What is the Scriptural Definition of Evil?

LearningToLetGo

LearningToLetGo

I just happened to run across this verse in the Genesis 8 thread:

"And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." (Genesis 8:21 AKJV)

This got me thinking, "what is the definition of 'evil' within a scriptural context?"
 
Hello LearningToLetGo, I can think of at least two common types of "evil" that are found in the Bible, one moral, the other physical. Confusion of the two has led to problems over the years, like the one that we find with the KJV translation of this passage from Isaiah.

Isaiah 45 (KJV)​
6c I am the LORD, and there is none else.​
7 I form the light, and create darkness:​
I make peace, and create evil:​
I the LORD do all these things.​
​
Isaiah 45 (NASB)​
6c I am the LORD, and there is no other, ​
7 The One forming light and creating darkness, ​
Causing well-being and creating calamity; ​
I am the LORD who does all these. ​

The immediate context helps us understand that the Lord is not referring to Himself as the creator of "moral" evil here (as does the rest of the Bible, of course .. e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:13; James 1:13-15), but again, this has been/is an ongoing point of contention.

God bless you!!

--Papa Smurf
p.s. - I almost always recommend GotQuestions.org as a place to go to grab a quick Biblical/theological answer to a question and/or to begin a more in-depth study of a topic or a passage. I believe this is true in this case as well, so go here if you'd care to check out what they have to say. In the meantime, here is an excerpt from their article.

"Essentially, evil is a lack of goodness. Moral evil is not a physical thing; it is a lack or privation of a good thing. As Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland has noted, “Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.” Or as Christian apologist Greg Koukl has said, “Human freedom was used in such a way as to diminish goodness in the world, and that diminution, that lack of goodness, that is what we call evil.”​
.​
 
There are probably a number of ways to describe evil. The best I can come up with is anything against God or narcissistic selfish desire. That covers most evil. Galatians 5 has a good list right before the fruit of the Spirit. In this case, evil could be defined as works of the flesh:

Galatians 5:
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
 
And then there is 1 Timothy 6:

9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.


I tend to go with selfishness as the definition of evil. All evil tends to boil down to selfishness in some way. This is Satan's downfall as well, desiring to be higher than God.
 
LearningToLetGo said:
I need to think about this.
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Moose and croosnote gave what I would agree with. You might also consider that anything that contradicts the holy nature of God is evil (Psalms 51:4 indicates that).

On the flip side, the Bible also says any disaster, tragedy, or calamity can also be called an “evil”.

Now if we just sit and thin about this we can I think agree that essentially, evil is a lack of goodness.

Moral evil is not a physical thing; it is a lack or privation of a good thing.

That is how you can have ..."You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good."

As Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland has noted,.......
“Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.”

Or as Christian apologist Greg Koukl has said,................
“Human freedom was used in such a way as to diminish goodness in the world, and that diminution, that lack of goodness, that is what we call evil.”
 
Major said:
As Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland has noted,.......
“Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.”
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There is a difference between "lack of goodness" and "goodness spoiled". Lack of goodness is not goodness, whereas goodness spoiled is still goodness. For analogy, "lack of meat" is not meat but "meat spoiled" is still meat, it's just meat that has become poison.

To have (describe) a thing one must know its boundaries. We can define a boundary between good and not-good and make evil a synonym for not-good. However, if we only have good there is no boundary. Without not-good, good itself is meaningless.
 
Papa Smurf said:
Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland has noted, “Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.”
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LearningToLetGo said:
I need to think about this.
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LearningToLetGo said:
There is a difference between "lack of goodness" and "goodness spoiled". Lack of goodness is not goodness, whereas goodness spoiled is still goodness. For analogy, "lack of meat" is not meat but "meat spoiled" is still meat, it's just meat that has become poison.
Click to expand...

Returning to this idea of evil being a lack of goodness or a 'spoiled' goodness. The more I think about it, the more it seems that evil is less the opposite of good and more a poorly implemented good.

For example, few people describe themselves as evil yet many people act in a manner that brings forth evil. Adulterers, liars, thieves and murderers each have their justifications for their actions. In their own minds -- rightfully or wrongly -- they justify their actions. They don't see themselves as evil but rather victims of some oppressive system.

What does this mean? Well, we all attempt to be good. We all attempt to do good but fail to one degree or another. We don't set out to do evil. We set out to do good but we implement our good poorly and achieve evil instead. Poorly implemented good is 'spoiled' good. It's still good, but it's good that has become poison to us, just as spoiled meat is still meat yet also poison.

So good and evil are not opposites. Rather, evil is an artifact of failed good.

What then is the opposite of good? I don't know! This is a strange place to find myself...
 
LearningToLetGo said:
Returning to this idea of evil being a lack of goodness or a 'spoiled' goodness. The more I think about it, the more it seems that evil is less the opposite of good and more a poorly implemented good.

For example, few people describe themselves as evil yet many people act in a manner that brings forth evil. Adulterers, liars, thieves and murderers each have their justifications for their actions. In their own minds -- rightfully or wrongly -- they justify their actions. They don't see themselves as evil but rather victims of some oppressive system.

