É
Even before World War II was over, the important English author
C.S. Lewis had published in 1944 his novel "Perelandra", in his
desire to re-narrate the story of the Garden of Eden.
Perelandra is another planet of our solar system - the one that
earthlings call Venus - inhabited however by logical beings which,
along with their planet, miraculously live in Paradise - exactly the
way that the latter was described by an Augustine or a Basil the
Great: in complete harmony, peace and incorruptibility
everywhere, an absolute absence of pain, sickness, tribulations and
agonies, and an unrestrained and undisturbed bliss. God (who
was called Maledi on that planet) will send an earthling sage (who
according to the story is actually a university professor) by the
name of Ransom (a word that also implies redemption), in order to
inform the innocent denizens of the planet about the danger of Evil
- represented in the book by a wily earthling named Weston, who
confronts the denizens of the planet fully armed and seeking to
corrupt them and then subjugate them. (It is not perchance that his
name is a derivative of the term "West").
As soon as Ransom finds
himself on Perelandra, he is dumbfounded: he immediately
realizes that his senses function in an entirely different manner -
far more profound and clear - with his mind unexpectedly at
peace and his body much lighter. He had never felt his sense
of taste, hearing and vision so vivid, while he is also overwhelmed
by a complete fearlessness: wild animals are playful friends...
Amazed and overwhelmed as he is, he meets Eve of Perelandra - the
Lady, as she is referred to in the book - and is not in the least
shocked by her total nudity. "I come in peace", he greets her,
stammering. "And what is peace?" she replies. Having
never confronted evil, she is afraid of no-one and nothing.
Like very young children, her entire life is that "peace" - she
knows nothing else...
I will put aside the outcome of
the battle between good and evil, which comprises the continuation
of the novel
(but of course not before reassuring you so that you won't worry,
that the outcome was a positive one), in order to comment on this
brief dialogue a little more, and then embark on our topic.
So, despite the undeniable bliss of the denizens of Perelandra,
Ransom - the earthling saviour - appears to know far more than them,
with all his tribulations and alienation. The blissful
inhabitants of the inter-planetary Paradise are truly defenceless,
opposite the other side of the Being - Benevolence; I mean, opposite
Nil - Evil, which - albeit a non-"being" - is absolutely real, acts
subcutaneously and effectively, threatening to destroy everything -
truly! After all, that was the reason God sent the
Redeemer-Prophet (Ransom) to them (and does not select one of them
for this reason): it is the knowledge of Nil - or of Evil, if you
wish - that renders the earthling sage capable of preserving the
Being-Benevolence. But does this mean that Evil is
existentially and ontologically inevitable? That is it a
prerequisite of the Benevolence, necessarily? That it belongs (we
could boldly ask) to the being of Benevolence (and therefore of
God)? In the end, does Evil belong to the Being of beings, and
if not, then where does it belong?
We shall
attempt to give a first reply to these questions, by traversing
philosophical and theological tradition and ending up at
contemporary Genetics, whose quests are paradoxically linked with
the aforementioned traditions.
ÉÉ
There is no doubt that the discerning between Good and Evil
permeates ancient Hellenic thought, with many forms. The fear
of chaos, of immoderacy, of Hubris, of non-being, all hound the
ancient Hellene profoundly, which is why as early as the
pre-Socratics all the ontological meanings regarding the notion of
Being (and these are not just Heracletus' "Logos", or Anaxagoras'
"Nous", or Pythagoras' "Number" or Parmenides' "Being", but also
Anaximandros' "Infinity" and Empedocles' "Philotes" and Leukippus'
and Democritus' "natural individual as the opposite of Void" -
see Fr. N.Loudovikos' Theological History of Ancient Hellenic
Philosophy, Book 1, Pournaras Publications, Thessaloniki 2003,
pp.
