The Existence of Evil

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The Existence of Evil

Six years ago a little girl from my church approached me and asked why the devil existed, and why bad things happen. At the moment I was a little perplexed and did not know what to say. All that came to my mind was that humankind needed a scapegoat to blame for the occurrence of unfavorable incidents. Blaming adverse conditions on the devil is the easy and obvious way out of any situation. All one has to do is to say that the devil was the cause of the situation and wash his hands of the entire problem. At twelve years old, I thought that humanity used the devil as a way to elude responsibility and to ignore the consequences of its actions.

It was not until last year that I realized the answer to the little girl's question about the existence of evil. In English class last year I read Arthur Miller's play The Crucible as required reading. According to my English teacher, one theme of The Crucible was that having evil in the world is necessary to balance out the goodness. If either entity overpowered the other, they would throw off the entire balance.

Beside maintaining balance, evilness helps humanity to appreciate the goodness in the world. Without ugliness, a person cannot enjoy beauty. Without misfortune, a person cannot enjoy fortune. And without evilness, a person cannot enjoy goodness. No one could enjoy goodness in the world, because there would be nothing to compare with it.

Concerning religion, if there was no devil in the world to make humanity miserable, then it would not look forward to heaven. There would be no difference between the two, so humankind would not have to question its actions because there would not be any consequences such as heaven or hell.

Imagine a world where everything is perfect, and there is no suffering. Natural laws are bent at the hint of harm to humanity. If a plane carrying passengers starts to plummet, gravity ceases and the plane floats down to earth like a feather. Or if a gun is shot at a person, the bullet turns into a marshmallow so it will not harm anyone. In that world there is no pain nor suffering, just existence. The people do not have to adapt to their environment, because the environment adapts to them. I find this version of life frightening, because the people would take everything for granted.

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