Eastern Orthodoxy displays a great degree of uniformity in following a path of stillness of thought and silence of mind to achieve the prayer of heart in private devotion.  Saint John Climacus writes in The Ladder that “the beginning of prayer consists in chasing away invading thoughts…”   The mind is to be freed from all thoughts and images and focused on the words of prayer.  Further in the chapter on prayer, St. John instructs not to accept any sensual images during prayer, lest the mind falls into insanity; and not to gaze upon even necessary and spiritual things.

Unlike some forms of Roman Catholic spirituality, the Orthodox Tradition does not encourage the use of mental imagery.  In fact, it almost appears to forbid sensory imagination during prayer altogether.

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Kitchen with a view. Feels like you’re cooking outside under the trees!

(via green renaissance)

Source: floating about the Internet for years.</>

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise hím.

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself
that I am growing older and will some day be old.
Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking
I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs.
Make me thoughtful but not moody: helpful but not bossy.
With my vast store of wisdom, it seem a pity not to use it all
But thou knowest Lord that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;
give me wings to get to the point.
Seal my lips on my aches and my pains.
They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is
becoming sweeter as the years go by.
I dare not ask for Grace enough to
enjoy the tales of others’ pains,
but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory,
but for a growing humility and a lessing cocksureness
when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.
Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet;
I do not want to be a Saint –
some of them are so hard to live with –
but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the Devil.

Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places,
and talents in unexpected people.

And, give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.

In a move which is unlikely to set pulses racing, the Perthshire village and the Oregon logging town are discussing linking to become Dull and Boring. Locals from around the Dull area became aware of equally-unfortunately named US town and decided to pursue a formal link-up.

More info and dull video…

In his De Vita Contemplativa the Alexandrian Philo makes an extremely remarkable description of an ascetic community with which he was familiar and which was settled not far from Alexandria, namely above Lake Mareotis. Philo’s intention in this treatise is not to give an idealized account of what he himself describes as βιου θεωρητικου but rather to sketch the way of life of a specific monastic community of Egyptian Jewish ascetics. At the very beginning of his treatise, Philo notes the substantial contrast between the Therapeutae and another Jewish ascetic sect, the Essenes. The Essenes led a more practical and active life, while the Therapeutae were dedicated to contemplative life. One could observe also other differences between the two ascetic traditions. The Essenes were exclusively male communities while women participated in the communal gatherings of the Therapeutae communities. Although the Essene’s highly organized communal life involved great frugality, there is no conclusive evidence that it denied the lawfulness of marriage. The ascetic tradition of the Therapeutae, on the other hand, insisted on absolute sexual abstinence. The Therapeutae did not practice the Essene communistic way of life but lived separately as anchorites. They practiced renunciation of property, living a life of severe discipline, fasting and praying daily according to an established horarium. As regards theological method, they were enthusiasts of the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament.

It is not the intention of this paper to present a detailed account of the differences between the Essenes and the Therapeutae, but rather to observe the contemplative life of the pre-Christian monastic community of the Therapeutae and to compare it with the angelic life as described in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius.

It should be pointed out from the very outset that Philonian monachism has been seen as the forerunner of and the model for the Christian ascetic life. It has even been considered as the first picture of Christian monasticism. Such an identification can already be found in Eusebius of Caesarea. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, referring first to apostolic foundations of the Church of Alexandria by St. Mark, points out that Philo’s Therapeutae were the first Christian monks. He sees in their renunciation of property, in their chastity of life, in their severe fasting, in their solitary lives, in their devotion to scriptural reading and in other aspects of their ascetic life, the Christian monks. Eusebius was so certain that Philo was describing the life of the first Christian monks that he argues that Philo himself, not only knew the life of the first Christian ascetics, but also had himself adopted it.

