Robin Layne's Blog: From the Red, Read Robin - Posts Tagged "evil"

Good morning! I just read a great blog post that reflects the sentiments I have been trying to express. S.D. Grimm (dig the darkish fairytale name!) writes her guest commentary for Morgan Busse on Enclave Publishing's blog. I'm excited to discover Enclave, a Christian publisher of edgy speculative fiction.

Why write about evil, as a Christian? WHAT to write about evil as a Christian? What is the relationship of evil to good? Is it possible that experiencing evil can make the light show all the brighter?

Here's the link to The Dark Side of Fiction: https://www.enclavepublishing.com/dar...

I have been asked to create something about nuances. I’m finding it easier to write about polarization than nuance. Something in human nature embraces the idea of absolutes. I believe that instinct responds to some realities, at least in the spiritual realm. First and foremost, I am convinced that God is 100% good… that He is goodness itself and intends good for human beings. This world we live in, however, is imperfect because of choices people have made that have influenced it. As a result, people often misunderstand what is good and what is bad, and they have trouble trusting that God has their best interest at heart—if they believe in God at all.
Imperfect human beings who can’t perceive the natures of God and His supernatural enemies tend to turn their polarization instinct toward one another. I see this most strongly on the political scene. My personal response to politics is to say, like Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings, “I am not altogether on anyone’s side because no one is altogether on my side.” Outside feels most natural to me. I must admit that when I must think of the highly polarized two-party system and the ways that each side in this circus screams that the other side is evil incarnate, my own reaction is polarized: I hate politics! This battle has been going on for a long time, getting worse and worse, but you’d think just maybe a huge threat like a world-wide pandemic would cause the sides to call a truce to work together toward solutions. Nope. Not even staring widespread death in the face inspires these horrid children to grow up an inch. The insanity only continues to increase under this test. Each side blames the other for the virus and prevents the other from doing its part in making things better.
The true nuance of the situation is that no human being on earth is altogether good or altogether evil. Only one ever walked this world who was totally good, and at this time of year we celebrate the day we nailed Him to a cross. People didn’t like to see such good walking around because it uncovered their secret evils. Nevertheless, they couldn’t keep this good man down or stop His mission to increase God’s goodness in this fallen world. Why did His work continue throughout history through the people He chose to spread His good contagion? Why does it continue today, unfinished but still struggling to win? Because God made human beings in His image, and that image is a seed that grows with the proper soil and water, and because Jesus is the living Word of God, and God’s word never fails. I have it on the best authority that one day the world will be restored to a better state than it was in the beginning when all was very good like the God who made it. It’s a long process, though, because none of us, not even the strongest of believers, is all good or all bad. The best we can do is step aside in our own skins and let the Spirit of Jesus live through us—something none of us succeeds at all the time.
Could an entirely evil human being ever exist? That is a point under much debate. The very fact that people dwell on this idea as much as they do implies inner depravity. The human imagination has created many horror movies depicting people, or ex-people, so evil that it’s a virtue and a matter of survival to kill them. It’s everything from zombies to the Antichrist. I’m uneasy when people fill their minds with such ideas, because it feeds the ultimate us-versus-them mentality. Such mentality makes prejudice, hatred, and genocide easy.
I even wonder whether anything in the universe is totally evil. Genesis tells us that everything God created is good. This fact implies to me that evil isn’t a separately created thing. It is the twisting and bending of the good, just as a lie must begin with something true that is then twisted. Keith Green, in the song “No One Believes in Me Anymore (Satan’s Boast),” sang, “I put some truth in every lie to tickle itching ears.” In other words, people aren’t evil enough to be interested in pure lies. We are creatures that feed on truth. Unfortunately, we find it too easy to swallow a lot of poison with truth-baited food, especially if we’ve become accustomed to certain tastes. So there you have it, a sad explanation of some common nuances that can do us in. The encouraging point to remember is that, since evil is only a perversion of good, it’s not as powerful as the real thing, and as long as a person is alive, there is hope for that person.
I am inclined to think no human being exists or will exist who is altogether evil, because all were made in the image of God, and here on earth, there are always some things to encourage and even reward goodness in people.

I’m ending this essay here because it’s time to share it with my MeetUp group. I am already late for the Zoom meeting. I may add a little later or expound on some of the points at some future date. Happy Easter!