See no Evil?

What is evil? Is it relative or absolute? Is it the opposite of good? Are thoughts necessarily evil? I don't believe that the concept of evil is handed down by God. Nor do I go the other way and deny what is called morality altogether. For most of my life I leaned toward relativism – the very same action may seem good in one place and evil in the other. Hence I came up with my version of Kant's categorical imperative, wherein I must be able to justify my actions to every relevant being - case ethics.

There are hybrids of course. One is the idea that morality is flexible, but only to a certain extent - some universals are the basis of morality. Another concept, and this appeals to my existentialist nature, is that morality is what our best selves agree upon with all the other best selves.

So, for years I had a neo-Kantian view of evil as not treating people as ends in themselves, but merely means to some other end. One who does evil cannot properly justify one's actions to other relevant beings.

Then I read The Grand Design,  by Patrick Francis, aka Paddy McMahon - especially his take on evil.

During his discussion of God, McMahon (okay, if we're buying, the "spiritual guide" talking to McMahon) says that God is "an infinity of spirit." He further elucidates with a sockdollager of a paragraph:

"When I say that God is love, then, what do I mean? I mean that God is the animating force in all expression which includes all life and all activities of life. I know what you're asking - surely not all activities of life - for example, wars, murders, oppression, rape, torture? Or the creation of an ugly-looking beast like a hippopotamus? Or irritating insects like fleas? Bear with me for a minute when I say that all life and all activities of life without exception are part of the positive expression of love. In other words, there is no evil. There is apparent evil and to human eyes many people act in such a way and many things are done which can only be described as bad or evil. For instance, how can I say to a mother whose daughter is raped that the man who performed the act of rape and the act of rape itself are animated by the force of love? Yet, that is the reality."

Whoa, Nellie! The narrator goes on to give an example. Two loving parents have two children. The daughter goes on to be Mother Theresa, but the boy goes on to be Charles Manson.

"On the face of it, three of the four people in that family unit were good people and lived positive lives. There is no difficulty in regarding them and their activities as animated by the force of love. The son, however, was apparently an evil man and performed evil deeds during most of his life on earth. The problem is to accept that both he and his activities were animated by the same force of love as his parents and sister."

As evil does not exist, the son's ”apparent evil” is an exercise of free will that shows a kind of unawareness or rejection of the love inside of him.

"The same force of love operating within the recipients of his acts of violence righted by his acts an imbalance which earlier acts of free will on their part had created in them. He also helped his parents and his sister by creating in them because of their love for him a tolerance and a compassion which it would not be possible for them to feel had they not come up against the conflicts which he caused in them by the intimacy of his relationship with them."

A word about McMahon. He believes in a kind of reincarnation in which we go from life after life after life on the way to spiritual perfection. So, when bad things happen to good people, it's all for the best. We should continually take our lessons into the next life.

I find that this jibes quite well with M. Scott Peck's focus on fostering spiritual growth. We all do things that could be considered evil under various definitions. But we can accept them as lessons to be learned as we progress from life to life.  We hopefully will act out of deeper understanding of spiritual principles, not law or "morality." It's not the reward of heaven for the punishment of hell. It's not some earthly nitpicking as we worry about interlopers. It's not about good and evil–it's about spiritual awareness.

Perhaps:

"Good" is awareness or the state of awareness that each integrated soul has retained or regained.

"Evil" is non-awareness or the state of non-awareness in which the soul is not integrated.

No one is completely "evil" because our souls cannot lose their divine nature. We all just need to become more aware of this.

This all, of course, sounds a bit Buddhist to me. We continue suffering as we attain enlightenment. By the way, the Baha'is don't believe evil exists either. If you have not looked into Baha'i, I think it might be worth your while.

So where do I come down on this? As befits my negative capability, the jury's still out. However, I do find comfort in the idea that all the bad things that happen to all of us, and that we ourselves make happen, are part of the lesson plan of spiritual awareness. It might even help me sleep tonight.