FrontPage article. Kekes:

quote:

The explanation of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment attempt to explain evil by explaining it away. They refuse to face the fact that the motive to do evil is a basic component of human psychology. Both Christian and Enlightenment thinkers assume that the good is primary and evil is some sort of interference with the good. The explanation they seek is of the nature and cause of the interference with the good. Both are naive and deny the facts of life. The first requirement of an adequate response to evil is to face the facts about it, not to try to explain them away as exceptional.

I�m not convinced at all the Christianity explains evil by "explaining it away". That�s a statement that quite reveals Kekes� biases. Apparently religion can only "explain things away" while science presumably is less evasive and actually "explains things". I used to be this ignorant. I used to see religion as nothing more than a holdover of superstition, thinking in terms that whatever religion still existed was just the bits that science had not yet thoroughly discredited and undermined. If one believes that only science is the source of legitimate information then one has put one�s self in quite a tight-fitting box, and it will be a box that will ultimately prove to be not very satisfying in regards to the questions that really matter. And it is upon this stumbling block that the arrogant or inflexible continue to stumble. But that is not to say that religion ought to be swallowed lock, stock, and barrel�not by an stretch of the imagination, if you ask me.

It seems Kekes has sort of formed the question of the THATNESS of good and evil being determined by how we explain it. If we try to explain it via religion then we have somehow by default shown that good and evil are therefore only in the domain of science and are thus perhaps just psychological human constructs. And although science need not be the enemy of religion (and, in fact, is not), frankly his scientific descriptions of evil do not sound at all intuitive or elegant to my mind:

quote:

The definition of evil I propose and defend has three components: serious excessive harm caused by actions, malevolent motivation of the evildoer, and the lack of morally acceptable excuse for the actions.

I think Phil pointed out some of the logical problems with this reasoning (which involved tautology?). But we should not make the analogous and opposite mistake of Kekes by simply pointing out that since naturalists do not have the answer that therefore religion does. And I think some of what WC has said will put us on the path to an explanation of evil:

WC said: As this happens, the illumination of things begins to make the space of our perceptions a condition of presence, rather than of objects to manipulate.

There is something about human beings that allows them to both commit evil acts and to participate in incredibly good acts. It is as if we were balanced on the edge between good and evil, as if our constitution and state of being made us almost equally susceptible to both (and we find ourselves usually doing both). We are like a penny on edge that could just as easily fall to the "heads" side as it could the "tails" side, and each would require only a minimum of effort. We seem to arrive in this world in this state and with reality ready-made as our school. We seem to be given a fixed number of years (on average, about 70 or so, which is just enough) in which to develop from raw instinct to a more sophisticated state of enlightenment and thus to learn how to do and be good. Not all or even most of this time have we used this time for such development, but long-term we surely have had truth, beauty and goodness in mind. If we did not, if we had been interested only in committing evil acts, we would have turned this earth into a wasteland long before now. We see through history the tremendous pull and effort by some people to do just that, but this has always been more than counter-weighted by those who preferred the good.

And thus it is rather childish and simplistic to view the totality of humanity, the universe, and the human mind in terms of bit of Freudian psychology run amok. THAT, if you ask me, is an attempt to try to "explain it away." But as human beings we are in the perfect position to assess good and evil because we readily do both and we readily enough are moved from the orientation of one (evil) to the safety of the opposite (good). These are experiences people are having every day, inside and outside of religion. We are, if not in reality, then at least from a certain perspective, in a veritable laboratory of good and evil. We don�t have to imagine it or to concoct esoteric theories about it. All we need do is look around. We see people moving into and out of evil all the time. We see people also moving permanently toward the good. We see the magnet of good being the attractive pole towards which we all at tend to gravitate, at least long-term.

Kekes says "The explanation they seek is of the nature and cause of the interference with the good. Both are naive and deny the facts of life." I can not say for sure that good is the magnetic pole toward which we all gravitate. There is, after all, so much evil in the world. But on the other hand, although, like bad news, evil is given much more air time, there is much, much more good in the world. Thus the paradigm of evil being caused by interference with, or interruption of, good makes sense to me. Good seems to be where we eventually end up IF facts and truth are not withheld from us (because of any number of reasons�a local war, a local tyrant, etc). Old men and women are more likely to be wise, not embittered and full of hate.