It is true that there are considerable similarities between the Therapeutae and the way of life of the first Christian monks of Egypt, especially those of the Nitria Desert. It is for precisely this reason that until the end of the eighteenth century Eusebius’ position was widely accepted among Christian scholars. Another deduction, derived from the striking similarities already noted, was that of the Strasbourgian scholar Lucius, at the end of the last century. He insisted that the De Vita Contemplativa was not, in fact, Philo’s work, but that of an unknown Christian author of the third century. Interesting though it may be, Lucius’ position can be dismissed since Massebieau and Conybeare have definitively proved the authenticity of the Philonian authorship of the De Vita Contemplativa. What is indisputable is the fact that in Philo’s presentation one finds basic trends of early Christian monasticism. The semianchoritic character of the Therapeutae community, the renunciation of property , the solitude during the six days of the week and the gathering together on Saturday for the common prayer and the common meal, the severe fasting , the keeping alive of the memory of God, the continuous prayer , the meditation and study of Holy Scripture were also practices of the Christian anchorites of the Alexandrian desert.

In his attempt to clarify their vocation in connection with the title reserved to them, Philo makes the following observation:

The vocation of these philosophers is at once made clear from their title of Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, a name derived from θεραπεία, either in the sense of “cure”, because they profess an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities which cures only bodies, while their’s treats also souls oppressed by grievous and well-nigh incurable diseases, inflicted by pleasures and desires and griefs and fears, by acts of covetousness, folly and injustice, and the countless hosts of other passions and vices; or else in the sense of “worship” because nature and the sacred laws have schooled them to worship the Self-existent, Who is better than the Good, purer than the One, and more primordial than the Monad.

Pseudo-Dionysius in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy takes up Philo’s basic points in order to speak about the Christian monastic vocation. We should note that Pseudo-Dionysius is one of the very few Christian writers to actually use the term Therapeutae when referring to the monks. He even preserves the information that the term was in common use: “Some people gave to the ascetics the name Therapeutae or servants while some others gave them the name monks”. Although both Philo and Pseudo-Dionysius use the same name “Therapeutae” to describe the monastic vocation, there are substantial differences between the understanding of Philo and that of Pseudo-Dionysius. In Philo’s interpretation, one realizes that the ascetics described by him in the De Vita Contemplativa were persons who “professed an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities”. Their art of healing derives from the simplicity of their way of life. Escaping the noise of the city, they embrace the natural way, living in the gardens, enjoying the fresh air and the calm and beauty of the countryside. Apart from that, they have the opportunity to practice inner solitude, not because they are misanthropes, but because they are aware that “in every city, even the best governed, is full of turmoils and disturbances innumerable which no one could endure who has ever been once under the guidance of wisdom”.

The freedom from every necessity and the natural way of living is understood in the Philonian text as a way of healing. It is precisely and basically for this reason that the ascetics were called by Philo “Therapeutae”. In the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, we find a quite different interpretation. The monks are called “Therapeutae” because they have freely dedicated themselves to the service of God. Here θεραπεία is understood as duty and service to God. The Christian monks have a specific orientation, i.e., to be servants and worshippers of God. It is true that the idea of service is also mentioned by Philo but assigned a secondary importance. The ascetics are named Therapeutae primarily because they practice the art of healing.