What does this mean? Well, we all attempt to be good. We all attempt to do good but fail to one degree or another. We don't set out to do evil. We set out to do good but we implement our good poorly and achieve evil instead. Poorly implemented good is 'spoiled' good. It's still good, but it's good that has become poison to us, just as spoiled meat is still meat yet also poison.

So good and evil are not opposites. Rather, evil is an artifact of failed good.

What then is the opposite of good? I don't know! This is a strange place to find myself...
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Sorry brother but I am not buying that concept. That is "Philosophic" reasoning.

Evil began as a choice of the will in created beings, with its first appearance in Lucifer. Stan was a tempter. In fact, moral evil cannot and does not exist apart from the will of created beings. We describe and discuss it as a concept or principle, but it only exists as a choice of the will. It involves more than the mere absence of good because it includes an active opposition to the goodness and authority of God.

So I would argue that evil is the opposite of morally good (=righteous); as opposed to good.

So....to illustrate. Did you ever get an EVIL grade when in school? NO! You got a BAD grade.

BAD = If I laugh at you because I get paid $5,000 per month for my job while you only receive $4.000 per month for the same job, In that case you could consider me bad. It would then serve a certain self-interest for me to laugh at another person and is also identifiable in the sense that I am only bad in one area of my life without interfering human rights/morality.

Evil = If I cut your hand off, laughing all the time because now you will never get close to receiving my $5,000 income per month. Then I not only laugh at you anymore out of self-interest, I then would also enjoy cutting of your hand; and to inflict more pain than a bad person would do. Evil crosses a line regarding what is considered right in human treatment.
 
LearningToLetGo said:
...we all attempt to be good.
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Hello again LearningToLetGo, I suppose it depends on your definition of what "good" is. If by "good", you mean people doing good for themselves in spite of how it might affect the lives of others, then I guess I would have an easier time agreeing with you (for the most part anyway). There is also a (growing) number of people who intend to harm others from the get-go, and they often do so. I would say that some people attempt to be good some of the time, but "all", even attempting to be/do good, that I cannot agree with.

LearningToLetGo said:
We don't set out to do evil.
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Again, that has not been my experience. Some people don't, but some do, and that from the get-go.

LearningToLetGo said:
We set out to do good but we implement our good poorly and achieve evil instead. Poorly implemented good is 'spoiled' good. It's still good, but it's good that has become poison to us, just as spoiled meat is still meat yet also poison.
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Like Major, I think that if we don't pull-off the good that we'd planned, you end up at bad, or perhaps, not so good, as it seems to me that to achieve true "evil" requires intent (though I suppose a certain level of "indifference" towards others could produce it as well). We are our brothers' keepers (much to Cain's chagrin ;)), and to act with such indifference towards another that harm results is (IMHO anyway) at least a kind of "evil".

Like you, I come to realize that I've never really thought through a lot of this. If my pondering leads me towards a different conclusion (which will certainly include everything that I am reading in the thread), I'll let you know :)

LearningToLetGo said:
So good and evil are not opposites. Rather, evil is an artifact of failed good.
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Many say, when something good is intended, but it doesn't work out, that "it's the thought that counts". So (again), defining a "failed good" as "evil", just doesn't seem right somehow!

God bless you!!

--Papa Smurf
 
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Major said:
So I would argue that evil is the opposite of morally good (=righteous); as opposed to good.
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You make a good point to separate good from righteous. If evil is the opposite of righteous and righteous is a form of correctness then evil, being opposite of correctness, is a form of incorrectness. In this case, incorrect in relation to God.

We attempt to do good, that is to say, be righteous in our own eyes, and we bring forth evil in the eyes of God. In our small way we follow in the footsteps of Lucifer by attempting to live according to our own standard (i.e. doing our own will) instead of God's standard.

In the end it's not about doing good or even doing bad, it's about a correct relation with God. Of course one won't desire to do bad once one is in correct relation with God, but being limited we will do bad just the same. The bad we do just won't be evil. However, a person in incorrect relation with God, i.e. not righteous, will likewise do bad but in their case they will also do evil.

🤯
 
LearningToLetGo said:
You make a good point to separate good from righteous. If evil is the opposite of righteous and righteous is a form of correctness then evil, being opposite of correctness, is a form of incorrectness. In this case, incorrect in relation to God.

We attempt to do good, that is to say, be righteous in our own eyes, and we bring forth evil in the eyes of God. In our small way we follow in the footsteps of Lucifer by attempting to live according to our own standard (i.e. doing our own will) instead of God's standard.

In the end it's not about doing good or even doing bad, it's about a correct relation with God. Of course one won't desire to do bad once one is in correct relation with God, but being limited we will do bad just the same. The bad we do just won't be evil. However, a person in incorrect relation with God, i.e. not righteous, will likewise do bad but in their case they will also do evil.

🤯
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your complicating things
 
Papa Smurf said:
Many say, when something good is intended, but it doesn't work out, that "it's the thought that counts". So (again), defining a "failed good" as "evil", just doesn't seem right somehow!
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I feel the same way, yet I see verses like this and have to wonder.

"The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." (Genesis 8:21 NIV)
 
when it comes to evil its not hard to understand. Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!


i suggest you take it how it is.. you know what evil is politicians are evil and greedy ...not all but the majority are ..the love off Money is the Root of all evil
 
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