As WC�s statement reminded me, there is an almost imperceptible, incomprehensible, inexpressible something that causes people to do good things rather than bad. In some instances it seems to be something that we might refer to as a higher state of consciousness. In other cases it seems like an orientation outward instead of inward. In many cases it makes no difference how much one may have suffered. Sometimes those who suffer little become quite evil. Those who have suffered much become saints. There is no easy one-to-one correlation�least of all with psychology. Science can study this issue until the cows come home and I think it highly unlikely that they are ever going to find a cut-and-dried explanation in psychology. Religion has run into the same problem and has filled the air sometimes with their own (if you ask me) bogus explanations for evil. It�s just not an easy problem not matter how you approach it, but to approach it in a reductionist/scientistic way is surely to have already missed the chance for the solution. That religion may have botched this explanation a time or two is no more evidence that they don�t have the right answer any more than a scientist botching an experiment or two prohibits he or she from finding the answer in a later experiment.

WC said: �Keke's argument seems to lack what I refered to earlier as a capacity for wonder, or an aesthetic sensibility that parallels the moral one. As a reductionist, which he appears to be, the relative value of evil, or its purely secular rendering, probably makes these domains less attractive.

If one has a priori thrown out the reasonable-faith dimension then one can not be considered a well-rounded person whose search for the truth, no matter where it leads him or her, is paramount. That would be just throwing away too much good information. It�s throwing away a very large portion of the instrument of our mind, heart and bodies. People who are either stuck in their biases and/or trying to justify their biases are a dime a dozen. I think WC pointed out some very good reasons (not sure about all this "K" stuff, but that�s another subject) for how one will interpret this whole "good/evil" question depending on one�s limitations and limited outlook. It is an understanding of 5% (if that) of my limitations and limited outlook that has me open to this most difficult question instead of prematurely slamming the door on my discomfort and claiming it all as the work of the devil, or all as the work of psychology. I�m constantly amused (hey�gotta have some sort of hobby in life) by those who attack religion as being for "wishful thinkers" or those "who can�t accept the harsh realities of life" and then these people turn around and do the same thing.

I would think most people who are really doing religion would tell you there is nothing easy about it at all. It is not an escape. It�s not always correct perhaps, but in religion people are actually attempting to take a hard, honest look at such things as good and evil and have been doing so for centuries and have built up quite a body of knowledge and theories. So when a Kekes comes along with his psychological answers, he can wind up looking pretty shallow and silly.

That seems to me some pretty good analysis, Brad. Going at it from the perspective of objective goodness, and even altruism (as you allude), helps us understand a little bit more why the definition of evil is often so elusive, as it pertains so much to human potentialities and their relationship with the transcendent. But as you say, it is also simple and observable, as goodness moves us deeply, quickens our conscience far beyond mere shame, and restores us to a memory of a longing we all have to abandon our fears and make those deeper connections with self and others. But it can be so non-demonstrable, as in a simple gesture of kindness or humor.

Interesting critique of Kekes you make, especially his perhaps unwitting involvement, through reductionism, in the kind of secularism that fosters the worst in human behavior, especially on the larger scale.

http://www.northcoastjournal.c...00500/cover1005.html

"Altruism is extending help to another without thinking about your own safety, putting another person ahead of yourself to help them. A lot of altruistic acts are momentary --is drowning, you don't think, you just jump in and try to save them.

"But these actions were of an altogether different order. They were deliberate decisions made over a period of time. And the rescue activities often extended over years and years and involved whole families."

Here are some authors found at Amazon who attempt to tell the stories of altruism and examine its meaning:

"The Altruistic Personality," Samuel P. Oliner

"Conscience and Courage," Eva Fogelman

"Ordinary Grace," Kathleen A. Brehony

"Heroes of the Holocaust," Arnold Geier

"Sin is the result of men not knowing God's goodness."