• Already the etymological issue, i. e. the differentiation, regarding the meaning of the word “Therapeutae”, leads us to understand that, despite the use of the common term, the Philonian and Dionysian visions are absolutely different. The monastic vocation in Philo’s De Vita Contemplativa derives all its strength from the monks’ ascetic endeavors. Its inspiration and accomplishments are those of, admittedly dedicated and serious persons; but they are still limited by the human condition. Philo’s monks possess and profess an art of healing derived entirely from their own ascetic labors. According to Pseudo-Dionysius’ approach, the monastic vocation has God as its foundation and final goal. In this sense monastic life is a desire toward God’s life. Pseudo-Dionysius makes his points clear when he writes that the Christian ascetics are called “therapeutae” and “monks”: Because of the purity of their duty and service to God and because their lives, far from being scattered, are monopolized
• The second observation is related to the term “monk” itself. Pseudo-Dionysius takes up again Philo’s idea concerning the “One” and the “Monad” in order to interpret the term “μοναχός”. In Philo’s De Vita Contemplativa we find the point that the monks “worship the Self-existent who is better than the Good, purer than the One and more primordial than the Monad”. According to Pseudo-Dionysius the monks are named μοναχοι as well, because their constant struggle is orientated toward the undivided and unified life. The author of the Areopagite text following the Eastern patristic theology understands sin as disruption, as something which introduces discord and division. Pseudo-Dionysius defines the destructive character of sin as “an inharmonious mingling of discordant elements”. Christian life in general and monastic vocation in particular is an effort to restore in every human being the unique life of God. In the final analysis the life of God is a life of unity and the monastic
• But in studying the De Vita Contemplativa of Philo and comparing it to the data concerning the monastic vocation given by Pseudo-Dionysius in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, one can discern a third very substantial difference. In the Dionysian exposition there is a strong ecclesiological perspective. Those dedicated to the monastic life are, not simply philosophers or therapeutae in the Philonian sense, but are serving God within the body of the Church. This means that monastic perfection is realized, not via an abstract and autonomous life of contemplation, but indeed in the Church. The monastics, as therapeutae, have a specific function to fulfill which has been understood as an ecclesiastical service. The ecclesiastical character of the monastic vocation is presented by Pseudo-Dionysius with what he says about the “mystery of the consecration of a monk”. It should be noted once more here that monks are considered by Pseudo-Dionysius as having a specific gift and place within the ecclesiastical hierarchy

It is interesting to see how the Areopagite describes this consecration:

The priest stands before the divine altar and chants the invocation for a monk. The person being initiated stands behind the priest and does not kneel on either one or both knees. The divinely scriptures are not put on his head. He simply stands while the priest chants the secret invocation over him. When this is finished, the priest approaches the initiate. First he asks if he will not only renounce his doubleminded way of living, but even refuse every fantasy (which could be a destruction to his way of life). He reminds him of the rules governing a fully perfect life and openly asserts that he must surpass the median way of life. After the initiate has devoutly promised to do all this, the priest makes the sign of the cross on him. He cuts his hair and invokes the three Persons of the divine blessedness. He takes away all his clothes and gives him others. Then together with all the other sacred men present at the ceremony, he gives him the kiss (of peace) and confers on him the right to commune in the divine Mysteries.

Pseudo-Dionysius presents a detailed explanation of every symbolic action of a consecration of a monk. It is not within the purview of this paper to provide a detailed commentary. The only thing we wish to underline is the fact that after the completion of the consecration, the neophyte partakes of the holy Eucharist.

The participation in the Eucharist has evident ecclesiological significance. It is a living testimony that the monks form an integral part of the Church. Their way and their vocation is under the blessing of the Church. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, their life is not an extraecclesial spiritual activity, but is indeed ecclesial life. In the Philonian presentation the absence of such a perspective is striking. One realizes that the Therapeutae were a body of ascetics whose integration within the fold of Judaism was extremely tenuous. In the Pseudo-Dionysian understanding, the art of the ascetic life is the art of the Church herself. Their art leads through purification, illumination and perfection to divine communion. The final goal of the monk’s life, as well as the common goal of all Christians, is to “be partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter I:4).

We can now summarize by saying only that Pseudo-Dionysius, to describe the monastic vocation, used the Philonian way of thinking with all its Platonic background. But behind the similar language, one can easily remark the substantial difference between Philo and Pseudo-Dionysius. The contribution of Pseudo-Dionysius lies in the fact that, not only has he not rejected Philo’s thought, but he enriched it with a distinctly Christian attitude. Or to put it differently. Pseudo-Dionysius’ purpose was to present the Christian teaching concerning the monastic way; and he did so using the Philonian language, symbols and categories.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

(via Justin Taylor)

A group of pastors and former youth ministry leaders suggest that today’s youth ministries should be disbanded, calling the common practice of separating congregations by age for worship and Bible study “unbiblical.”

