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From: anonymous@hmivax.humgen.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Question?
Message-ID: <Jun.9.15.31.01.1991.25732@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 91 19:31:02 GMT
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Organization: Society of Independent Newswaifs
Lines: 52
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

In article <Jun.6.23.10.49.1991.8344@athos.rutgers.edu>, ogorman@unix1.tcd.ie writes:
> hi.
> a question.
> if god is the first cause, and if our conception with regard to his
> character is correct (i.e. that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and good)
> and if we believe that god is love, then since satan (the devil,
> whatever you like) was brought into existence by god he must have been
> good. totally good since god could not create evil. if so then how could
> he be corrupted? indeed how could evil exist if god did not create it?
> 
Tough question, indeed!  Recently, however, I was reading Dorothy L. Sayers's
_The Mind of the Maker_ (New York:  Harper and Row, 1979) -- a wonderful book 
which would probably interest every Christian artist -- and she puts forth one 
of the most comprehensible answers to the problem I've ever encountered.  I'm 
going to take the risk of quoting a few relevant paragraphs from the chapter 
"Maker of All Things -- Maker of Ill Things" (95-107).  To forestall flamage, I
wish to emphasize that these quotations do not represent Sayers' entire
argument, and if anybody wants to quarrel with them, I suggest they read the
chapter -- or, preferably, the whole book (it's short) -- first.  Anyway:

  "Shakespeare writes _Hamlet_.  That act of creation enriches the world with a
new category of Being, namely: _Hamlet_.  But simultaneously it enriches the
world with a new category of Not-Being, namely:  Not-Hamlet.  Everything other
than _Hamlet_, to the farthest bounds of the universe, acquires in addition to
its former characteristics, the characteristic of being Not-Hamlet; the whole
of the past immediately and automatically becomes Not-Hamlet. . . . 
  Arguing along these lines, we may make an attempt to tackle the definition of
Evil as the deprivation or negation of the the Good.  If Evil belongs to the
category of Not-Being, then two things follow.  First:  the reality of Evil is
contingent on the reality of Good; and secondly:  the Good, by merely
occurring, automatically and inevitably creates its corresponding Evil.  In
this sense, therefore, God, Creator of all things, creates Evil as well as
Good, because the creation of a category of Good necessarily creates a category
of Not-Good.  From this point of view, those who say that God is "beyond Good
and Evil" are perfectly right:  He transcends both, because both are included
within His Being.  But the Evil has no reality except in relation to His Good;
and this is what is meant by saying that Evil is negation or deprivation of
Good.
  But we have not quite finished with our Hamlet example.  So long as Not-Being
remains negative or inactive, it produces no particular effects, harmful or
otherwise.  But if Not-Hamlet becomes associated with consciousness and will,
we get something which is not merely Not-Hamlet:  we get Anti-Hamlet.  Someone
has become aware of his Not-Hamletness, and this awareness becomes a center of
will and of activity.  The creative will, free and active like God, is able to
will Not-Being into Being, and thus produce an Evil which is no longer negative
but positive."  (Sayers 101-102)

************************************************************************
* Liz Broadwell (broadwel@penndrls.upenn.edu) *                        *
* Department of English                       * Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam *
* The University of Pennsylvania              *                        *
************************************************************************