31-138) - are contradistinctions precisely of that non-Being which,
in different forms as we mentioned earlier express Evil at a moral
level. This is more so with Plato, in whose work Evil is
linked - whether as Ignorance and an absence of Prudence
(Prot.355e), or as a sickness of the soul (Sophists, 228e), or as
the fall of the soul from its hyper-celestial place (Phaedros 246e),
or as an intrinsic badness of matter in Timaeus (42e) - to the
deception and fooling of this fake world; which (world) - as seen in
the myth of the Cave in Plato's "Republic" - is unable to turn
towards the celestial Sun of Benevolence and the world of Ideas (as
above, pp. 159-177).
Evil is also non-being in Aristotle (Met. VIII,
9, 1051a), given that it does not belong in the world of realities,
while in Plautinus Evil ultimately relates to matter (Enn.1,8,3) as
it is so far away from the One/Benevolence which is, however, its
distant source. As an ontological principle, Evil will appear
in its essence with Manichaeism*- that Judeo-Christianizing, eastern,
diarchic heresy, which supports two principles in the Universe, both
opposing each other. In this theory, entire sections of the
world are bad - made by Evil - while other sections - the more
spiritual ones - are made by the Good, thus, reconciliation of the
two is impossible.
* Manichaeism:
The syncretic, dualistic religious philosophy taught by the
Persian prophet Manes, combining elements of Zoroastrian,
Christian, and Gnostic thought and opposed by the imperial Roman
government, Neo-Platonist philosophers, and orthodox Christians.
A dualistic philosophy dividing the world between good and evil
principles or regarding matter as intrinsically evil and mind as
intrinsically good.
III
Now, with regard to Christian theology, the position both of the
Eastern-Hellenic and the Western-Latin traditions appears initially
the same as that of ancient philosophy. Thus, Origen on the
one hand reassures us (De Princ. II, 9,2 · In Joh. 4,
II, 17) that God is not the Creator of evil (no longer with a
capital E, since only God comprises the true Being) and that it does
not possess a hypostasis or life or essence of its own, but exists
as a denial of Good - an idea that we shall encounter many times in
Western thought, up until Hegel. Augustine on the other hand
(for example Conf.III, 7, 12) similarly reassures us that evil does
not exist as one among beings, but is encountered as a denial of
Good, privatio boni. It is a mere absence of Good, whose
creator of course is not God (De quaest. 83, 24).
Nevertheless, with
Augustine begins a series of huge problems on the subject of evil,
which continue to torment both East and West, to this day. You
will understand what I mean, when I mention that Augustine is, on the
one hand, the one who linked evil to the renowned (as named by him
during the year 396)
"Original Sin" which, to him is a historical
event - much like the siege of Troy or the Persian wars - an
entirely inconceivable notion for the Hellenic-speaking Patristic tradition
however. So now it is Sin that
"gives
birth" to Evil, and not vice-versa. To understand the
difference, I will point out that for Saint Maximos the Confessor
(for example) the cause of Evil is the "ex nihilo" creation of the
world; in other words, it exists, not only towards the direction of
Being,
but also in another direction - towards
the "decomposition" (apogenesin) of
beings: evil -fundamentally- is a deterioration of the being, and
not a "moral" event. Thus, while for Saint
Maximos (or Athanasius the Great) it is
precisely the primeval seed of nihil inside the bowels of the being
that gives birth to the potential of sin and consequently of evil
(if and provided it is activated by Man's free will), for Augustine
it -reversely- is the moral decision of humans (Adam and Eve) that
gave birth to evil (with all its guilt); Augustine is the... father
of guilt, in the West.
This has an immense impact at the
level of ontology. And yet, with all the above, evil was regarded by
Augustine as something "invented" by man (abetted of course by the
devil, whose position however is not a powerful enough one -
something not so unusual in Augustine's work), even though this
invention reveals a complete and witting destruction of man's
nature. In other words, with this invention man showed that his
nature - albeit created innocent and good by God - wittingly became
evil in essence, especially female nature; because woman (even
before her encounter with the Serpent-Devil) already had within her
the thirst for power and the audacity for an easy acquisition of
divinity, into which she guilefully dragged Adam also, thus proving
him to be similar to her. In plain words, according to
Augustinian theology man is not evil because he wittingly or after
being fooled participates in - and abandons himself to - the
worldly deterioration that
is already under way, but because he himself finds deterioration
within his own nature. (I am not ignorant of the possibility
that we can find similar positions in the Hellenic-speaking Fathers, however,
I think that these do not prevail theoretically in the Patristic
tradition, inasmuch as they probably have the character of a kerygma**).
