Streams to the Ocean - Essays for Everyday Life

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Whatever good comes to you (O humankind) it is from Allah, and whatever evil befalls you, it is from your own nafs (lower soul). [The Qur'an 4:79]

Evil

From the perspective of practitioners of the Sufi path, how might one characterize evil? Evil takes flight on the wings of intention.

Evil is an artificial environment designed and built by human beings. Evil is an illusion created by the absence of perspective.

Evil is relative but in a very absolute sort of way. Evil exploits and is itself exploited.

Evil is a color lent to events by human beings while we serve as loci of manifestation through which those events are given expression. Evil is a value added tax levied by humans against all of creation.

Evil is evidence that the exercise of choice is not an idle, philosophical exercise. Evil is the force of opposition necessary for spiritual development.

For thousands of years, the problem of evil has been perched on the tree of life, like a vulture. Human beings have been searching for an answer to why the problem exists at all.

Oddly enough, this problem makes more sense, in an inexplicable kind of way, if one were to suppose there is no God. Under these circumstances, although the consequences of evil are, well, just as evil, one could accept it as merely the down side to the chance events through which our existence supposedly has come into being. From this point of view, evil is a bit of bad luck in the way the dice of physics, chemistry and biology rolled.

The problem of evil becomes more dicey when God is present. Indeed, one of the arguments used by some atheists and agnostics is based on a syllogism involving the implications of evil for the existence of God.

This argument goes something as follows. (1) A loving God would not permit evil to exist. (2) Evil exists. (3) Therefore, either (a) God does not exist, or (b) God exists but is not loving. (4) If (b) is the case, then God is not worthy of our worship.

There are a number of assumptions in the foregoing argument which are not necessarily true but which are being treated as a priori truths. The first premise assumes we know what being a loving God involves. This premise also presumes to know what a loving God would and would not permit.

The second premise assumes everyone is agreed on what constitutes evil. In addition, this premise presupposes that to whatever extent evil exists God must be held accountable for its existence. Moreover, the second premise assumes everyone is agreed on the precise structural character to which evil gives expression.

Is the existence of evil absolute? Is its existence limited? Is the existence of evil relative in some sense, and, if so, in what sense is it relative?

The foregoing argument also tends to be reductionistic in character. It presupposes the only quality of Divinity is love.

Qualities such as, to name but a few, justice, transcendence, subtlety, independence, purpose, and order are not considered. No discussion takes place about how such qualities might play off against, or co-operate with, the quality of love or with what ramifications.

Sufi masters indicate God has made clear, on many occasions and in many circumstances, that God does no injustice to humanity or any aspect of creation. Human beings, however, love to prejudge situations before all the facts are in. We have a predilection for making judgements and decisions out of presumption, assumption and ignorance.

Human beings tend to be both repelled and attracted by the thought we should have no capacity for free will. We are repelled because the absence of free will seems to throw into question our integrity, identity and ultimate worth in the scheme of things.

We are attracted to the possibility all our actions are determined because this would seem to give us carte blanche, so to speak, to "permit" the ego to do its thing while we bear passive witness with a sense of horrified glee. We don't have to assume responsibility for the tab we run up in life.

We demand from God the right to choice. We are given choice.

Time and time again, we are warned by God in explicit detail, both through sacred texts and through spiritually inspired personalities, about the dangers surrounding the responsibility of choice. We are informed about the purpose and function of choice. The parameters of possible consequences of choice are spelled out.

We are heedless of those warnings and directives. We exercise said choice. Some of our choices are corrupted by the intentions which underwrite those choices. As a result, we introduce various shapes and forms of evil into the world.

We condemn God for the state of pollution generated by our repeated dumping of toxic intentions into the environment. We hold God to be criminally negligent for granting us choice in the first place.

We've got God right where we want: on the horns of a moral dilemma. God is wrong not to give us freedom of choice. God is wrong for giving us freedom of choice.

Such are the delights and sophistries of the ego when it starts working the angles. We want things both ways. We want choice when this state of affairs serves our purposes. We do not want responsibility when this does not serve our purposes.

We want God to be the one we can finger to take the fall when the going gets tough. How clever we humans are.

Did God know human beings would misuse the freedom given to them? Sufi masters say: "Yes". However, just as farmers can make use of manure to grow plants, so God knows the secret of using evil to grow spirituality. Something of the nature of this secret has been disclosed to practitioners of the Sufi way.

Evil plays its game. Evil does not understand the game it plays is merely a game within a larger game.

Unlike the game of evil, the larger game does not exist for either sport or for amusement. Unlike the game of evil, the larger game is not a matter of whim or arbitrariness.

There is a seriousness of purpose in the larger game which is absent from the intention with which evil plays its game. Evil does not understand it can do nothing other than serve the purposes of the larger game irrespective of its intentions to do otherwise.

Evil is not absolute. It is limited, relative and constrained within certain limits of possibility.

Whoever and whatever is unjustly touched by evil receives compensation from God. Sometimes the compensation is given in this life. Sometimes it is given in the next life. Sometimes it is given in both worlds.

God is not niggardly. The compensations and consolations which come from God are most generous and satisfying.

Evil is an artificial environment designed and built by human beings. Our egos are the architects of, and contractors for, this project.

Our egos are under the illusion these monuments will last forever. They will not. As history has clearly shown, all the monuments created by humans beings have perished or are perishing. This trend will not change in the future.

Evil is relative in an absolute way. Evil does generate misery, pain, devastation, and ugliness everywhere it manifests itself. The doing of evil has real consequences for both the victims and perpetrators of evil. These realities cannot be denied.

However, the manifestation of evil exists as a transitory phenomenon which is restricted to this world. Furthermore, within this world, its realities also are circumscribed in very determinate ways. Evil is relative to the absolute parameters set for it by Divinity.

By struggling with evil - ours and that of others, we have the opportunity for spiritual development. Evil generates the conflict, turmoil, tension, antagonism and opposition that set the stage on which the story of spirituality unfolds.

To set the stage in this way, to provide the necessary backdrop of tension against which the story line takes place, to provide the themes with which spirituality must struggle, is the function which evil serves. These are fundamental components in all good drama.

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