This rings true for me . . . .

Interesting critique of Kekes you make, especially his perhaps unwitting involvement, through reductionism, in the kind of secularism that fosters the worst in human behavior, especially on the larger scale.

Well, it's the same old pattern, WC. A bunch of eggheads and "social justice" revolutionaries get in their mind what they think is right and what they think is wrong and then concoct the evidence and the argument to try to back it up. If the evidence or argument is weak, it really doesn't matter. All one has to do then is repeat it more often. Better yet if you can indoctrinate the young and the unwary.

I love reading stuff by David Horowitz (and that whole reformed former-leftist crowd). They, more than anyone, (and I'll even include Ann Coulter) are shocked at how Communists could kill 40 million in the old Soviet Union and you still in this day and age will find no shortage of defenders and sympathizers with that system among the intelligentsia. When exposed they will simply shout "McCarthyism!" but they are a real threat to freedom and human rights. I�m not lumping Kekes in with all that, but one should be aware of what's potentially out there, especially in academia. If one isn't then one will find it difficult, if not impossible, to make such harsh (but often true) discernments in the face of even obvious nonsense. You have to first know what the extremes are. You have to know what people out there are thinking. You have to know what is possible. Most people are reasonable and could never imagine the truly ghastly motivations that some people hold. That is the cover for scoundrels � the innate decency of the average person.

WC: I�m reading "Daily Readings with Julian of Norwich, Vol. 1" and it�s pretty good.

-----

The biggest problem with defining evil as simply a man-made or psychological problem isn�t because this takes religion out of the loop, so to speak, although that is surely often the motivation for presenting alternative explanations, and doing so may surely provoke knee-jerk defenses from some religious types. The real problem is that it tends to dispense with the idea of people as individually sovereign entities and it spreads a big lie, and that big lie is that there are no such things as absolutes. (Is not the existence of absolutes proven by the contrast between Auswitch and St. Francis?) So if Kekes turns out to be a liberal or leftist, it would make perfect sense. That philosophy prefers the power of the state over the individual. It prefers rationalism over the mystical.

Remember, in all such things we�re almost always talking about balance and reasonableness. It is quite true that if we take psychology, cause-and-effect, and physiology out of the equation and simply label everything as either good or evil that we will likely make things worse. It would serve no purpose (as well as being highly inaccurate) to label a person with epilepsy as evil or demon-possessed. Sincerity is not enough in this world. Good intentions are better than bad intentions, but even good intentions without knowledge and wisdom can lead to evil. On the other hand, we run into complimentary (or worse) evils if we try to explain or interpret every human action as dependent on some other action. This leads to nobody being responsible for anything. It leads, quite literally (as we see in so many people�s responses to radical Islam) to impotence in the face of true evil. It leaves people looking for causes (or at least the wrong source of the causes) instead of looking fascists in the eye and calling them by their name. It leads to viewing people as less than human because we do not even hold them to human standards and that includes the concept of being humane.

Complicating this issue is that we indeed can sometimes draw contrasts or lines in the sand prematurely or without any real need to. But again, there is no substitute for balance, reasonableness and wisdom. To never draw contrasts is to accept and even perpetuate evil. To draw them too starkly and too soon is to perhaps doom a situation that was salvageable, especially with a more Christ-like orientation to the problem. Now the big irony: It is supposedly the religious types who are overzealous, irrational and prone to substituting the irrational for the rational. This, of course, sometimes happens. Is it an inherent institutional liability? I think it is to a certain extent because dealing in faith is dealing in things that often can�t be seen or repeatedly measured as in science. (And, of course, it depends greatly on the founding principles and ideas of a faith.) So you would think that when rational science gets hold of such questions as good and evil that they would not make equal and opposite errors. They are, by nature, supposedly the discipline specifically engineered for balance, reasonableness and wisdom. But what in fact often happens is that they make a worse mess of it. This is so because of the inherent efficacy, and therefore arrogance, of the scientific process. Science just flat-out works and works well -- so well that science thinks it can enter the world of metaphysics, philosophy, ethics, and religion and do the job right, as if these subjects had never really been broached before because , of course, they hadn�t been broached by modern scientists (especially modern leftist scientists).

