Evil may be generally defined as that which is opposed to the divine order of the universe. It requires only a superficial observation to perceive that there are many apparent exceptions to the pervading harmony and happiness of creation: there are convulsions in the physical world; there are suffering, decay, and death throughout the whole range of organic existence; and the appellation of Evil is commonly applied to such phenomena. In the face of the human consciousness, such phenomena appear to be infractions of the general order and good, and it pronounces them evil. Every form of religion testifies to the recognition of evil in the external world, and superstition in all its shapes mainly rests upon it.
But it is in the sphere of moral life alone that the conception of evil is most deep-seated—evil in human life and manners and history. There is in the moral consciousness of man a sense of violated order, of transgression of divine law, or what is called sin, which is evil in its essential form. This fact of evil is everywhere appealed to by the Christian religion; it is the aim of this religion to deliver men from its power and misery. Every ethical and judicial code is based upon its recognition, and is designed to protect human society from its injurious consequences.
The question of the origin of evil has been greatly discussed, and has received various answers. The simplest and most direct of these answers is that which maintains a double origin of things, or a system of dualism. This conception lies at the basis of many forms of religion; it may be said to be the fundamental conception of all mere nature-religions. Interpreting the obvious appearances of nature, these embody in divine personalities its contending manifestations of light and darkness, benignity and terror. The opposition of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the old Zoroastrian faith is one of the most conspicuous examples of this religious dualism. Manicheism, which spread so widely in the 4th and 5th centuries, and the Syrian gnosticism from which it sprang, though accounted amongst Christian heresies, are also historical illustrations of the same principle.
The dualistic theory of the origin of evil, however, could not maintain itself with the advance of speculation and the truer appreciation of Christian truth. It was at once a postulate of the cultivated reason and a dictate of divine revelation that the world proceeded from One absolutely
Divine Creator, holy and good, of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things. It was necessary, therefore, to reconcile the appearance of evil with this fundamental admission.
The doctrine of the Fall, especially in the later form of development which connects it with the existence of a devil or evil spirit, tempting man in the shape of the serpent, was supposed to explain the appearance of evil in human history. Being tempted of the devil, man sinned, and so fell from his obedience to the divine law. This is the doctrine of orthodox Christian theology, and the answer which it gives to the inquiry, how sin came into the world. And many minds never think of carrying the inquiry further. It is clear, however, that this explanation of the historical origin of evil leaves the question of its real and absolute origin unsettled. The devil being assumed as the cause of man's sin, the further question arises, whence the devil? Is he an absolute personality? in which case we are landed in the old theory of dualism; or is he, according to the traditional Christian conception, a fallen angel? in which case the question just returns, whence the spring of evil in him? (See DEVIL.) There is no real explanation gained by this removal of the question; it is still the same difficulty—whence the origin of evil in the creation of an all-perfect Being, almighty as well as all-wise and good?
Speculation may please itself with ingenious answers to this question, but in truth it admits of no satisfactory solution. Some, for example, have argued that evil, like darkness or cold, is an indispensable element of alternation or contrast in human life. All individual reality is only the product of opposite forces working together. Character could only arise from the interaction of opposing ethical influences of good and evil. In nature we have attraction and repulsion, rest and motion, positive and negative electricity; why should it be different in the sphere of morals? Here, too, there must be polarity. Good can only exist in contradiction to evil; the one no less than the other is necessary to constitute the drama of human life and history. Others, again, have argued that evil is the result of what is called metaphysical imperfection. God alone can be perfectly good. The creature in its very nature is limited, defective; and evil is nothing else than the evidence of this limitation in man. It is not something real or positive, but only a privation. It is in morals what cold and darkness are in physics, a pure negation. Thus have argued such profound thinkers as Augustine and Leibnitz. But it requires but little penetration to see that such arguments, however ingenious and so far well founded, do not meet the essential difficulty of the problem. If evil be, according to such views, a necessary element of human life, in the one case in order to develop its activity, in the other case as clinging to its creaturely limitations, then plainly it is not, in the orthodox sense of the word, evil. It is not and cannot be a contradiction of the true idea of human life, and at the same time a necessary element of it. Whatever necessarily belongs to life must help its true development, and not injure and destroy it; must be good in short, and not evil. Such theories, therefore, only solve the problem by eliminating the fact. The origin of evil must remain for ever inscrutable; nor is it wonderful that it should. It is only in its ultimate sense conceivable as a quality of moral freedom, and moral freedom in man or any created being is a profound mystery. It is something which 'we apprehend, but which we can neither comprehend nor communicate.'
The problem of the origin and existence of evil is dealt with by the most notable philosophers, as by Kant and
Hegel, but assumes special prominence in the pessimistic philosophers, Schopenhauer and Hartmann. According to Schopenhauer, not merely does pain greatly outbalance pleasure, but existence as such is necessarily evil (see PESSIMISM). John Stuart Mill, in his posthumous essays (1874), held that, in the presence of so much and so great evil, physical and moral, in the universe, it was impossible for him to believe in a deity at once omnipotent and all-benevolent. He felt therefore driven to regard God as a Demiurgos limited in power by the materials on which he had to work. See also SIN, WILL, and Julius Müller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin (trans. from the 5th German edition, 1868).