Thus was born the idea of inherited guilt, as well as that of
absolute predestination. Given that man's nature is now
absolutely perverted, it is impossible for man to truly seek God and
His Grace - the latter can only be an involuntary and irresistible
(a word that Augustine characteristically uses) gift of God, to
those whom He - for unknown reasons - prefers. the rest are
just a doomed crowd: "massa damnata". But this way, very
little is mentioned about man's freedom. Indeed, human freedom
is of minimal significance here; or, rather, there is no freedom at
all - as a choice - but only as a compulsory acceptance of the
irresistible Grace of God.
**
Kerygma: (Greek:
êÞñõãìá, érugma) is the Greek word used in the New
Testament for preaching (see Luke 4:18-19,Romans 10:14,
Matthew 3:1).
& It is related to the Greek verb êçñýóóù (kērússō), to
cry or proclaim as a herald, and means proclamation,
announcement, or preaching.
IV
To recap: While all of ancient
philosophy and Christian theology (with the exception of Manichaeism)
agree in essence that Evil is merely a denial of Good, with
Augustine man actually became the cause of evil, and ever since, has
also become evil towards his very nature; so now, evil and its guilt
both become inherited, together of course with their condemnation.
Thus, while for Saint Irenaeus of Lyons - for example - the first
couple had sinned involuntarily (because of their spiritual
immaturity), with Augustine, sin is an expression of a pre-existing
and conscious natural perversion ("pervertio"). And of course
at this point it is impossible to describe the fear and the guilt
that positions like those had instigated through the ages, along
with the constant temptation to accuse God Himself, Who had created
a human nature so easily and profoundly and permanently
perversion-prone. Thus, man is a "sinful automaton"; it is
impossible for him to not sin, because sin and evil have become a
part of his nature. Only God's unfathomable intervention can stop
this drama, and absolutely no well-meaning human intervention or
attempt whatsoever. God may possibly collaborate with human
freedom, however He alone decides, independently of that freedom.
Positions such as these persisted
tenaciously in Western theology, in spite of the immense turnabout
that the other great Westerner, Thomas Aquinas, had attempted by
likewise ascribing (like the Hellenic-speaking Fathers) the cause of evil to
the createdness and the changeability of beings, and not to the
Original Sin. During that same period, Hellenic
Patristic theology had crystallized its positions regarding the
justification of evil, in a manner that we could schematically
describe as follows, on the basis of what we have already said.
The causes, therefore, of evil are mainly three:
The first cause is the very state of createdness and the "ex nihilo"
creation, a fact that renders the nature of beings prone to
"slipping" easily towards the absolute Nil from which they came -
especially if man considers his existence self-sufficient and not in
need of divine Assistance and Grace.
The second cause of evil is man's
free-willed disposition, whereby as a person, he sins or errs but
simultaneously undertakes the responsibility of his choices: the
perverting or the destruction of man's nature and the world's is a
simple manifestation of his own, erroneous choice; it is
consequently a non-permanent but remediable event (gradually, even
from now, and completely healed, by the end of time), with only a
change in man's will.
And the third cause of evil - and indeed
considerably linked to the previous two - is the fact that the world
is not constituted as a "monologue" by God, but as a "dialogue"
between Him and mankind. For every benevolent will of God,
therefore, an equally "benevolent" response by man is required.
