Another perspective on evil

John Töns in his recent article in On Line Opinion “A Perspective on Evil” equated Evil to Original Sin. He has also placed it in Judaism and Islam as well as Christianity. Original Sin is a Christian concept not a Jewish or Islamic one and is primarily associated with Western Christianity.

The concept of Original Sin has its roots in paganism not monotheism. The nature of evil is not connected with Original Sin.

Rabbi Hertz expressed the normative Jewish attitude in his commentary in the Soncino edition of the Pentateuch. Genesis 3: 17 … cursed is the ground for thy sake.

“… for thy sake”. According to Rabbi Hertz “Only as Adam lived was the earth under a curse”. No curse was passed on to his descendents.

Rabbi Hertz interpreted Genesis 3:16 as God saying to Eve “Thee I need not punish. A sufficiency of woe and suffering is thine because of thy physical being.”

The normative Jewish attitude is that we are all born neither good nor evil. Our subsequent acts determine whether we are good or evil. No one can take on another’s sins.

Imam Ahmed Saad of the “Reading Islam” project states:

Islam teaches that all humans are innocent by birth and they become sinful only when they consciously commit a sin. Islam regards the concept of “Original Sin” and the need for atonement by God Himself - via dying on the Cross - as a pure invention of those who came after Jesus Christ, declaring themselves as Christians.

Another important point to bear in mind about the Islamic concept of sin is that one man’s sin cannot be transferred to another; nor can the reward due to a person be transferred either. Every individual is responsible only for his or her actions.

The Islamic position is exactly the same as the Jewish.

As mentioned earlier, the concept of Original Sin has its roots in paganism not monotheism. It stems from Plato’s Theory of Forms. In the beginning was the idea, and the reality is a degenerate form of the idea. The real world is thus imperfect, and the ideal form is perfect.

In the City of God, Augustine reflected how physicality is the natural basis for mankind's propensity for sin. He took the Platonic idea that physical form in the reality of mankind's existence on Earth is imperfect compared to the ideal of the human.

Augustine applied this idea to the biblical story of Adam’s sin and the subsequent expulsion from Eden and concluded that all humanity carries on the stain of that sin.

The Platonic idea of reality degenerating from the perfect form also implies a duality between the ideal and reality. Christianity transforms this into the sacred and profane. The Christian problem of theodicy arises from the Christian concept of God. With an all-powerful and benevolent God how can there be evil? Platonism creates a duality in Christianity with a benevolent Creator and Evil as a force opposed to the benevolent Creator.

Theodicy is not a Jewish problem since the Jewish Bible assumes all comes from God.

Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Augustine got the church to adopt Original Sin as a doctrine and apparently got the idea from his knowledge of Platonic philosophy.

Saint Augustine, (354 - 430), a Manichee, apparently had a huge sex drive, and proportionate guilt about it. He wrote about it in his Confessions. In Chapter VIII of the book, he wrote, "Give me chastity and continency but not yet". After Augustine became converted to Catholic Christianity he established a religious community dedicated to the intellectual quest for God.

Augustine later became a priest and bishop and was active in fighting heresy. He argued that because of Original Sin no one can entirely govern his own motivation and that only through God's grace can people will to do good. He was greatly responsible for Christianity's emphasis on Original Sin.

Elaine Pagels, in Adam, Eve and the Serpent, used recently unearthed documents to tell how the doctrine of Original Sin was adopted. Augustine promoted the idea, and Pelagius, an English monk, argued against it. Pelagius thought everyone is born with a clean slate and that death was part of nature.

Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire and the emperor had a voice in the final decisionon the argument between Augustine and Pelagius. The emperor was a great lover of horses: a supporter of Augustine gave the emperor 80 Numidian horses. Consequently, Emperor Flavius Honorius found in favour of Augustine. In 417 Pope Innocent I excommunicated Pelagius, and the emperor ordered him fined, expelled from office and sent into exile.

Augustine’s told of his neurotic sense of guilt in his Confessions. He told of his torment for stealing pears from an orchard as a teenager. He also had a loving and committed long term sexual relationship resulting in a son. That also added fuel to his guilt. His neuroses in the form of Original Sin became church doctrine and have been a torment to many faithful Christians since.

Greek dualism not only influenced the division into the sacred and profane but also defined the very nature of sin. Some Christians think of sin as a force outside of themselves vulgarly expressed as, “The devil made me do it!”

One can externalise evil and think it is something outside of us. Judaism maintains that there is a yetzer ha tov, a spirit of good, and a yetzer ha ra, a spirit of evil in each of us. In each of us there is a little Hitler. In Hitler was a bit of good.

Solzenitsyn, an Orthodox Christian, wrote:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Orthodoxy is less influenced by dualism than western Christianity that sees evil as external, possibly in the form of a devil.

John Töns has implicitly equated religion with Christianity and has assumed Original Sin is accepted by the other monotheisms but it is primarily a concept in western Christianity.

The idea of sin and an individual, or a people, cursed for sinning is found in the earliest known writing. Samuel Noah Kramer translated ancient Sumerian clay tablets And one of the tablets written in about 2300BCE told of the destruction of Agade, a Sumerian city-state. Naram- Sin, the fourth ruler of the Agade Dynasty had , according to the chronicler, sinned by desecrating the Ekur, the god Enlil’s great sanctuary. In order to soothe Enlil eight of the most important deities of the Sumerian pantheon laid a curse on Agade that it will forever remain desolate and uninhabited.

Although western Christianity links Evil, Sin, Original Sin and God the ideas arose separately and are not necessarily linked. John Töns has taken a Christian concern, the problem of evil, and made it a universal concern. If one thinks of evil like Solzenitsyn, “Who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”