This question has often been asked, but the answer is simple and clear. The answer is that the ruling ideology of the world is Evil - and evil has no positive definition.
The name of Evil does not derive from what it wants but from what it opposes; and that is Good, which is God and divine creation.
Evil is not something you Are, but a cause you serve. It is not a specific group, but one side in a Spiritual war; a war where each individual can and must choose which side he supports. (No abstention is possible.)
The problem with giving a name to Evil thus understood is that it constitutes the entirety of world and national governments (all parties), the mass media, and the (cross-linked) bureaucracies of all major social institutions (including 'Christian' churches).
For most people, Evil thus understood also includes almost every person they know.
So the problem of naming Evil is the problem of acknowledging its overwhelming prevalence and power.
14 comments:
Great share. Thank you. I am curious, especially on the heels of your previous post, in which you (or Arkle) clarify courage+courage vs force, how you regard or define "power"?
"The name of Evil does not derive from what it wants but from what it opposes; and that is Good, which is God and divine creation.
Evil is not something you Are, but a cause you serve. It is not a specific group, but one side in a Spiritual war; a war where each individual can and must choose which side he supports. (No abstention is possible.)"
That's a perfect summing up. It explains why so many people do not understand that they are on the side of evil. "How can I be on the side of evil? I am a good person who wants everyone to be happy." But you do not fully accept God and divine creation so you are against the true Good. Therefore you are indeed on the side of evil.
That is one of the truly frightening matters I struggle with; having to acknowledge that evil is so prevalent and that most of the people I know are serving its ends.
It also puts huge responsibility on ourselves to walk the narrow path that Jesus Christ wanted us to follow.
Didn't the ancient Christians think 'evil' and the 'world' (ie temporal world) were synonymous?
Just yesterday I read that the people recently known as "Woke" no longer use the word. This is not surprising since the word has become a term of ridicule. I remember when "political correctness" was used by the politically correct to describe the ideology of political correctness. In my own academic field the Marxist geographers first disguised themselves as radical geographers and are now disguised as critical geographers. The signifier changes, but not the signified. You are correct that nefarious movement typically change their name incessantly, just like crooks and criminals.
The Beast with No Face. A million mouths, but only one voice. Have you ever read any HP Lovecraft, Dr. Charlton?
“ Evil is not something you Are, but a cause you serve.”
Brilliant!
@JG By power I mean the usual mainstream assumption that wealthy, large, high status or otherwise influential entities are powerful.
@Jas Some Christians have thought this world (or the material world) was evil, but I am not one of them. Creation is essentially Goog, and evil is the opposition to it. Also, I believe this world is well made for its purpose, which is to teach us. The promise of Jesus wad for resurrection to eternal life in heaven... But after death, not in this world.
@Epi. I have read a bit of Lovecraft and recognize that he was a special writer, but he's not really my kind of thing. However I have read several of Colin Wilson's Lovecraftian novels with enjoyment.
The name for them came to me when I found myself stuck in the middle of an anti-war protest following 9/11. The Voice spoke to me. It said, "You are witnessing The Alignment of Sides. These are the Un-makers." And that is who they are, and what they do, Un-make all that is Good True, or Beautiful.
JWM
@William. Plus that evil can not be understood when God and creation are rejected by assumption - the conversation can't even begin!
JMS It's due to there being no end of ways to assist the cause of evil - the ever proliferating isms, trends and fashions
Thom Actually,it isn't necessarily difficult, once we have decided we really want resurrection and eternal life. The two sides are clear and distinct nowadays. The hardest is often to learn the specific lessons God is trying to teach us.
Jas wrote, “Didn't the ancient Christians think 'evil' and the 'world' (ie temporal world) were synonymous?”
I cannot speak for our host, but as one of those “ancient Christians”—Eastern Orthodox, the church from which the Roman branch split away in 1054–I can say that it’s not that created matter is “bad” and the soul or the spiritual is “good,” or that good and evil are in constant battle (indeed, these are ancient heresies), given that God created all things and pronounced them good.
Instead, it’s more the case that the fall of man separated us from God to a great extent, and God permitted Satan and the fallen angels full reign over the earth, the “prowling lion seeking whom he may devour,” as scripture says.
Thus, Christians are meant to be in the world but not of the world, trusting in all things in God only and not beholden in any way to worldly things. When we “put off the old man” and “put on Christ” in holy baptism and chrismation, we proclaim death to the world as we await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
My understanding is that Christians can neither reject the world nor embrace it. This mortal life is a temporary phase, yet it is necessary for resurrection; and also the fact that God wills that some people live for many decades means that there must be something important for us to do while here.
It's interesting that of all modern authors, HP Lovecraft was the only one to posit an infinitely full metaphysics, albeit indifferent or malevolent in nature.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
It would be interesting to see a "Happy" Lovecraft, someone who suggested warm seas rather than black seas of infinity; vast healing angels rather than vast insane elder gods. Perhaps he died too young.
Vox Day assigned the term "Promethean" to the ideology/corruption system that currently runs the world. The other word he uses is Satanic. In context, it's clear that the two are meant to be synonyms, but with Satanic having a purely religious context, Promethean does not.
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