What is the source of what mortals call "Evil"?

Quote by falconx2000Evil, as it always has, comes from within ourselves, just as good does.

There is in christianity (and I believe also in Judaism and possibly Islam, but I'm not sure on those) an understanding of good at least that says that all good is from God. In fact, to think that any good in oneself is from oneself is arrogance and pride, and, in fact, a flaw unto itself. This is because since all good comes from God (in a sense like i mentioned before) then good in oneself comes from God, obviously, and we should not credit ourselves with what is not ours. This finds particular emphasis in the Gospels and letters of Paul, and I believe they also appear in books of various prophets, but I cannot name any particular ones right now so I will not say that for certain.

Paul speaks about those who brag about the good they have done or their skills, and he also speaks that he himself could brag about his good, but he knows that it would be foolishness to do so since his good and prestige is not from himself. Thus, talents, skills, and good a person does is spoken of as a gift from God, or as the work of God through a person, who thus has grace( a share and joining in the life of God) allowing a person to do good, not by their own means but by God.

This again then leads to the idea that in the absence of God, or a degree of not allowing God to work through a person, sin and evil occurs, which goes along with the idea of evil being a degree of lacking of good. Those who are good are simply those who ask for and allow the will and grace of God to work in their lives.

Now, if you'd like to go further back to what has led up to this understanding, you can go back to the judaic creation story. The first creation story says that there was in fact something existing in the beggining, but what it was was Chaos, a formless void, possibly water. Then, God creates Order out of Chaos, creating a more perfect state, which is not the natural state, but the Chaos is held back and put in order by the will and spirit of God. Now if you skip foreward to Noah, this is shown its nature. The floods were not simply massive rains that were commanded, but was God removing his spirit and will from the world, which protected the world from the waters and Chaos of its natural state, or the removal of the Spirit of God which were the winds which seperated the water and the land (This has a name but I don't know how to spell it, its a hebrew name I believe). So, as it would seem, evil and chaos are a natural state which, without the will of God holding it back and holding everything in Order, it would fall back upon its natural state. Science also has a similar idea in the universal movement toward entropy.

Therefore, it would seem that evil may come from within ourselves, as its more of our natural state, good comes from without. Now, this whole understanding is made more complex however when you add in that the natural state of the human person and all that is is, in fact, Holy. Thats not contridictory though since being is in fact a good and order of itself. Christanity has a nice enforcement and explination of this connection in the begginging of John's Gospel: "All things came to be through him,/ and without him nothing came to be./ What came to be through him was life,/ and this life was the light of the human race;"

What is the source of what mortals call "Evil"?

Mnemeth

Gau

freedom230

maxrob

falconx2000

Yu-huang

Gau