“It’s the only pattern you see in Scripture. You never see Moses, or Nehemiah, or Jesus, or the apostle Paul, or anyone ever segregating people by age. On the contrary, integrated discipleship is really an un-disputable pattern of Scripture.”

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by Archimandrite Thomas (Bitar), Abbot of the Monastery of St. Silouan the Athonite, Douma, Lebanon
English translation from Notes on Arab Orthodoxy

In paradise, anger was blessed. The Lord God sowed it in man to give him an instrument for violently repulsing from himself every trick of the devil that aims to separate him from the true God and to remove him from keeping faith in God. The devil tricked Adam and Eve and they did not use the incensive faculty within them to deter it. If they had done so, they would have been saved and would have been preserved from the grief that followed. When the devil’s trick appeared to them, they fell into the same thing that the devil had fallen into– worship of the self. Man, through accepting the devil’s advice, left the sphere of God and entered into the sphere of the devil. Since then, he has been behaving, in a spontaneous way, according to the devil’s behavior. As for anger, in the state at which Adam and Eve arrived, it became an instrument of oppression and devastation, of man having power over man and of death. This is how man’s worship of himself began to be expressed. Anger became a faculty destructive to God’s creation after having been a faculty for preserving it. It was no longer and instrument for defense of truth. Instead, it became a weapon for falsehood.

The Lord Jesus’ human nature was the nature of man in paradise before the fall. For this reason his incensive faculty was centered on zeal for God. When he went up to the temple and saw people buying and selling and realized how they had turned the house of God into a merchant’s bazaar, he became fiercely angry out of zeal for the Truth. He made a whip and beat those who were there and overturned they moneychangers’ tables and the seats of the dove-sellers, saying to them: “My house shall be called a house of prayer, and you have made it into a den of thieves.” (Mark 11)

In order to return man to the worship of God in spirit and in truth through the keeping of the divine commandment, it is not permitted for those who consider themselves to be of God to resort to violence. The counsel for them is: “Be as wise as serpents and as meek as doves” (Matthew 10:16). In order for man to reach the humility which the Lord God desires, one must imitate him in this. His incensive faculties do not return their right state and they do not recover their divine role in the defense of the truth and the preservation of God’s creation. Up to that point violence remains an evil and a tool in the hand of the devil. The apex of the devil’s tricks and Satan’s deceiving man is for Satan to push man to violence and killing in the name of God. Jesus pointed to this matter when he said to his disciples, “The hour is coming when those who will kill you will think that they are making an offering to God. They will do this because they did not know the Father and they did not know Me.” (John 16:2-3)

***

The devil sometimes speaks the truth. He spoke the truth, for example, when he once called the Lord “Jesus, Son of God” (Matthew 8:29). Not everything the devil says is a lie. That said, he remains the deceiver and the father of lies (John 8:44) because he intends to deceive people at all times, whether he speaks the truth or lies. His first and final goal is not to witness to the truth but to cast man into error. He forever moves with the spirit of falsehood. Thus, when he speaks the truth it is only for the sake of falsehood. This is his art and his wickedness. If he only spoke lies then no one would believe him and everyone would leave him. For this reason he weaves truth with falsehood and falsehood with truth. It is impossible for man to know the truth of the devil from the exterior. It is only exposed through the Spirit of God.

Let us understand: the devil has only one goal in his dealings with people and that is to distance them from God. In order to reach that goal, he works to make people think as he does. He does not want to dominate us from the outside so much as he wants to dominate us from the inside, by putting his thought inside us. He makes us think that what he wants for us is exactly what we want ourselves. His motto for us is this: “Realize yourself and do what you yourself want.” He spreads his thought in people and disappears from sight. In this way he makes us like him and turns us into his workers. He succeeds when a person makes his own way of thinking and says, “This is my thought. This is how I think” or when a person reaches a degree of blindness of heart that he thinks that his thought, which comes from the devil, is from God.