If the latter is missing, the former is annulled. God cannot
"impose" good directly, if man refuses it. So, He does it
indirectly, which means He utilizes the produced evil in defence and
vindication of Good, exactly as with Ransom - the story hero that we
mentioned in the beginning. Ransom was made to (quite
painfully) pass through evil, however, he is now the best defender
of Good - he, and not the blissful and unbruised inhabitants of Perelandra, who precisely because of their paradisiacal bliss were
strangely unable to discern the evil behind the deceitfulness of the
wily Weston (much like what happened with the Serpent and Eve in the
Biblical narration of Genesis). The fact that Ransom - despite
his knowledge of evil - desires Good and defends it to the death,
signifies precisely that - as opposed to Augustine - evil does not
belong to man's nature, and that man is not perverted
entirely, but that depending on the free inclination of his
disposition, he is able to display all the innate benevolence of his
nature - which after all does reflect the benevolence of God
Himself. Besides, according to the Patristic tradition evil is
something that man is subject to, even when he is committing it - he
does not invent it, hence the absence of moralism or legalism in the
Hellenic-speaking Fathers. Man suffers the pre-Creation Nil, when he
does not partake of God's Grace: that is the mystery of Evil.
Furthermore, it is wrong to regard God's Biblical expression of the
world being "very good" as pertaining to the "beginning" of the
world; it is actually an eschatological expression, which refers to
the eschatological perfection of the world, according at least to
the Patristic tradition, as I have tried to indicate elsewhere
(see: "Eucharistic
Ontology", Domos Publications, Athens 1992). This expression
definitely also signifies the final transcending of death, which
clearly (naturally) existed before man's creation, otherwise the
world and mankind would have been - by nature and compulsorily -
gods, from the very beginning. Death was pre-existent,
precisely (as we said) because of creation "ex nihilo", without this
of course negating the prospect of transcending it by Grace and not
by nature, otherwise, (if Adam knew nothing about death), there
would be no meaning to God's warning to him that he would "suffer
death" if he were to consume the forbidden fruit.
Adam received an ontological proposition by God for the transcending
of death (and not a proposition to make a moral choice); Adam is the
being that is defined existentially (we could say) by that very
proposition by God, that it be the one through which the Uncreated
enters the created, of its own free will. The ontological
'texture' of this dialogue between man and God is at risk, within
the boundaries of recent subjectivism, inasmuch as evil - whether
moralistically or rationalistically - is either placed inside the
person as a part of his nature, or outside the person, as an
"objective", external event. Apart from the fact that the
above necessarily end up as various forms of theodicy, they conceal
the fact that evil does not exist as an Augustinian natural
perversion (pervertio) because of sin, but as an interruption
-partial or complete- of that dialogue between man and God, Who
freely attaches death to life - the created to the Uncreated.
As a matter of fact, if the above are correct, it is that very
dialogue that constitutes the process through which the
eschatological elimination of evil becomes possible; that is, as a
predisposition by the created Being to be incorporated in the
Resurrected Body of Christ, as a "communion of opinion" per the
expression of Saint Nicholas Kavasilas, and not simply a compulsory
resurrection of the dead. With this dialogue, therefore, man
eliminates from creation certain pieces of the pre-Creation Nil,
according to his disposition, by transforming it by Grace into an
uncreated Body of Christ. A stance such as that allows God to
intervene more in the world, confining evil even when man is
inadequate to do it; however, evil (as the denial of dialogue with
God) will never vanish altogether - not even during the end -
despite the obligatory incorruptibility of beings. What will become
apparent then, however, is that evil is not a part of Creation, of
Being, of Life, but an elective denial of these.
In contrast to Augustine, Maximos the Confessor further regards only
the "fall of disposition" as something corruptible, whereas the fall
of nature as incorruptible. There is no such thing as "evil
nature", according to the Patristic tradition; the event that is
described in the Genesis narration as the Fall of man is a voluntary
departure from God's experientially "incorruptifying", uncreated
Providence, and it does not interest us as a historical event.
V
But now let us return to the West
once again, to take a brief look at the continuation, in order to
come to contemporary Genetics.
My evaluations are of course subjective and certain points
of the story cannot possibly be discussed differently.
The two major problems that arose in the West on account of the
propagation of Augustine's positions (which we analysed previously)
were, I believe, to begin with, the problem of defending God and
thereafter the problem of defending nature (of man and of the
world). The first opus was undertaken by the German
philosopher Leibniz, and the second one by the French philosopher
Rousseau. Leibniz (1646-1716) attempted an entire "theodicy" -
a term coined by him, and the title of his homonymous book (1710).
