Live” spelled backwards is “Evil”.
Live long enough and we’re bound to see evil at work, around us, and in us. But the true nature of evil generates debate, even in scientific circles. And our perspective has big implications.
In general terms, evil is usually defined as anything profoundly immoral or wicked. Not surprisingly, the notion that some people are irredeemably “pure evil” really took root with Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust but, even then, not everyone was convinced.
As writer Piercarlo Valdesolo has pointed out in Scientific American, many researchers still don’t believe anyone is born with an evil essence beyond control. Instead, they trace evil actions to complex social and psychological factors that help explain the terrible things people do.
Regardless, several studies make one thing clear; among those who believe some people are born “unchangeably” evil, there’s a strong rejection of rehabilitation combined with the idea we can get rid of evil in this world if we simply get rid of evil people.
So they favor the death penalty and much harsher punishment for criminals. They’re also more prone to support preemptive military strikes to solve conflicts and find torture acceptable. Since they believe some people are beyond redemption, they see any attempt to help them as a waste of time and money.
But research clearly demonstrates that, at least in some cases, otherwise decent people commit violence and other forms of evil under certain circumstances. To consider them beyond hope and help is not scientifically sound. It’s not spiritually right, either.
In a faith context, the Bible puts the issue in a whole new dark. It says Satan is real and “pure evil,” not because he can’t change, but because he won’t. Surveys say 37 percent of Canadians believe in the devil, compared to 57 percent of Americans, but that doesn’t give any of us a free pass when it comes to accountability for the wrong we do. We can’t flippantly say, “The devil made me do it.” Though Satan may distort and manipulate, we still make our own choices and, too often, we choose badly.
Though the New Testament makes it clear our human nature is always at war with our spiritual side, the essential story of scripture is redemption; how anyone can be saved and changed by genuinely seeking forgiveness in Christ and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit for personal, lasting transformation, including David the adulterer and murderer, and Paul the zealot who persecuted countless innocents.
Even so, all of us violate the will of God, even when we try to walk with Him. So be grateful He doesn’t rid the earth of evil by getting rid of evil people, because we’re all evil. And unlike us, God doesn’t issue exemptions for sin based on how bad it is. In His eyes, it’s a human condition we all need His help with. So instead of letting us look down our noses at others we consider worse than ourselves, Jesus points us to the woman caught in adultery.
Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone,” he tells the self-righteous. When He declines to condemn the woman and tells her to “sin no more”, He clearly believes change is possible (John 8:7, 11), even though He recognizes elsewhere we might have to forgive someone, not the seven times that seemed way more than reasonable to his disciples, but “seventy times seven” if necessary (Matthew 18:21, 22). If only we were so quick to urge people on, not write them off.
The truth is, each of us is capable of good and evil, at the same time. So there are no strong Christians and weak ones, just Christians with strengths and weaknesses. The strengths don’t excuse our weaknesses, but our weaknesses don’t cancel out our strengths, either. And to make that mix if encouragement and accountability work for all of us, God made the church. Right from the beginning, it was intended to be, as somebody put it, “a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints.”
Help, hope and healing are for everyone. No exceptions. Not all will accept them, but the choice should be theirs, not ours. The cynical view that people stay the same is not a Biblical one. Sure, there are those who don’t respond to God’s grace and power, but there are many who embrace evil but then change. For good.
So, Lord, deliver us from… us. For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.