This is the logic of the worship of the self and secondly it is the logic of the most wicked power among people. The further man gets away from God, the deeper he is mired in worldly power. Jesus warned us about assuming power, in general, on this earth, because it is impossible for us to take it on without being subject to the thought we talked about above. It is impossible for a person to assume power according to the world without the thought of the devil arising. Power is the first step of the devil’s work and the ideal field for the realization of his thoughts and plans. After man fell, the acquisition of power according to the world became automatically the thing that his soul most desires. Man is born strongly inclined towards this– every man. Thus, for those who believe in Jesus there is another saying and another commandment and another logic. This is how Jesus spoke: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10)

The great temptation for every person, whether he believes in Jesus or not, and so especially for those who are considered servants of Christ — and we do not have church leaders in the exact sense of the word but rather servants– I say that the great temptation for all people is the temptation of power. For the servants of Christ, this is even more so, considering their position, being exposed to power not only according to this world but to wielding power in the name of God. That is, to give power, which is from the Holy Sprit, a divine dimension as well. For that reason the servants of Christ, if they are not so in truth, then they are among the children of Satan and his workers par excellence, whether they know it or not, because they steal what is God’s, by ill will or by stupidity, and they sign it over to the devil. In this context, their problem and what causes them to fall into Satan’s trap is not that they do not preach the Gospel but that they “speak but do not act (Matthew 23:3).” By their extended pretense of ignoring practice, they lose their sense for divine things. Their exterior says that they are men of God, but their interior is firmly rooted in the service of Satan. This is the typical state for the devil’s work. Thus they claim service and they insist that they are servants of God, all the while wielding power through the spirit of the world. They call for Christian love but they do not love. They always have their excuses. They call for tending the flock of Christ but they only tend their own notions and their own passions. They call for mutual forgiveness but they hate and take revenge. They call for guarding the lost sheep but they drive away people. They call for the worship of God but in the depths of their souls they only seek veneration and honor and flattering words. With words, they show zeal for the Gospel but in their inner hearts they only have zeal for what is their’s. Their honor is above Christ’s honor! They go against the smallest ordinance of the Church for a tiny gain and they consider it pastoral care and economy! They hold services but they only worship themselves and what is their’s: their appearance and their voice and their clothes and their sermon. Their concern is for people to hold fast to them and not to God and for the people to speak well of them. When they speak the truth, they sign their truth over to the falsehood which is in them because their hearts are not for God. Truly they are not!

This sort of satanic temptation, and this poisoned internal environment which reigns in an almost generalized and automatic way over most of the people in our church, especially the pastors, cannot be opposed with theoretical knowledge, but rather with the Spirit of the Lord and the exercise in practice of keeping the divine commandment and walking in holiness. The ignorant is led to God by one who knows Him- that is, one who loves Him. When one blind leads one blind like himself, they both fall into the devil’s pit. For this reason the Church has historically taken great care with the selection of her pastors from among the saints and those who know God and practice the principles of the spiritual life. You cannot give what you don’t have in Christ’s Church. Only one who fears God is able to lead Christ’s flock to the fear of God. Only one who is repentant can lead Christ’s flock to repentance. Only one who loves God can lead God’s flock to the love of God. Only the servant of Christ can lead for Christ’s service. One who keeps fasting and prayer and vigil [can lead people] to fasting and prayer and vigil. One who walks in holiness [can lead people to] holiness. Only one who has the Spirit of the Lord can lead Christ’s flock to the Spirit of the Lord. This is true practical knowledge for us and divine philosophy. Theories and knowledge have no value in themselves in this matter except as preparatory education, but they do not make saints. Experience shows that one who does not know puts value on the formulation of theories and the collection of information, but one who knows does not value theories and only has need for a little theoretical information. Most of his knowledge is practical, so what he learns, he learns from above. One who walks in holiness is the knowledgeable one for us, even if he doesn’t have an elementary education, and one who does not walk in holiness remains ignorant even if he memorized all the books in the world!

