence: “perhaps it is an interaction between the high adrenalin and the lack of oxygen in the plane leading to a shock… maybe it is because people who are genetically vulnerable to heart attacks are also vulnerable to brainwashing… maybe the airplanes are equipped with a specialized system for inducing heart attacks by focusing magnetic field on a target…”

I replied, “so, God should interfere with such a case only once so that we know that it was Him”! He nodded. I promptly took again: “Well, maybe He did it already, and you just don’t know?” My last sentence threw him into confusion:

“I don’t know, maybe He should do it all the time.”

“Then in what mechanism do you think He should do it so that it will be clear that it is Him doing it, and not some other physical entity?”

Then he started talking about the concept of “God of gaps”. So, he was expecting to see a gap that was to be filled by not anything else but only God. That was what I was expecting as a cue:

“But anything that repeats itself under the same conditions is defined as a natural law. That’s how all the body of science has come to be. Maybe God is already doing what He considers appropriate, and we are not seeing, simply because we pull the veil of nature before our eyes!”

My student started smiling, and turned his head towards the door. “I understand! You want to go” I suggested. “Professor”, he said, and gave in to an even more irresistible smile. I was smiling, too.

Then, on another occasion, a student from counseling and guidance came to me with a similar question: why is God not preventing evil? Of course, evil things are countless, and it is possible that there are different answers for different categories of evil. So, I thought about going in the direction of this student’s field.

“Why do you think a lot of accidents happen to babies?”

“Because they don’t know the consequences of their actions!”

“So, they are learning by experiencing. What if God prevented every single act that would end up in substantial damage to health or wealth?”

The student looked at me with empty eyes. So, I continued:

“Take a person who is thrown down from the top of a tall building. If similar occurrences are prevented, we would not have a caution in our minds about those actions. So, when you say – do not walk off a building, you can die! – it doesn’t make sense, because nobody has observed such an occurrence.  But, when we try to drop a pebble from a height, it would fall, and we wouldn’t make sense of it! Why can I not jump off a building but a pebble can fall? How would you know that I would die if I jumped off a building? And as a result of these questionings, we would have a resentment towards God, since He would be preventing us from executing our free will! What do you think of a situation where you have a talent, but you are forbidden to use it?”

The student followed up after a second of thought: “A prison! Where you have free will, but you are not allowed to use it.”

Hearing this comment made me think further into this matter, although I did not share those thought with my student. For example, in such a world, humans would develop cold feelings towards God, since He would be a block in front of them. They would try to come up with ways to commit the things they cannot! And of course, since they would not know the result of those actions, they would not know why God is preventing them. Even if they were told the results in the revealed holy books, believing in them would be even more difficult than believing in life after death for us. Then, concepts such as “relying on God, asking for help from God” would become meaningless, since we wouldn’t be experiencing the events leading us to such feelings. On the contrary, giving the free will and not allowing humans to use it would make the Creator a tormentor, which is contrary to the way He describes us himself.

And another time, I had a student from law. The starting point of discussion was whether the intention to do evil should be punished. But, as we went on discussing, we found ourselves in the same good-old topic: if God prevented all evil from happening, then would there be punishment for the intention to do evil? From the experience, we wouldn’t be happy about being retributed for something we haven’t done. But if we are judged according to our intentions, that’s exactly what would happen!  Another aspect of this issue was that sometimes, the same action in the appearance could lead to evil or good based on the intention of the actor. But as humans, since we cannot know what one has in their hearts, we would not know why some “good” actions are prevented and some other are not! What’s more, we would be utterly upset if we were to get punished due to this “good” action of ours.

Although I was inspired with the answers to the questions from my students, I developed my own questions. For example, there were things that were considered inappropriate or evil long time ago, but not anymore! There were things that are considered evil in one country and good in others. So, what is God supposed to do in this situation? How am I going to explain that fact that I cannot somethings in one country and not in my home country? This would make God look like a discriminating between people. On the other hand, some situations were good not at the outset but by result. In that case, God would look like interfering with the freedoms of people.

Finally, I want to share my memory with a student from Psychology. But, I should warn you, if you don’t like philosophy, skip to the last paragraph. Anyways, she was a senior student who had completed her summer training at a correctional facility. Her question was “why evil”. After a second, my answer was “why not”. She was startled, of course, to hear this.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean how do you know that evil is evil? Our perception of evil is based on values that we have learned. Something may be evil in one culture but may not be in another one, or the same could be valid for different times in history. If you get used to something that it causing pain, you don’t feel it as painful anymore. Or, your loss of something is the gain of something else. And, we tend to concentrate on the losses instead of what we have, which is a lot compared countless others who have much less than us. In fact, in many philosophies of the world, anything that gives pain or causes loss of wealth, etc., is not necessarily considered evil. For example, when you are investing money, it is not evil, although you are losing money in the short run. So, not knowing the end of chain of events may hinder us from perceiving the good in everything.”

“But losses and damages are not just about temporary discomforts. There are murders, violent acts, etc.”

“Same thing. We cannot see into the future. Especially into the life after death. If you could see the end, you would not complain about the evils coming onto you. But perhaps, the evil-doer would complain about themselves for committing it, since they would realize where it leads.”

“So, if I don’t believe in a life after death, I can readily claim that there is evil, but the belief in the judgment day and the afterlife eliminates that. But it doesn’t remove the pain!”

“No it doesn’t. But it gives you power to survive. And that power becomes a sustainable power for your soul unlike the limited resources of the material world.”

“How so?”

“Because you plug your heart to an unseen source of power, and that helps you realize that what take as a matter of belief is real, and that becomes a further motivation for connecting to that power.”

“I see…”

After the student left my room, I sat back, and thought. Although I made sense of the existence of evil, I still didn’t want it to happen to me or anybody else for that matter. Perhaps, this attachment is what makes evil evil, and those who tame their attachment to their well-being are those whose spirits can penetrate into the good inherent in everything. But if we didn’t have the attachment, would we see the discoveries and innovations that make life easier?... On the other hand, if the discomfort and fear of loss did not exist, again we would not see them. Perhaps, there is good in evil!