Question 8.131

8.131 What is evil, actually?

God is love and freedom. He leaves everyone free to love him or not; his love constrains no one. Evil is therefore the opposite of God, whatever is contrary to him. Saint John writes that evil is fundamentally a struggle against God. Our Father is the supreme good, and evil is in every respect what God is not.

What are the roots of evil? I think that it comes from the ability of each created being to make a free decision for good or for evil. According to revelation, evil comes from the Evil One, from Satan, who rebelled against God and tempted our “first parents” to turn away from God’s will. Evil is fundamentally a rebellion against God, against good, and against love.

Paradoxically, while no one wants evil, we do not hesitate to cooperate with it. Saint Paul, who was seeking to reject evil, exclaimed (Rom 7:14-20, 24): “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In the Letter to the Romans, the apostle thus describes in particularly realistic terms the struggle within every man. We are not unaware that something is forbidden; yet we sin. Indeed, the prohibition itself does not prevent sin, quite the contrary. Everything happens as though the law itself aroused the desire to transgress it.

Finally, evil can be defined by its relation to good. Without God, sin has no full meaning, because then it is impossible to appreciate in a truly certain way the nature of good or of evil. This is the tragedy of contemporary man. If man becomes a god, he plunges into a pitch-black night in which values have no meaning, since good and evil no longer exist. Mankind could thus be lost in a sort of chaos, because without a boundary between good and evil, the foundations of justice are dangerously erased.

In the divine plan, evil remains a great mystery for us. After our death, we will be able to understand many things that are difficult to accept here below.