Good and Evil

In a nutshell, Bahá’ís believe that there is a power of good but no power of evil. Evil is the absence of good just as darkness is of light, cold is of heat, and ignorance is of understanding. The ancient myths (see) about Satan and the like are not to be understood literally, but rather are symbolic portrayals of the human ego that leads us to rebel against God and commit harmful acts against ourselves and others.

The purpose of our existence is to gradually develop the divine qualities of love, compassion, humility, truthfulness, excellence, etc. in our own soul, which we achieve through study, prayer, reflection, service to others, and the grace of God. This process will continue after this life, through infinite worlds in an eternal quest after the Source and Purpose of all. Heaven and hell exist in each of those infinite worlds, being not so much places as states of the soul: realizing our closeness to our Beloved, or our remoteness from Him.

A sister of mine said, "If there is no evil, then there is no sin", and we do not believe there is none, but that it is the absence of good and does not arise from a Force of Evil (such an Anti-God would be inconsistent with the concept of the Oneness of God), just as shadows are the absence of light and not from a source of darkness. I agree that the ego/devil is very tricky, and that one of its best deceptions is to make people believe that it isn't a problem, and that it might actually be a strength. I also agree that eternal life is an undeserved gift from God, that sin is like a disease that endangers that gift of life, and that "sin is anything that separates us from God" and "anything that hurts someone else" (or ourselves).

One of my brothers said: “The question is, is a natural disaster the absence of good? Or is it evil? Or is it god's will? What about a murderous rampage. Evil? The absence of good? Or god's will?”

I think you can't ask if something is good or bad without adding the word "for". Everything I can think of is good for some things and bad for others. As a matter of fact, I would go even further than that and ask "in comparison to what?" Because some things are better or worse for certain purposes than others, and most times you have to strike a compromise between two "goods” or choose the lesser of two evils. Fundamentalism, however, tends to go for the extremes and get very antsy when you start touching on the gray areas in between.

Given this premise, then what could a natural disaster be good or bad for? Forest fires are an essential part of the ecosystem, although some living beings may be burnt by them, and controlled burning achieves the same purpose with less risk. Earthquakes are vital signs of Planet Earth's organic life, and the longer they are put off the harder they hit, but some are invariably harmed by them and building technology is used to compensate.

Also, the human suffering caused by natural disasters is good for the spiritual maturation of those who experience them, as they tend to put the really important things into clearer perspective and bring people together, but only insofar as the sufferer receives the event with the appropriate attitude. They all follow natural laws and are thus expressions of God's Will if we accept Baha'u'llah's premise that "the laws of nature are God's Will as expressed on the physical plane". Furthermore, the Creator has endowed us with the capacity of reason whereby we can compensate some of the negative effects by protecting ourselves and also protecting Earth from itself as its custodian, correcting and avoiding ecological diseases like deserts and extinction, and from outside threats like large meteorites or ice masses.

As for a murderous rampage, I think violence, along with the rising crime rate, drug abuse, sexual license, overeating, etc. are signs/symptoms of underlying social/spiritual diseases. Are signs/symptoms good? In the sense that they inform us of the presence of an underlying disorder, they are, although they may hurt and it would be better to detect and treat the disease earlier on. What would be bad would be to treat only the signs/symptoms and not the underlying disease, or worse yet to dismiss them entirely, as many are doing these days.

Some lifted their eyebrows at my use of the term "ancient myth" in reference to the story of Lucifer, to which I answered that the use of the term was not meant to make the story of Satan "seem archaic and silly". The fact (and sometimes facts hurt) is that it IS ancient, being probably older than both Abraham and Moses (the former having no textual words of His own in the Old Testament, and the latter having only the 10 commandments and a short prayer as His textual words, and all the rest being compiled long afterwards).

It also is a myth in the technical sense of the word, which does not mean a lie told to our forefathers, as the common use of the term would have us believe, but rather an analogical story passed from generation to generation for the purpose of symbolically representing a concept through concrete images, which could not have been adequately portrayed in abstract terms, especially not to the illiterate, uneducated masses of the time. There is a growing literature on the importance and use of myths, in both ancient and modern times. For example, George Lucas, the author of "Star Wars" stated that the series was written to be a much-needed modern myth.

My own research has lead me to conclude that each World Religion in turn has been the Medicine needed for the social/spiritual disorders of its time. In each era the disease is different, so the Medicine must also vary. That is why each Prophet/Physician has adapted His message to the needs of the time, for example, at one stage talking about a real Satan, and at another time explaining that he is a symbol for the human ego, once saying "slay the other tribes" (Moses) and later saying "turn the other cheek" (Jesus), once saying "overthrow oppressive governments" (Muhammad) and later saying "obey the government" (Bahá'u'lláh).

Although often we in our short-sightedness have been unaware of why these Prescriptions were given, trust in the Prophet's long-sightedness and wisdom, and love for Him, have lead to obedience, which has enabled the Medicine to take its desired effect, while disobedience has invariably deepened the disorder and/or delayed healing. This is not a subjective matter of blind faith, but rather is an objective phenomenon that can be observed repeatedly throughout human history.

I am still ruminating on a brother-in-law’s comments on Luke 4:1-11. I think that if Jesus was alone in His retreat, He was the only one who knew what really happened, and must have later explained a spiritual reality to His disciples in the simple, concrete, more understandable form of a parable, as was His custom, in order to teach them (and especially the leaders of the religious/political order to be built up centuries later in His Name) an important lesson.

May I enthusiastically second the following: "It is not likely that a God who we of Faith believe to be the loving Creator of all, should have created man with a fatal weakness, and then created a super-being (devil) to exploit that weakness..." and might I add "...and then condemned man to such an excruciating punishment for all of eternity for having once failed the test against such tremendous odds during such a short life-span!" This should be proof enough to a believer that there is far more to the symbols of "devil" and "hell" than first meet the eye!