One�s worldview can greatly enhance or restrict one�s ability to obtain knowledge and wisdom. The modern day (for the most part) willingness of religion (at least Christianity, perhaps especially Catholicism?) to embrace science (and facts and truth and evidence) is to the advantage of the faithful. The often unwillingness of science to embrace the aspects of, or wisdom of, religion is to their deficit.

Thanks for those reflections, Brad. You've shown further how Kekes appears to be as much an ideologist as a scientist looking for answers.

What is our response to life? Why is that response different from an overt loving one? That is to say, I do think many, if not most (perhaps all?) responses could be loving, from a certain point of view, or intention, or when expressed and filtered through layers of �gunk� that we have stored inside. I can, for example, walk up to a caf� in France and ask, honestly and with good intention, for a particular drink by using my own English or my garbled French. And goodness knows what I may get in return. Goodness knows what I actually may have just said in French. Perhaps it was �I would like to slap you upside the head with a bagel, please.� Somehow, after saying that, I don�t get the decaf espresso that I desired. And I�m left curious as to why the vendor is angry with me as well.

When we discern others as evil, the actions we take towards them will seem to flow out of, and be anchored in, righteousness and love. We throw a criminal into prison for his own good and ours. Prison is where he (in theory) can be rehabilitated and learn to not like his loss of freedom. And we then can be safer and will have provided for the safety of our family, community, and neighbors. So it would figure that if we incorrectly discern others as evil, our actions towards them will, to us, seem righteous and loving. Is evil, then, nothing more than very bad information which then leads to actions that are so incongruent with reality (which is, after all, based on love) that we have little choice but to label such actions as evil? But therefore, because of this state of affairs, can we then confidently imagine living in a world made by, and overseen by, an all-loving god?

Note that I�m not saying there aren�t moral absolutes. But I am playing with the idea that, no matter how mixed up we get, we always mean to do something that is good, truthful, and beautiful to us. Thus our powers of discernment, of properly labeling information, can become so twisted, so screwed up that we find ourselves blindly and mistakenly doing the bad, the dishonest, and the ugly in place of the good, the truthful, and the beautiful. And thus all things really can be used by God for the good. Just a thought.

And so the question begs, how do we reliably align ourselves with good if we can be so easily mixed up and confused about what good is?

I heard of a good definition of sin :

Sin is an act or thought which violates HEAVENLY LAW, creating the condition through which one forms a reciprocal base with Satan,
and enters into the give and take relationship with him directly and indirectly.

(Problem is why Satan has so much power.)

contd...
Hope I am not going off the point, you can stop me. Reason I am bugging everyone about this point is 'cause' and 'effect'.

Sins and evil started in the Garden of Eden!!!
To understand nature of evil, I believe we have to understand process of the 'disease'.

It is interesting why there is a tree of knowledge of GOOD and EVIL in the Garden of Eden.

If eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil caused so much suffering, I want to know what kind of tree it is?

By the way , do you know that the chinese word
for the devil /monter is made up of smaller word
representing 2 trees /in the garden/ and a ghost. Probably someone in China had a revelation long time ago.

You give lots of wonderful stuff to consider, iThink. And I think that Chinese word is very intriguing.

�in the Garden of Eden!!!

I think life, iThink, is inherently an analogy of one sort of another. That is to say that I think we're always dealing with inexact suggestions of other things. And these analogies, or symbols, can be small ones or big ones. It can be the word "apple" which surely communicates something of the nature of the object, but not everything. But it's a fairly fine-grained symbol and we only then need to quibble about things such as the type of apple (Gravenstein or Red Delicious), the color, shape, texture, taste, size, etc.

And then there are big and grand symbols such as the Garden of Eden. Anything that exists is an analogy by nature, or a suggestion of some deeper reality. We might no more try to take a bite out of a piece of paper with the word "apple" written on it then we might expect a literal Garden of Eden on earth in a certain place in a certain time. Or we might. It could have been an actual place. I don't know. But to say something is an analogy or symbol I don't think is to diminish it at all. It is, in fact, to perhaps raise it up.