The philosopher tries to vindicate God, by supposing that He
tolerates evil, in His desire to eventually evoke some kind of good
from it, in a world created by Him - a world that is "the best
possible of those that could be created", according to his famous
expression. That people can think of better worlds does not signify
that those worlds would in fact be better ones, given that human
judgment errs, inasmuch as it is confined by subjective passions and
ignorance. God therefore created the best possible world,
under the provision that we would see it in the light of His
choices, which are far superior and wiser than our own.
These positions became a favourite
target for a host of attacks on the part of atheists, even though
they do not differ essentially from their long past processing by
Hegel, who, as we mentioned, saw in evil a necessary "negativity"
which is utilized by God the Spirit for a more superior
synthesis that includes the fusion of the two (Good and Evil or
Being and Nil) within Being. However, I think that the other
philosopher had a far greater influence on the West; the defender of
human and cosmic nature, Rousseau (1712-1778). The French
philosopher's position has the merit of exceptional simplicity: the
nature of man and the world - he says - is profoundly good and
benevolent. As opposed to Augustine (or Calvin), he regards
nature as the best possible teacher of Good, and a concordance with
it a rule for life and truth. Death, consequently, is not a
product of a sin or a fall, and furthermore, civil inequality is
entirely unfounded.
With Rousseau, the West regained the
fundamental Christian position that the nature of man and the world
are the benevolent work of God - except that it regained this
position as an opposition to the official ecclesiastic teaching
which (either in Calvin's Geneva where Rousseau grew up, or in the
remainder of Roman Catholic or Lutheran Europe) sees nature -
usually in the Augustinian manner - as fallen and perverted.
Thus the Europeans - with Rousseau, then with the Enlightenment -
re-discover a fundamental Patristic position, but only as a protest
against the Church or Her theology, by formulating an anthropology
which they regarded as atheistic (as does the Church), even though
it is even more Christian than the ecclesiastic one. But the worst
does not stop here. Without any theological reference, this
re-evaluation of nature saw the theoretical path by De Sade opening
before it. Indeed, the latter was nothing more than a
vehemently anti-Christian student of Rousseau, who reveals that
nature does not only teach harmony, but also violence and murder.
Natural life would therefore thus signify the reception of those
"natural" performances, "beyond the Good and the evil" as Nietzsche
would have said (who was also the culmination of the road that the
West took, with Rousseau, in its opposition to Augustine).
Nature, finally, dictates as the supreme criterion of life the will
for power. I have shown in older books of mine (Fr. N.L. "The
Closed Spirituality and the Meaning of Self"; "The Mysticism
of Power and the Truth of Nature and Person", 2nd edition, Ellinika
Grammata Publications, Athens, 1999) that in this way, Nietzsche not
only doesn't distance himself from Augustine, but in fact adopts the
latter's deeper form of thought: that the place of fallen
nature (which according to Augustine is governed by the immortal and
spiritual soul) is now taken up by all this unsubstantiated
"spirituality" which is governed by vital natural instincts.
VI
This is in brief the spiritual
atmosphere in which latter-day, theoretical contemplation on the
matter of Evil was born in the space of Genetics. In recent years,
the development of psychology and sociology have significantly
advanced all this rationalized quest for the cause of Evil, within
the boundaries of human nature and never beyond it. Pursuant
to this, was the acceptance of Evil as an element of nature with a
suitable "scientific explanation" - or at least a partial
exoneration of it. From the complete debilitation of nature,
to the unconditional acceptance of it however, the ontological
backdrop still remains unchanged: there is no foreseen,
essential prospect for freedom being a possibility for transforming
that nature, and not simply the acceptance or the rejection of it.
At this point I would like us to briefly examine three recent books
which place the problem of Evil in the perspective of a Genetics
explanation. The first of the three is the book by
Robert Wright, "The Moral Animal" (1994). In his book, Wright
sets down for discussion what he calls "the psychology of
evolution", with biological conditions: everything is
explained as deriving from people's desire for survival, which is
determined one way or another by natural selection.
