Evil Is Always...What? (Revised)

This is a revision and expansion that replaces my earlier posting of October 18, 2013.

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Occasionally I hear the question "What is the nature of evil?" and sometimes the question leads to worthwhile conversation. But what would we think of someone whose answer to the question began with the words "Evil is always..."? How could anyone presume to address a question of illimitable complexity by opening with a generalization?

Yet a number of my life's formative figures have done just that, and I believe that they cast clarifying light. The figures I have in mind are Reinhold Niebuhr, Jonathan Edwards, Saint Augustine, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The bluntest of these figures is the theologian and public commentator Reinhold Niebuhr. In 1944, with World War II raging, Niebuhr described evil using the charged word "always":

Evil is always the assertion of some self-interest without regard to the whole, whether the whole be conceived as the immediate community, or the total community of mankind, or the total order of the world. The good is, on the other hand, always the harmony of the whole on various levels. Devotion to a subordinate and premature "whole" such as the nation, may of course become evil, viewed from the perspective of a larger whole, such as the community of mankind. (The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, Scribner's, 1994, 9–10)

Niebuhr's basic ethical imperative is to strive for increasing harmony among ever-broadening communities of concern.

One of Niebuhr's formative predecessors was the New England theologian and minister, Jonathan Edwards. In The Nature of True Virtue (1755) Edwards describes "all sin" as selfishness without regard to larger contexts in which things are interconnected. Edwards refers to the most comprehensive context as "the great whole of existence" or "being in general":

All sin has its source from selfishness, or from self-love that is not subordinate to a regard for being in general. (Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1960, 92)

The opposite of sin is the subject of Edwards' book: "true virtue."

True virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to being in general. Or perhaps, to speak more accurately, it is that consent, propensity and union of heart to being in general, which is immediately exercised in a general good will (True Virtue, 3, Edwards' emphasis).

Edwards' basic ethical imperative is to strive for ever-broadening goodwill toward the great whole of existence.

This basic principle of Niebuhr and Edwards bears the imprint of Saint Augustine, particularly Augustine's early work Confessiones* (397–400 AD).

In Book 7 of The  Confessions Augustine chronicles his crisis of faith as he struggled with the question: Whence evil? (unde malum). He calls out to God:

I pictured your creation filled with your infinite being, and I reflected, "Look, this is God, and these are the things God has created. God is good, and though he is far more wonderful than they in every respect, still he who is good has created them good; see too how he surrounds and pervades them. Where, then, is evil; where does it come from and how did it creep in? What is its root, its seed? Or does it not exist at all? ... Either the evil we fear exists, or our fear itself is the evil. So where does it come from, if the good God made all things good?" (The Confessions, 7.5, tr. Maria Boulding, Vintage Books, 1997.)

Augustine tells us that more than a decade of spiritual struggle as an animo vagabundus, a "vagabond soul" (Confessiones, 5.6), brought him to a resolution that we may find startling:

Quaecumque sunt, bona sunt. "Whatever is, is good." (Confessiones, 7.12)

On the face of it, who could ever believe this blunt assertion? What could Augustine possibly mean by it? He knew all too well miseris certe hominis, "humanity's undoubted wretchedness"(De Civitate Dei, XIX, 6).**

I think that Augustine's maxim is better translated as "Whatever has being is good." The usual translation, "whatever is...," might suggest that all circumstances, all situations, all actions are good. But that is not what Augustine discusses here. His interest is human being.

Augustine believes that our being, our sheer existing, is good. Indeed our sheer existing is wondrous. Yet our being is always limited. From infancy we are habitually self-centered. As a means of survival, our infant self-centeredness is good. But it is crucial that "we eradicate these habits and throw them off as we grow up." (The Confessions, 1.7, tr. Boulding)

This implies that every person at every stage of life has potential for greater goodness, that is, potential for enlarging self-concern to include concern about others, about more good for all. Our moral challenge is to actualize this potential.

Augustine asserts that evil is not substantia, not substance:

[If evil doers] should be deprived (prevantur) of all good, they would simply not exist.... Insofar as they have being, they are good. Whatever has being, then, is good. And so evil, the source of which I was seeking, cannot be a substance (substantia), because if it were, it would be good. (Confessiones, 7.12)

Augustine describes evil not as substance but as lack: absence (absentia) of good; privation (privatio) of good; diminution (minuere) of good. (Confessiones 12,3; 3,7; 7,12; et passim). Evil, then, is not substance to be vanquished but vacuum to be filled. Amelioration comes not by destroying something named "evil" but by flooding deficiencies of good with more abundant goodness—as darkness is dispelled, not by obliterating something named "the dark," but by flooding darkened realms with light.