Symbols are everywhere. They're in everything. Just look at our language. It's entirely symbolic. As is our math and even the expression of our politics. All of this must be good and important. We might put on a frown and lament that words and sentences are "inexact" because they are mere symbols or placeholders for some other much more real thing, but we can also take a "glass half full" look and see that much is communicated between us using words. That's truly magical and wonderful, I think. But what we perhaps sense is that something is always left out. Perhaps this is why we so easily (probably correctly) think of god as infinite. We know there are things left unsaid, unexpressed, and un-communicated and it perhaps, very deeply, even unconsciously, occurs to us then that a state of being of "partial communication" could only exist in contrast to a state of being of "total communication". Yes, our words do not express all that we can express. They are symbolic. They are inexact matches for the things they represent. And we, as humans, are finite. What a perfect match between the two, I think. And because this is how we are, this is how I would expect we would be communicated to. In fact, short of entering heaven and there being no distance between Creator and created (and I'm not saying that's the state of affairs�I have no idea), it's inevitable that we're dealing with expressive, suggestive, but always inexact symbols. I think we're truly meant to interpret them, pray on them, to hold them in our hearts, and to hold them in our minds softly.

If eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil caused so much suffering, I want to know what kind of tree it is?

I'm absolutely intrigued by the idea of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There is a distinct and real difference between the lion killing a gazelle (or the cubs of a prospective new mate) and a human being killing another human being in cold blood. We have (are given) a certain level of knowing and awareness that forces moral choices on us. There's no escaping it. And yet, if one believes in evolution (as I do), there was some point in our monkey-lives when this idea was just budding. When it was barely there. But things can usually only be there or not be there. There's no in-between. Ice turns into water at a very specific temperature. It's not a gradual thing. So I would fully and completely expect for there to be such a wonderful symbol as the tree of knowledge of good and evil to mark that threshold, that change of state. And I read that symbol, iThink, not as evil somehow having burst suddenly forth on the scene. But as the beginnings of our ability to understand our calling toward love and goodness and truth and beauty.

iThink (kinda sounds like an Apple software program ), as Brad has noted, the "tree" is symbolic, not a literal plant. It signifies the potential for human beings deciding for themselves what is good and evil instead of working in sync with divine law, as you noted above. Transgressing this boundary introduced judgmentalism into human affairs -- a perversion and distortion of our intellectual power. Now WE are the ones who walk around saying "this is good, that is bad" about all kinds of things and situations that are neither good nor bad. Hence, we have, as the serpent had tempted, become as gods.

Sin is an act or thought which violates HEAVENLY LAW, creating the condition through which one forms a reciprocal base with Satan, and enters into the give and take relationship with him directly and indirectly.

I think that's very well said, although I'd go easy on the "thought" part. Having a thought is one thing, indulging it quite another.

Transgressing this boundary introduced judgmentalism into human affairs -- a perversion and distortion of our intellectual power. Now WE are the ones who walk around saying "this is good, that is bad" about all kinds of things and situations that are neither good nor bad. Hence, we have, as the serpent had tempted, become as gods.

I was going to say that I thought that was a really good piece of analysis, Phil. But then I caught the irony of labeling it in terms of "this is good, that is bad". And I had to laugh. But I love what you said about us labeling things as good or bad that aren't necessarily good or bad, and that in doing so we become as god.

From a strictly Christian point of view, does that mean we failed, that we arrogantly over-stepped our bounds and tried to become gods? Or is there perhaps another message that we've been given sort of god-like powers and duties and are expected to learn to use them well?

Phil:

Your distinction between thoughts and sin via engagement of will sounds really crucial; otherwise, the effort to consent to God can generate a lot of false piety, or spiritual pride, which is often worse, and more debilitating, than the original pain we resist. So I'd like to hear you elaborate on what you mean by indulging a thought as it leads to sin, from a Catholic perspective.