Consequently, there is very little genetic basis in the distinction
between Good and Evil, moral or immoral: with regard to the sexual
behaviour of women, for example, those who are "reserved" and more
"moral" are simply the ones who are more confident in themselves,
whereas the more aggressive ones are the more insecure. But
the objective remains the same; it remains the same, for every
behaviour. Morality in reality conflicts with evolutionary
logic, which is determined effectively by genes and the environment.
If we were in a position to accept this - the author argues - we
would have had a far greater tolerance and forgiveness towards each
other. Of course every kind of altruism or selflessness would also
have to be ascribed to a genetically determined, superior
evolutionary self-interest.
The second book that we
shall examine is the one by Lyall Watson, "Dark Nature : a Natural History of Evil" (1996). Watson
argues that nature is profoundly non-moral; it exists beyond Good
and Evil. This can be seen clearly in the cosmos of genes,
which simply do whatever they can for survival, mainly by applying
the following methods:
1) by being hostile towards strangers
2) by being friendly towards friends
3) by deceiving as much as possible.
All human behaviour is in reality built on the basis of these
principles, the author argues, although there may be other,
not-so-apparent biological principles like altruism, martyrdom,
asceticism, which also play a part except with basically volitional
objectives, allowing a relatively minor emergence from the ocean of
natural selection : a tiny but essential differentiation of man from
animals.
Lastly is the book by
Â. Appleyard, "In Brave New Worlds.
Staying Human in the Genetic Future" (1998). In this book of
his, the author confronts what he calls "genocentrism" and dares to
pose the question of human freedom and responsibility, if almost
everything in behaviour were determined by genes. The true
unconscious, he notes, has to do with that latent, deeper activity
by the genes inside us, which follow their own biological way
regardless of morals and our supposedly conscious choices.
Appleyard mourns the possibility of a complete prevalence of "genocentrism",
which would clearly allow for totalitarian solutions in the future
but at the same time with nothing to juxtapose.
VII
It is obvious that a series of
ontological and mainly theological questions still continue to
arise. The West of course is teetering between contemporary,
complete acceptance and its ancient Augustinian and Calvinist
complete rejection of nature, but the question that their theology
still hasn't answered is the one that refers to the possibility of
an actual relationship between this nature and the uncreated God.
If God - acting as a Person - has uncreated energies, and if man -
also as a person - can receive God with his own energies, then
nature is transformed, not lost, and every compulsory natural
determinism disappears.
But what is the meaning of "person"?
And what is "freedom"? Is there a biochemistry of freedom? (If
it does exist, then there is no freedom...). Where are
"person" or "freedom" seated inside man? Inside his soul?
And what is the soul, when in fact the Hellenic Patristic
tradition has rejected every metaphysical notion of "soul" and has
regarded it as material in essence? We truly have many more
things to learn about man, precisely because - according to
Patristic theology - man is not a given being, but a being that
evolves, that is constantly being created, and it is only in the end
that we shall see what it finally is. The immense
contribution of Orthodox theology in this anthropological query is
that it has taught us that it is impossible to separate the question
of man from the question of God, and that only the answer to the
latter can forebode the answer to the former.
*******************************************
(*) Father Nicholas Loudovikos was
born in Volos. He studied Psychology, Pedagogics,
Theology and Philosophy, in Athens,
Thessaloniki, Paris (Sorbonne Paris 4 and the
Institute Catholique de Paris)
and Cambridge. He has a Doctorate in Theology of
the University of Thessaloniki, and has also
worked at the “research center for Primeval
Christianity”, Tyndale
House, Cambridge. He has taught at the
Cambridge University’s School of Theology (C.A.R.T.S.)
as well as the University of Durham. He is a
Professor of Dogmatics and Philosophy at the
Higher Ecclesiastic School of Thessaloniki; a
scientific associate at the post-graduate
Theological program of the Open Hellenic
University and also a part-time lector at the
Orthodox Institute of the University of
Cambridge. Works in book form by him:
Eucharistic Ontology (Domos, Athens, 1992);
Closed Spirituality and the Meaning of Self
(Hellenic Letters, Athens, 1992) and The Apophatic ecclesiology of the Homoousion. The
primeval Church today (Athens, 2002).
Translation: K.N.