THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Victor Bloom MD

The problem of evil is the biggest problem facing the world today. In the world of philosophy it is the heaviest argument against the existence of a good and loving God, One who loves the humans to whom He gave life, consciousness, feelings, reasoning ability and the 'gift' of free choice. The naturalists, who only believe in the existence of the objective world, argue with the supernaturalists, who believe in the existence of the soul, the spirit, heaven and hell. The arguments go back and forth, in which each side brings forth either 'evidence' of His goodness or evidence of the existence of evil.

The religionists argue in effect, that God didn't promise us a rose garden. The story of creation is that He made the universe, the earth and the Garden of Eden, but that because Adam and Eve tasted the apple, they were cast out of The Garden, and for their disobedience, all their descendents would know pain and suffering, shame and work. It is an allegory about being a child and growing up. If you are good and remain obedient children, you will be well taken care of, but if you want to decide for yourself what is right and wrong, you will stumble and fall. And so what happened is called The Fall of Man and Original Sin.

The theologians argue that God, in all His wisdom, created a complete world, not an incomplete one, and that means there has to be a dark side, so that man can choose between Good and Evil. And so He created the Devil to tempt us, and we are supposed to be good and strong, have faith, and resist the Devil's influence. And as the joke goes, when we have done wrong, chosen to do wrong, "The Devil made me do it." And so we deny responsibility. The church fathers preach that we ultimately cannot avoid responsibility for our words and actions, and so we find ways to be forgiven and try ever harder to be good. Life experience teaches us that much as we try, we rarely succeed.

Recent history is full of horrors. In Nazi Germany, 'good' Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, turned on their neighbors and killed them. Somehow, in spite of religious education and church attendance, a whole nation and a large part of the European continent became murderers and collaborators. Some clerics aided and abetted the mass murder of undesirables and the escape of Nazi war criminals to havens in South America. To stop the evil influence of the Axis powers, the Allies had to destroy enemy capitals and unleash the atomic bomb. After the fascists came the communist enemy, those who would destroy our way of life. And now our enemy is the evil of fanatic Muslim fundamentalist terror, which cannot tolerate Western Civilization's enlightenment, scientific development and secularism, a free way of life which encourages pluralism and allows religious choice. The fanatics cannot abide Western infidel presence in the Middle East, near their sacred sites.

There was an evil influence within Andrea Yates who thought she was delivering her children to God. The pedophile priests who betrayed their faith and the respect of parishioners were evil, as were the bishops who hid the facts and transferred them elsewhere, putting their trust in the power of faith, prayer and the grace of God.

The fact is that there is much more evil which is hidden and denied within the family constellation. The errors of the priests and bishops and the suffering of their victims pale into insignificance when we consider the evils perpetrated everyday by parents on their own children. There is no end to examples of fathers molesting their young children by violating their bodily boundaries, and mothers telling their daughters they are ugly, stupid and wicked. Psychiatrists know this from daily experience.

We deal with the effects of evil daily. This is why people tell me at dinner parties--- "I don't know how you can stand having to listen to the problems people bring you, day after day." Somehow, they know. In order to help victims of abuse, and they are everywhere to be found--- across all socio-economic, ethnic and religious lines and throughout all intellectual levels. In order to be helped, our patients must be open and honest and tell all the truth, where otherwise their world is filled with lies and denials and the evil scars remain buried in the unconscious, producing manifold varieties of stress and incapacity.

The problem of evil is this. I don't know how it got started or whether God had anything to do with it, but it is clear that religion is not the answer, psychoanalysis is not the answer, education, politics and the law do not contain the answers, prayer is not the answer, and neither are fundamentalism or secularism. Science and the arts give us insights, but not answers either.

Evil is part of the human condition, and there is no answer except to never stop trying to be decent and rational, humane and civilized, strivings which comprise the backbone of all civilizations and religions. We still don't know why people do not practice what they preach, why we cannot love our neighbors, why the Golden Rule is not uppermost in everyone's mind at all times. The problem of evil is a mystery.

Recent readings and introspection have revealed the following insight--- Evil is based on infantile urges. The infant is completely narcissistic and selfish, only knowing its own feelings and needs, and does not really care about anyone or anything else. We all carry our infantile experiences in our memory banks, in our neural networks, hardwired as a computer system. Adulthood is a struggle against giving in to infantile

neediness, the basis of greed, and greediness, based on excessive need. The adult challenge is for adult reason and morality to overcome the barbarian savage within us.

Adult reason is the software that moderates and modulates the hardware. Life is a struggle.