Today, unfortunately, the standards have changed. Holiness is no longer the environment and the school and the concern for most of the flock of Christ or its pastors. In any case, holiness is no longer in the consciousness of the ordinary faithful, but of wonder-workers! We no longer insist on our pastors being saints. In any case, there are no longer many saints. The environment that we have become self-satisfied with does not lead to bringing forth saints. We are satisfied, in most cases today, with people who have ordinary, acceptable behavior. We rarely look into the internal condition of our candidates for our pastors or even into their past behavior. The matter is entirely set aside when selecting a bishop. This makes for a not insignificant possibility of an error happening and causes embarrassment for the church when it is uncovered after some time. that some who are ordained have a shameful past. Other times, some bishops lay hands on men whom they know, more or less, to not be worthy of service and they find no fault in this, even when they stumble.

The sort of pastor that we are talking about today is seen as being more fit if he is educated, with a university degree and a theology degree and is clever with words. He is admired if he is seen as a thinker and an eloquent speaker and a writer. His stock goes up if he knows foreign languages and has a beautiful voice and is enthusiastic and socially conscious and has a knowledge of organizational matters and religious education and has a likable personality. It is not required that he be a man of prayer. That’s his own concern! It’s only necessary that he perform his ritual duties well. Likewise it’s not required that he be a man of fasting! That’s also his own concern! Most people think, in any case, that fasting is excessive in the Orthodox Church and that it is not appropriate to the times or the situation! In general, people get used to living with some of the pastor’s inappropriate proclivities, if he is greedy or vainglorious or self-aggrandizing, or quarrelsome. As far as Christian virtues are concerned, they are rarely met by the people in their pastor and they have no real acquaintance with them anyway. Some take joy in them, when they abound, and some don’t pay attention to them. In any case, most of them are, in our worldly age, superfluous. What’s important is ordinary ethics– that he not be a fornicator or a thief or a murderer… In this absence of the Church’s original upbringing, it is natural for the standards to be human and worldly!

All these things and others are part of our current situation today because holiness, as we said, is not our concern nor is the pastor as a good example our concern. Our concern is the Church as idea, as institution, as an organization, as a teaching. Our concern is the services and the choir, the social and cultural groups and the religious instruction and church-tourism and so forth. It is not that these questions aren’t sometimes important. But there is one thing needful: the purification of the heart and the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. This is a deviation from the essence of the matter that keeps those who are considered believers– most pastors and flock equally– pagans, worshipping themselves, seeking their own glory. They are only concerned with their own power and their own reputation and their own honor. They are satisfied with only the outward form of the worship of God. What is sought in any case, in the understanding of the people, is not change of heart but rather some practices and the keeping some obligations and giving lip service. In what pertains to the exterior of the church, today, it is sometimes, but not always, gleaming by worldly standards, souls graze in their own impurities and lack of awareness. Is this not the ideal church the devil desires and lords over? A worldly church, ritualistic, like a museum, a nominal Christianity but without Christ and without holiness and without truth and without Spirit and without new life, filled with the thoughts of the world and the concerns of the world! Is this not the church that most people receive today and for which they work? The devil has succeeded in making people think that this is the true and desirable church of modernity!

This is exactly a church against Christ! And we, without our attention to holiness, are building it contentedly, persistently and continuously!

Sunday July 19, 2009

They’re just like brass knuckles, but they’re made of recycled Blue Willow china and are quite fragile.

Read and buy…

And as you stand before this Christ you will do so alone. You will not be able hide in a crowd. You will not have your family or church or well-wishers to stand in the gap. Just you. Your name will be called and you will rise to stand before him.

