[Eng-Esp] Evil, an eternal problem || El mal, problema eterno

A few weeks ago one of the members of our community raised a problem that in one way or another has always been present and will always be present in the history of mankind, it is the eternal problem of the existence of evil, specifically the reason for its existence.

This is a problem that can be approached from various perspectives. From a philosophical-theological point of view, it is manifested in all its crudeness, since if God exists and allows evil, He is an evil god, which is incompatible with the quality of goodness that should prevail in Him, and if God exists but cannot prevent it, then He is not Almighty, another quality that should not be absent in Him.

In the first place, let us pose the problem from a philosophical point of view and let us say that in itself everything that exists has goodness, which can be corrupted in time. In the case of the human being, this is evident, since the structure of his being enables him to choose and carry out the good, however, he can also choose evil, and it is here where he is corrupted, it is something similar to what Rousseau said that man is good by nature, unlike him we complete the sentence saying not that society corrupts him but that this goodness of his being is corrupted by the bad decisions that each one takes.

Let us give a crude but quite graphic example of what we want to express: for a serial killer his first victims may be difficult for him, however, as he increases his number of acts he does everything even "for pleasure", and the inner goodness of his being has been corrupted.

The problem of evil is closely linked to the problem of human freedom, each one is the master of his life, of his being, and chooses how he wants to fulfill his existence. The particularity of this is that by doing evil we can believe that we are doing good (even if it is merely selfish), that is why we said that evil is "the corruption of good".

Now let us move on to consider the problem from a theological point of view, and we will discover that if we profess that God created the world and the human being within it, or as Christianity says, created us in His "image and likeness" this implies that he made us with the capacity to think and choose.

The way in which each one of us exercises these capacities is the reason for the existence of evil because sometimes we do not consider the things we do and we can cause evil by ignorance (when, for example, we take attitudes that others consider offensive and we do not), recklessness (how many accidents we have had in the past), recklessness (how many accidents we have had in the past, how many accidents we have had in the past, how many accidents we have had in the past). recklessness (how many accidents have this in common) or freedom (when we voluntarily choose to do evil).

Evil comes from the human being, I like to say that it is "the risk of love" that God took when He created us because without freedom none of us would have the merit to do good works. The choice of good or evil is something that is presented to all of us and is rooted in the very fact of God's creation, who did not make us robots but rational beings with the capacity to do good freely and not by coercion, just as He, the Supreme Good, is free in all his actions.

The question that can be raised here is then if God created man who does evil, is He in any way the cause of it? No, since among all the possibilities that life presents us with, it is we ourselves who choose what to do, it is precisely this that makes us develop as persons, it is the power that He Himself has willed us to put in our hands, assuming the risks that this entails.

To conclude, let us turn our attention to the memory of history, which also teaches us how it is from the man that evil originates. Auschwitz, Nazi concentration camps, wars, etc., are all products of human beings making their choice for evil deeds. One of the most striking proofs of these very facts is how even in the midst of these atrocities we find testimonies of people who remained with inner strength and protected their best until the end. Here we have examples such as the priest Maximilian Kolve, the philosopher Viktor Frankl and even science fiction tell us this with classic movies such as "Life is Beautiful".

The very death of God in Jesus Christ also teaches us how evil is a product of human beings. Indeed, who made the nails that crucified him? The cross where he was hung? The crown of thorns that was put on him? On the other hand, who raised him up and gave him new life? Because the other side of the coin in the problem of evil is that God has the power to bring something good and beautiful out of evil, as a biblical verse says "God works in all things for the good of those who love him" (Rom 8:28).

Thank you very much for having accompanied me in the reading of this post, wishing you always the best and that we can meet again in the next publication, I say goodbye, see you later.