Evil

This today, my friend, is my personal anatomy of evil.

Bad people do bad things, and if the people and the things are bad enough, we may call both of them "evil". Various other words may be used to describe such behavior- wicked, depraved, vicious- and all suggest that a specifically moral boundary has been crossed. But the word "evil" carries a special and distinct connotation, a sort of metaphysical baggage gathered during its long and ancient association with religion. 

Standing in a grand cosmic opposition as the antithesis of good, evil is intimately tied up with the idea of sin, the transgression of divine law. The implied offence against God is often personified in the agency of a devil. In the Christian tradition, for instance, the supreme embodiment of evil is Satan, the arch enemy of God, whose minions, or demons, enter humans to incite or inflict various kinds of evil. 

But it is necessary to ask ourselves- what makes evil evil? On the face of it, the close link between evil and sin offers a ready solution to the problem of identifying the evil- an offence against God's law: morality is based on divine command; good is good and evil is evil for the simple reason that God has ordained that it should be so. And as the word of God is preserved in the bible and other sacred texts, we have a detailed record of God's pleasures and displeasures and hence an authoritative source of guidance on what we should and shouldn't do.

There is no doubt that fr most people throughout most of history, some such account of morality, of good and evil, has been accepted without question. There are nevertheless, significant difficulties with this view.

"Evil can never pass away, for there must be always remain something which is antagonistic to good" Plato, 4th century BC.