At that moment what your parents thought of you will be inconsequential. Whether you were popular or rich or intelligent will make no difference. Your diplomas will be of no use to you. Your talents and earthly treasure will not matter. When you see Christ as he is, for who he is, you will not be neutral. Your response will not be tepid. No one will equivocate or find some middle ground. You will either thrill to realize that this is the One you have loved and have longed to look upon, or you will hate to look on One so lovely when you’d rather be looking at yourself.

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“Speak, friend, and enter.”

The first step in answering the problem of evil is this: We’ve got to get clear on what this thing “evil” actually is. It does seem to follow that if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil. This is a valid syllogism. If the premises are true, then the conclusion would be true as well.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the second premise is not true. Evil is not a thing. The person who probably explained it best was St. Augustine, and then Thomas Aquinas picked up on his solution. Others since them have argued that evil has no ontological status in itself.

The word ontology deals with the nature of existence. When I say that evil has no ontological status, I mean that evil, as a thing in itself, does not exist.

Let me give you an illustration to make this more clear. We talk about things being cold or warm. But coldness is not a thing that exists in itself; it has no ontological status. Coldness is the absence of heat. When we remove heat energy from a system, we say it gets colder.

“Cold” isn’t a thing. It’s a way of describing the reduction of molecular activity resulting in the sensation of heat. So the more heat we pull out of a system, the colder it gets. Cold itself isn’t being “created” Cold is a description of a circumstance in which heat is missing. Heat is energy which can be measured. When you remove heat, the temperature goes down. We call that condition “cold,” but there is no cold “stuff” that causes that condition.

Here’s another way of looking at it. Did you ever eat a donut hole? I don’t mean those little round sugar-coated lumps you buy at the donut shop. I mean the hole itself. Donut holes are actually what’s left when the middle is cut out of a donut. There’s a space called a hole, a “nothing,” the condition that exists when something is taken away. Same thing with a shadow. Shadows don’t exist as things in themselves; they’re just the absence of light.

Evil is like that. Evil isn’t like some black, gooey stuff floating around the universe that gloms onto people and causes them to do awful things. Evil is the absence of good, a privation of good, not a thing in itself.

When God created the universe, he created everything good. He made a universe that was perfectly good. Everything was as it should be. After God was completely done with creating everything, something happened that reduced the good in the world. That loss of good is called evil.

That’s why in Genesis 1 we read “it was good” many times. From the record we know that God didn’t create evil. But something did happen in which evil-the loss of good-took place, and as a result a lot of other grotesque things came about.

So donut holes don’t exist; they’re just the absence of donut. Shadows don’t exist; they’re just the absence of light. And evil doesn’t exist; it’s just the absence of good.

The next question is, if God created everything good, why would He allow evil to infect His creation?

Satan would be the first example of an independent a source of evil. Adam and Eve would also be a source of evil with regard to the human race. They didn’t get Satan’s evil; they initiated their own. Satan influenced them – he made his own hole in goodness – but Adam and Eve made their own holes in goodness. They’re responsible for their own evil.

It isn’t that Satan did something bad and passed that stuff on to them, because evil is not a stuff. This is a key point in this discussion. They cannot “dip into” evil because it’s not a thing to dip into. When we make a shadow, we don’t do it with shadow stuff, but by blocking existing light.

In the same way, evil doesn’t cause our actions. In fact, it’s the other way around. Our actions are what cause evil – or the loss of goodness – in us, and that loss of goodness does have an impact on future actions, giving us a predisposition to cause further evil.

God did not create Adam and Eve with bad stuff in them. What He did was to create them with a capability to rebel against Him or choose to do wrong. This is called moral free will, and it’s a good thing, but it can be used for bad. It can be used to rebel against God, which digs out a hole in goodness, so to speak.

Satan and man both used their free moral agency to originate actions that fell short of the goodness of God. I’m sure God had a good reason for allowing evil. It has caused a lot of suffering, but that suffering has, in turn, also brought about a lot of good under God’s direction.

