Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

EVIL OR SINFUL STATE

A condition of soul due to the partial and unbalanced development of the qualities, and to the ignorance in which the ego is immersed. It is a state of emptiness in its degree, and not of fullness; and as emptiness is no real thing, but the absence of the real, so an evil state of soul has no reality in itself, but needs the presence of the good and true, which are realities and endure forever. The evil state is, therefore, relative, negative, and transitory, and implies the absence of completeness during a process of evolution of qualities and of knowledge.

"The nature of evil is negative. If evil, as evil, positively subsisted, it would be evil to itself and would therefore, destroy itself" (Pseudo - Dionysius). - UEBERWEG'S Hist. of Philos., Vol. I. p. 351.

"Eckhart, like his predecessors, conceded to evil only the character of privation. As denoting a necessary stadium in the return of the soul to God, evil is sometimes represented by Eckhart as a part of the divine plan of the universe, as a calamity decreed by God. Regarded from a higher standpoint, evil is not evil, but only a means for the realisation of the eternal end of the world. To the permanent essence of the spirit sin is external only. Even after the commission of mortal sins the spirit retains in its essence its likeness to God; even the good works may arise from the eternal basis of the soul, the fruit of which remains in the spirit."-Ibid., p. 481.

"On the one hand evil is necessary for good, for were the imperfections not felt, there would be no striving after perfection; all defect and sin consist merely in privation, in the non-realisation of possible qualities. It would not be well were evil non-existent, for it makes for the necessity of good, since if evil were removed the desire of good would also cease. In its whole life, however, the soul will realise all good, and therefore is only per accidens imperfect" (Bruno). - J. L. MCINTYRE, Giordano Bruno, p. 314.

“That which is evil or rebellious must be the cause of the manifestation of the good, for it occasions the will to press back (upward) to its original condition, and so towards God. In this way evil has a special relation to construction and movement, as good has to love, and roughness or rebellion to joy. For a thing that is only good and has no suffering desires nothing, for it knows nothing better in itself, or for itself, after which it can long (Boehme). - PFLEIDERER, Phil. of Religion, p. 20.

“Evil is not true being, but the negation or privation of it.” - A. JUKES, The Names of God, p. 40.

"In the crucible of earthly life God as, from generation to generation, been working out a glorious fact, whose completion will be seen in the eternal world,- the evolution of a Divine Humanity, the express image of himself, the unfoldment of his own potentialities of truth and beauty; and the risk he has had to take in so doing is that at every stage of the age-long effort, poison and foulness have been liable to appear instead of health and purity; but without the risk there could have been neither the one nor the other." - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., A Christian World-view.

“It is the good, and not the evil, that denotes largeness of nature in any living being. Infinity and moral perfection imply each other if only because the former is all-complete; evil, no matter how colossal and grandiose, implies incompleteness. It is as essentially finite as good is infinite; it is not a thing in itself, but the privation of good; evil is only experienced when there is not good enough to go round, so to speak. When you are suffering from disease, for instance, it is because your body cannot get the fullness of life it craves."-R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., The Source of Good.

"Evil is the negation of God or good:- Man's need of expansion and nutrition and consequent perception of this negation, of this evil within and around him, are the cause of his further vision of God or good. This further vision of God is born of effort which promotes all growth. Thus evil and the recognition of evil by man must be an inevitable step in his further consciousness of and progress towards God or good. Thus are sin and suffering embodied in the Divine Love which manifests itself through the individuation and evolution, from the chaos of formlessness, of the Godhead of man." - E. C. U., A Message to Earth, p. 30.

“Every sin has no foundation; because it has no subsistence in its own proper no For evil has substance. But that which anyhow exists unites with the nature of good. The 'narrow opening' is said, then, to have no foundation beneath it, because the pollution of sin has no power of subsisting by itself." - ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, Morals on the Book of Job, Vol. III. p. 184.

“In truth, our evil comes out of our want of resemblance to God, and our ignorance of Him; and, on the other hand, our great good consists in our resemblance to Him." - METHODIUS, Against Porphyry.

"It is even a great part of God's wisdom, in casting the plan of our life, that He has set us in conditions to bring out the evil that is in us. For it is by this medley that we make of wrongs, fears, pains of the mind, and pains of the body, all the woes of all shapes and sizes that follow at the heels of our sin-by these it is that He dislodges our perversity, and draws us to Himself." - H. BUSHNELL, Nature and the Supernatural, p. 361.

See Also

AESHM
AHRIMAN
BEELZEBUB
CONFLICT
DEVIL
ESTHER
GUILTY
HEALING
HEROD
IGNORANCE
ILLUSION
LAW OF REVENGE
MURDER
OPPOSITES
SATAN