My understanding is that, from the Catholic perspective, sin doesn't reside in either thought or emotion, but arises within intention at some point or another. For instance, right now I'm aware of grieving and letting go of painful feelings re: the loss of a long-term friendship. These feelings include sadness and anger, and when I don't feel them and let them go, they tend to become resentment, pride, arrogance, etc . . . The sin is in harboring ill-will toward this person, but I can still feel an underlying care for him. I would never harm him, but there are times when the anger is strong, and instead of feeling the underlying sadness, or softness of heart, it becomes resentment. That much I consider sin, but I know I'm working through it, becoming more honest about the sadness, and feeling both the desire to accept him as he is, and also how limited I am in virture to live this fully.

So it seems unfortunate to become overly focused on sin. I'm so much more aware of how sinful I am these days, but it is actually a relief as it seems much more real, which leaves me feeling sad, not so much ashamed. And isn't it often shame that drives us to not sin, rather than imperfect love and faith leading us gradually to "Thy will be done?"

Another experience related to the disposition of the will is how anger, if I just feel it in my body and let it live there and unfold as sensation, while letting go of the internal dialogue which turns it into resentment, allows that anger to not only dissolve into sadness, but become a kind of generous feeling of aliveness that one would never expect to have arisen from sadness or anger alone. This would be an example of intentionally being with the thoughts and emotions as my own responsibilty, and although I don't do this all the time, it does seem like something short of sin when I'm able to tend the inner states like this. And so it's possible to have anger and other feelings, and their accompanying thoughts, without sin occuring, although separating from the true self in this way is almost bound to happen - which leads back to knowing when we are being overly fastidious about our clay feet.

. . . . . . it seems as though the body is partly capable of transmuting passion into true- self embodiments, and the fact that it can't do this perfectly reveals original sin, where the will cannot, under its own power, maintain this state continually. For instance . . . .

Lust is almost always defined as passion with an object, usually an image or another person as an image/object. Reverence for the person has been lost. There is, of course, a false-self version of reverence, which is cheap and full of arrogance and terrified of its own passion. My experience so far is that when I allow lust to unfold its wantings within body awareness, it eventually returns to this state of reverence where no object is needed. At first there is the sexual wanting for a woman, then as that is allowed in awareness, the wanting becomes something else, like the wanting to be wanted, which leads to the wanting to be ravished, then cherished, loved, etc. Eventually it is discovered to have been, all along, the wanting to give and receive love, and it may no longer even involve a sexual-genital dimension. Energetically it usually feels like denser energy in the lower part of my body melting inside the chest; this happens less than 50% of the time, getting stuck somewhere along a spectrum of openness to feeling awareness, where the fear of vulnerability overcomes my capacity to intentionally be with something inside the lust, most of the time, loneliness.

And so it would seem that sin (not the original state of separation disposing us to the struggle) has much to do with fear of wanting, where what we really want, at base, is essentially good, and were we to know this experentially we'd be less resistant to the experiences we have and more genuinely open. We are resisting something that in-and-of-itself isn't sinful; its distortion actually conceals natural grace, or the ancient memory of congruence with transcendental grace.

I'd hope this dynamic I'm trying to describe partly captures what Catholic theologians mean when they say man, while losing his likeness to God, still retains His image. Our wills are capable of limited, but significant consent, maybe along the lines of Thomists saying there is a "natural non-repugnance of the soul" toward transcendental grace.

The nature of evil is an interesting thing to contemplate. And when I say that I think it�s unlikely that there is a realm of demons and whatnot, it is not that I have a Pollyanish vision of things by any means. I have looked directly into the eyes of The Beast and know that rage and hunger only too well, but mostly in other people. Thankfully, for whatever reason, I�ve been spared the worst of that. But I know that Beast. I know that it wants to strike out and consume. But the difference is, I see that merely as an exaggerated or misplaced impulse to live, grow, and thrive. To exist is to want to continue existing. To have been harmed is to want to protect oneself. To have hunger is to have the need to consume. And it is in the balancing and ordering of these things that I think we activate love and our Christ-like nature. But I do believe that, bottom line, all those hungers are not perversions of some perfect state that we started in. They are our god-given impulses and directives. It�s as if we were born with chain saws on the ends of both arms (Edward Scissorhand style) and need to somehow learn to carve a delicate sculpture out of soapstone.]

