음과 양, 선과 악을 하나의 체계로 포함시켰던 웅대한 동양철학의 세계관에 비해 열등하지만, 악을 '선의 결핍'으로 묘사하며, 자유의지라는 더 큰 선을 위해서 하느님이 허용한 것이라는 식으로 애매모호하게 넘겨짚는 성 어거스틴 C.S. 루이스의 기독교 사상 - 사실 선과 악이 두 개의 다른 세계라고 말하면 하느님의 열등함을 인정하는 것이 되고, 선과 악 중 한쪽의 다른 쪽에 대한 우위성을 주장해도 하느님의 결핍을 드러내는 것이다 - 인간들이 악이라고 부르는 것 역시 하느님의 속성이라는 사실을 솔직하게 인정해야 철학적 진전을 이룰 수 있다; 해서, 어리석은 기독교인들은 헤르만 헤세의 소설들을 읽어야 하는 것이다

 

The Culturist 

3d

What is evil? How do we define it?

C.S. Lewis wrestled with this question for years, before coming to a surprising conclusion.

He started with the premise that our universe contains much that is bad, and there are creatures living in it (like us) who understand what it means to be bad.

How can this be? There are two potential explanations…

Option 1 is Dualism: good and evil exist as independent forces in some kind of eternal, spiritual war. Neither created the other, and both presumably "think" they are in the right.

But if both sides equally believe they are right, how do we define one of them as evil, without doing so arbitrarily? To agree that one is "better" than the other, you need to introduce a third entity: a universal moral standard.

Lewis observed that goodness can be pursued for its own sake, but nobody enjoys being bad simply for its badness. Even the cruelest sadist chases a certain pleasure — pleasure is still a good, only sought in the wrong way.

This led him to option 2: we inhabit a good world gone wrong. Evil is defined in relation to the standard of goodness:

In order to be bad he must have good things to want and then to pursue them in the wrong way.

He therefore came to the position that evil is a kind of parasite. It can only exist because good exists, in the same sense that a hole in the ground can exist only because the ground is there first.

Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

For something to be bad, it must have intelligence and will, but intelligence and will are fundamentally good things. They have been stolen from that which is good.

And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for children. It is a real recognition that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil are given to it by goodness. All the things which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things—resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself.

This is, of course, an ancient idea that we read in Augustine: “all which is corrupted is deprived of good”. Evil, in this understanding, is a privation, and it can only arise out of free choice.

But if ultimate goodness does exist, then why should it allow for free choice if the result is so much suffering?

Lewis continues:

Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.