Evil
Definition
Applications
there’s an old theological question: "why would God allow evil to exist in the world?" I think it’s like that. Something like, "well, you can, but you shouldn’t. But if you couldn’t, then there would be no free will. You’d have no agency. You’d have no choice. So the possibility of evil has to exist. That doesn’t mean you have to actualize it." One of the things I thought through—and I wrote a lot about this in 12 Rules, maybe even more in Maps of Meaning, my first book: "what amount of the evil of Being can be laid at the feet of God?" My conclusion to that was, "maybe none of it." Earthquakes, cancer, disease—all of that is built into the structure of reality, and there’s no doubt that that’s terrible. But malevolence? To me, that looks like something that people choose, and that we could not choose. We could actually choose not to do that.[1]
Interpretations
The evil doesn’t lie elsewhere, it lies in you, because you are not all you could be.
See Also
References
