Good and Evil?

One of the issues that put me on the path to Taoism was that of Good and Evil. The more I thought about it, the less sense the Christian notion of an Absolutely Good Deity made. The world around us is neither good nor evil. It just is. The lion kills the gazelle and eats it: good for the lion, bad for that particular gazelle. A seed falls on fertile earth and sprouts, eventually producing more seeds. Another seed falls on rock and is smashed before it can sprout. Bad for the seed, but the event in and of itself is neutral. Sure, we can add interpretations. Was it a weed? Then it was a good thing it was smashed. Was it an endangered species? Oh, now it's bad that it didn't sprout. Even then, I don't see how you can see evil in this event. It was just an event.

In fact, people rarely describe natural events as "Evil." Even a catastrophic storm like Katrina is described as "devastating" or "horriffic," not evil. It seems likely that this is because people recognize that the storm has no volition of its own. There is no "intent" behind it (unless you believe the conspiracists). Animals have intent ascribed to them, yet we still don't describe their actions as evil. They aren't seen as having any choice in their actions. So it seems that "ability to choose otherwise" is a prerequisite for an act to be evil. So...if there's no free will, there's no evil? Interesting idea, but not my focus.

I'm interested in what the nature of Nature can tell us about the nature of Deity. Nature is neutral. It is not inherently good. Yet Christians tell us it was created by an Absolutely Good God. The usual explanation for Evil is "The Fall." Humans were given free will and disobeyed God, and suddenly the world was no longer Good. Okay, several problems with that. God created humans, who sinned, which is an evil act. Therefore, God created beings capable of evil, and evil did not exist in the world before that point. Ah, so God created evil. This contradicts that God is Absolutely Good. No, wait, the Christians say. God gave humans free will and the ability to choose between good and evil. Oh, so evil existed before the humans sinned? Where did it come from? Didn't God create everything, so, again, God must have created Evil? Then there's usually an attempt to define evil as "moving away from God." But then God must have made it possible for people to move away from God (isn't that what giving them free will means?), so, once again, God is responsible for evil.

To me, the primary problem is the belief in Absolutes, but I'll continue to consider those Absolutes. If we insist that God be Good, then someone else must have created Evil, presumably Satan. Okay, God created the world, it was Good, then Satan came along and introduced Evil. Hmmm... We still have a problem. Either (1) God allowed Satan to do this, or (2) God was unable to stop Satan. (1) contradicts the notion of an Absolutely Good Deity. (2) contradicts that God is the supreme being. So we wind up with the old Gnostic Heresy with two equally powerful Deities, one good and one evil (though the Gnostics would actually reverse the roles here). At the very least, this system is more consistent with the observed world.

Now, supposing that these two Absolutes exist, why is there no absolute good or absolute evil in nature? Natural events are only good or bad relative to one another, not to some absolute scale. Only in human society do we try to impose an Absolute Scale of Good vs. Evil. Yet this makes no sense whatsoever, since a single event can be Good in some ways and Bad/Evil in others. A while back, I posted the classic Chinese story illustrating how one event had both Good and Bad repercussions. But there’s a larger problem. One event cannot be separated from another in any absolute sense. Yes, we can isolate one portion and look at it by itself, but something came before that, and before what came before, etc. For instance, I get to campus just as someone pulls out of a good parking space (good for me); the car right behind me does not get that parking space and winds up circling around for twenty minutes and is late for an important meeting (bad for that driver); someone who was on time for that meeting gets an important assignment instead of the person who was late, and this eventually leads to a promotion (good for that person) and so on and so forth… Every event influences every other event. Sometimes that influence is good, sometimes it’s bad. More often it’s too miniscule to be detected (butterfly effect?). To single out any piece of that chain as “Good” or “Evil” is ridiculous. You’d have an Absolutely Good event causing an Absolutely Evil one, or vice versa.

So to characterize events as Good or Evil makes no sense whatsoever. What about the people causing those events? I do agree that human intent can be Good or Evil, but that does not necessarily mean that the results will be. However, Evil intent is more likely to produce Evil and Good intent is more likely to produce Good. That is the extent to which Good and Evil exist: in the minds of humans. No where else. And they have no meaning except relative to one another. A single action can be for Good or Evil depending on the circumstances. I forget which Heinlein book it was, but there was a discussion that went something like:

“Is stealing wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Would you steal to feed a baby?”
“Of course!”

[slight tangent]The problem, of course, is that complete moral relativism is equally vacuous. I do think that we should try to understand events within their cultural context, and then decide if the actions that bother us are serving a useful purpose. And if those actions cause harm to others, decide if there is a better way to accomplish that purpose. If the actions do not serve a useful purpose and cause harm to others, then I see no problem with judging those actions as wrong. You could also take my argument about prior causes and webs of events to argue that no people are responsible for their own actions: everything is determined by the past. That is even more vacuous, because it exculpates me from responsibility for judging those acts wrong as well. Yes, everyone’s actions are influenced by their genes, by their parents, by the people around them, by their experiences. Hero or villain, beggar or millionaire, this applies equally to everyone, even to those who sit in judgment over wrongdoers. Predetermined or not (and I lean towards not), there is nothing to be gained by not holding people responsible for their own actions.[/tangent]

So what is my view of Good and Evil? They are labels, nothing more. One cannot be understood without the other. Go too far in either direction, and you inevitably start heading towards the other. We try to treat them as two irreconcilable ideas, but they depend on one another for their very existence. If God is Good, then He can only be Good in comparison to something that is Not Good (i.e. Evil). So the statement “God saw that it was Good” is meaningless unless Evil is presumed to exist. In Taoism, it is recognized that events cycle between good and bad. The universe itself, though, is neither. It just is. As humans, happiness is easier to find when we stop being attached to whether an event is good or bad, and instead just accept that it is an event.

Example: If my mom knocks a glass onto the floor and it breaks, she swears and grumbles and groans the whole time she’s cleaning it up. If I drop a glass onto the floor and it breaks, I usually blink and say, “So much for that glass,” and enjoy the way the light reflects off of the shattered pieces as I sweep them up. And then I think “Good. Now there’s more room in the cupboard.”