Both Augustine and Edwards affirmed that God is not a being among other beings. God is Being Itself—id quo est, "that which is" (Confessiones, 7.17); "the foundation and fountain of all being" (True Virtue, 15). In this understanding, there is something of God in every person's being, and therefore at least a seed of potential for increased goodness.

But what if the seed fails to germinate? Edwards addresses this crucial question directly:

Particularly, if there be any beings statedly and irreclaimably opposite, and an enemy to being in general, then consent and adherence to being in general will induce the truly virtuous heart to forsake that enemy, and to oppose it. (True Virtue, 8–9)

Augustine grappled with the question of how we are to oppose evil. On the governmental level, he introduced the term "just war" (iusta bella) into Western tradition, meaning morally-calibrated war of last resort to confront adamant evil. He cautions that a person waging war is just only "if he remembers that he is a human being and laments (dolebit) the fact that he is faced with the necessity of waging war." (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 7)  He stresses that our moral obligation is to oppose evil in ways that will maximize the possibility of greater good in the end.

On the individual level, Augustine addresses the issue of punishment for offenders:

Punishment that is just and legitimate (iusto atque licito)...is for the benefit of the offender, intended to readjust him to the domestic peace from which he has broken away...so that either the man who is punished may be corrected by his experience, or others may be deterred by his example. (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 16)

To me, Augustine's reasoning suggests an abundance of means for opposing evil in our day—means such as international cease-fire declarations; balanced truth-and-reconciliation commissions; honest human rights councils; prompt prosecution of criminals in non-retributive trials; practicable rehabilitation programs in prisons; moderated town meetings amidst social upheaval; accommodating relationships with people whose views offend us; forgiving responses to personal injury—ever keeping in mind that all too often our own views lose sight of Augustine's arduous goal of "keeping totality in view" (Confessions, 7.13, tr. Boulding).

"International," "balanced," "honest," "prompt," "non-retributive," "practicable," "moderated," "accommodating," "forgiving"—certainly such qualifiers are idealistic. And certainly Augustine knew well that basic principles are not the end of ethical navigation but its beginning, its moral compass and rudder. Persons who embrace moral principles face unavoidable dilemmas about how to make realistic decisions and act upon them in the face of unforeseeable outcomes.

No one was more fully aware than Niebuhr of the difficulties, ironies, and tragedies involved in making principled decisions and acting upon them. More than most public figures, he was willing to change his mind about ethical issues and to admit former errors of judgment.

In the 1940s, for example, Niebuhr favored U.S. involvement in World War II. When his nation's development of the atomic bomb became public knowledge, he approved that decision. When the U.S. dropped atomic bombs to convince Japan of certain defeat, Niebuhr again approved, though he lamented the targeting of two cities filled with civilians instead of some unpopulated demonstration area. With the coming of the Cold War he supported the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) as a means of preventing war that might otherwise cross the nuclear threshold.

By the time of his death in 1971, however, Niebuhr was voicing doubts about some of his earlier attitudes:

The development of the hydrogen bomb, of guided missiles and of tactical atomic weapons has made many of our conclusions otiose.***

Niebuhr came to believe that nuclear war would be "ultimate and suicidal holocaust." In his language quoted at the beginning of this posting, he came to believe that nuclear war threatens "the immediate community..., the total community of mankind..., and the total order of the world." Niebuhr actively supported proposals for an international No First Use treaty. (Today only China and India have declared no first use policies, and only the United States has used nuclear weapons in warfare.)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was likewise all too aware of the difficulties, ironies, and tragedies involved in making principled decisions and acting upon them. This is in part because he was an admirer of Niebuhr. Recalling his years as a graduate student, King writes:

I became so enamored of his social ethics that I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything he wrote. (Stride Toward Freedom, Perennial, 1964, 79)

King avoided that trap. Niebuhr believed that evil sometimes necessitates violent resistance; King confronted evil non-violently. Niebuhr disapproved pacifism; King was a pacifist.

In the end Niebuhr and King agreed about the ethical imperative of avoiding nuclear war—in Edwards' language, "an enemy to being in general." Niebuhr's dread of "ultimate and suicidal holocaust" echoes in King's language:

In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war.... If modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine. (Nobel Prize Lecture, December 11, 1964)

King put his trust in the moral principle of allaying evil with good, keeping in view the world's totality:

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. (Nobel Prize Lecture)

King's sermons**** offer hopeful images of dispelling evil's darkness, not by violence, but by the light of goodness:

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

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*Confessiones, Latin text, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1968. My translations except as otherwise noted.

**De Civitate Dei, Latin text, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1957–72. My translations.

***Niebuhr quotations from Campbell Craig, "The New Meaning of Modern War in the Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr," Journal of the History of Ideas 53.4, 694–96.

****Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Harper, 1967, 62–3; Strength to Love, Harper, 1963, 37.