But that, I think, is precisely our mission. Our mission, in part, is to be precise. And I think part of that precision is moving toward a better understanding of good and evil, even if that flies in the face of religious tradition and doctrine, for I do not think these things can be without error if they have come through man (and woman), revealed or not. I do think we are approaching the day when we must, so to speak, put aside some of the training wheels of our religions and fly on our own a bit more. And I think if would be highly advantageous to all of humanity to put aside the good/evil paradigm in regards to religion (but not in regards to civil law). I think religion should focus on the good and I don�t think this is as fully achieved by tales of demons and the devil, as tempting and easy as that is in a world sometimes full of craziness and pain.

I have been touched by that Beast. I have been shaken to the foundation of my being by that Beast. I have looked, and continue sometimes to look, into the eyes of that Beast. I know it well, I think. And what it desires is to be fed love, but it doesn�t know how to get that so it strikes out. Demons don�t, by definition, I think, desire love. But all the Beasts I have ever encountered do. And, if they don�t kill you first, they will respond to love.

Brad, with all due respect, you make some very fine points here concerning the presence of evil within and how one can deal with it. But it would seem that a little more agnosticism on your part would be in order concerning the matter of demons, fallen angels, etc.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6: 12-13).

If you ever come across these face to face, you will know the difference between them and your own inner shadow side, which can indeed seem foreign and hostile, at times.

In 1975, the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took up this matter and gave the topic a serious examination in the light of modern theological and psychological studies. The conclusion was published in Christian Faith and Demonology, which you can find online in a number of places. It re-affirmed the Church's (and apparently Christ's as well) traditional conviction of the existence of a realm of spiritual beings in opposition to God's reign headed by Satan, the prince of the fallen angels. It also indicated that human evil is not always to be understood in terms of demonic influence, but that the two can interact, and often do.

Brad:

FWIW, you are describing things just as I did when first introduced to inner/archetypal work. I thought evil was just a figment of unconscious projection. But having spent the past 10 years doing this sort of inner work, almost daily, along the lines of Focusing and meditation, it is increasingly clear the two are not the same. Saying this, of course, means nothing, and nobody would wish such an encounter upon you. The darkness of the subconscious material unfolds as one's own hidden longing, whereas evil is entirely "other," and thoroughly destructive i.e, not open or responsive to loving attention as the subconscious is, and has no quality of the self in it.

But for you to know this one way or the other, IMO, would require stepping out of the theoretical realm and taking up inner work seriously, probably in a therapeutic environment.

Following up my post above by referencing this link, which has a nice discussion drawn from the CDF document I mentioned. Notice how very well nuanced it is:
- http://www.catholicculture.org..._view.cfm?recnum=837

BTW, I'm not sure why this thread is in Religion and Politics, so I'm transferring it to the theology forum. I went looking for it there earlier and had to do a search to finally track it down here.

It re-affirmed the Church's (and apparently Christ's as well) traditional conviction of the existence of a realm of spiritual beings in opposition to God's reign headed by Satan, the prince of the fallen angels. It also indicated that human evil is not always to be understood in terms of demonic influence, but that the two can interact, and often do.

I thank you for pointing out the Church�s position, Phil. I do indeed find that helpful and constructive for my life and for my thinking, just as I do reading what other renowned Christians have to say about such things. But in many cases I simply disagree with the Church�s position (and with those writers), even while finding many areas of agreement. And the nature of evil is one of those instances.

FWIW, you are describing things just as I did when first introduced to inner/archetypal work. I thought evil was just a figment of unconscious projection. But having spent the past 10 years doing this sort of inner work, almost daily, along the lines of Focusing and meditation, it is increasingly clear the two are not the same.

Hmm, WC. Again, I don�t think one simply has to say that the other is resorting to psychological hocus pocus if one disagrees with doctrine, although I do readily admit that I think there is a psychological component to this (which is not even to say that this is a bad thing since psychology is one of our god-given ways of relating to the universe). One might simply have other doctrine in mind. I think god is good and that creation is good. And instead of Original Sin, I see our appetites as good, but our wisdom in using them is necessarily limited because we are not all-knows gods. There is no need for a Fall. What I think there is is a Rise, a climb.

The darkness of the subconscious material unfolds as one's own hidden longing, whereas evil is entirely "other," and thoroughly destructive i.e, not open or responsive to loving attention as the subconscious is, and has no quality of the self in it.

I guess I�ll just relate back to that other "Seeker" thread and mention that I approach the quantifying and naming of spiritual things quite conservatively. We�re simply down to what you feel is some evil thing that has no capacity to respond to love and what I think about such things. And then we�ll both give our own or other�s examples. And we might even also acknowledge the highly subjective nature of these examples and about the human ability to find what it expects to find. And where will that get us? Well, probably nowhere. Which is why I try to state what I think and why I think it. It has to make sense to me. And a find a lot of things starting to make good sense to me, and one of those things is most definitely not the traditional demons and devils idea.

I am breaking my promise of never posting with out reading the entire thread first, but I want to share a very mythical sort of dream I had about evil a long time ago, and see if it might shed some light on it. By the way Phil, I had this dream while living at ALC, after some really deep prayer in the chapel:

I was merely a non-physical observer in this dream. Good and Evil are personified as charicatures, like a cartoon:

Good has long, flowing white beard and looks like your typical child-like picture of God, or maybe Gandalf.

Evil is more like a cave man, all-hunched over, with nothing but loin cloth, mangled hair, dry rough skin, dirty, sort of hobbling away in shame and anger with his back toward Good.

Evil turns his head towards God, and very angrily says out of the side of his mouth:
Why don't you leave me alone, you hate me , you just want to get rid of me"

And Good lovingly and calmly replies back,
"I don't hate you, I love you, you just won't let me"

I realize this may be a very simple representation of evil, yet it does reflect the whole story of the fallen angels.And I have never had any experiences of evil forces, so maybe my own expereince of it is a very simple one. A friend of mine conducts a dream circle where we share our dreams and compare the dreams to what is going on in the dreamers astrological chart. The symbolic correlations are very interesting..almost every time.

Pauline

And I have never had any experiences of evil forces, so maybe my own expereince of it is a very simple one.

You brought up something I wanted to say, Pauline, and it was regarding subjectivity. Thankfully my dreams have mostly stopped (at least I assume this is a good thing), but I�ve been peppered with dreams for quite some time, any one of which I have the feeling (from comparing notes with others) would have probably been considered a quite traumatic nightmare. That�s a subjective evaluation, I know. And nor am I trying to bolster my arguments from the standpoint of authority. If someone else thinks they�re encountered demonic forces, well, I seriously doubt it, but you never know. But I just wanted to say that I�ve had some considerable experience, in reality and in the nether world, with various impressions of forces and energies. And as I bring my heart to god and feel the confusion, pain, and distress dissolving toward love, I see no hint of evil but of love unfulfilled and/or unrequited be me at times, at worst.

If I had to put my money on it, I would say that demons and devils result from the sublime feelings that we may experience from even small glimpses we are given of the awesome nature of reality and the forces involved. And sublime, I think, is one of those words which describes something that is both beautiful but also so powerful that we also respond in fear. And if we split these two I think we get god and devils. And being limited creatures, I think it�s very easy for us to do so. But I�m open to further enlightenment on this subject. Like I said, I plan praying about it and I�ll let you know if anything becomes clearer for me.

It's always interesting to see how people consider their personal experiences and opinions to be a corrective of 4,000 years of divine revelation and two millennia of Christian experience and reflection. What might we call that, now? Hmmm . . .

I'm TOTALLY DONE trying to discuss this topic. It now joins Original Sin, The Fall, and Gay Marriage as discussion topics that I feel have been covered ad nauseum and ad absurdum.