When you forgive someone who’s wronged you and you treat him kindly, is that a good thing? Sure it is, but you couldn’t forgive him if he hadn’t done something bad against you. I’m not saying that we should do evil so that the good of forgiveness could come about. I’m showing that it’s not a contradiction to claim that good can come out of evil.

It’s not good to promote evil itself, but one of the things about God is that He’s capable of taking a bad thing and making good come out of it. Mercy is one example of that. Without sin there would be no mercy. That’s true of a number of good things: bearing up under suffering, dealing with injustice, acts of heroism, forgiveness, long-suffering. These are all virtues that cannot be experienced in a world with no sin and evil.

Now the real question at this point is, “Was it worth it? Good can come out of evil, but was it worth it in the long run, the measure of good that comes out of the measure of evil in the world?” And my response is that the only One who could ever know that is God. You and I couldn’t know that because our perspective is too limited. Only God is in a position to accurately answer that question.

Apparently God thinks that, on balance, the good is going to outweigh the evil that caused the good, or else He wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. Christ paid a tremendous price, an example of the tremendous love God had for us. God would not be able to show His sacrificial love unless there was something to sacrifice for.

Here’s the problem, and this is why we don’t think that, on balance, it’s really a fair trade. We think that life is about giving us pleasure and making us happy. That’s what we think. This view is very prevalent in the United States. Our personal happiness, pleasure, and enjoyment are the most important things in life.

That’s not what the Bible teaches at all, though. There are aspects of enjoyment, but the ultimate reason we were created was not so we can have fun and enjoy life. God’s purpose for creating us was to develop us into certain types of people who were fit to spend eternity with Him. He does that by conforming us to His image by helping us grow through the process of living in a fallen world.

This is part of the message of the book of Hebrews. Even Jesus was conformed-made mature-by the process of suffering. In God’s mind, the goal of the process – being conformed to the image of His Son – is a much greater good than the bad of the evil that we have to put up with on this earth. The balance is definitely on the side of good.

I admit that this is not an easy issue, and part of the reason is that we bring some baggage to the discussion. Part of the baggage is that we have this idea that if God put us here on this earth and created the world for us to live in, then it seems to make sense that the summum bonum – the greatest good – is our immediate sense of personal pleasure and satisfaction. Therefore, if there is some circumstance in which we can’t have immediate satisfaction, then God must either have abandoned us, not exist, or be evil for allowing such a thing.

Last weekend I had a conversation with a young man about homosexuality. He challenged me with this point: Why would God create people as homosexuals if He didn’t want them to experience the pleasure of homosexual sex?

Now, of course, I didn’t agree with Him that God created people to be homosexuals. It wasn’t God’s design that they have this desire. But even if I conceded such a thing, why must I admit that-since one was created with a capacity for pleasure-only a mean, cruel God would allow conditions in which they’d have to say no to that pleasure?

When you think about it for a moment, doesn’t it strike you as odd that we’ve developed a view that in order for us to acknowledge God as good, He must give liberty to all of our passions? And if God doesn’t give liberty to all of our passions – if He doesn’t allow us what we want, when we want it – if He ever asks for self sacrifice, if He ever allows a condition in which we hurt, in which we suffer, in which we are inconvenienced, if He ever allows a circumstance in which our bodily desires are not given full reign, then certainly He must be a cruel God? Isn’t that an odd view?

Do you know what kind of person thinks that way? A child. A child sees what it wants and goes to get it, and if it’s stopped, that child puts up a fuss.

I was with a little two-year-old today who wanted to go into the house while wearing muddy shoes. She was stopped, and she put up a fuss when her shoes were removed. Mom and Dad knew, though, that there were other things more important than their daughter’s desires at that moment. Now she didn’t understand it. All she knew was what she wanted (understandably, by the way, she’s a two-year-old; that’s the way two-year-olds think).

Unfortunately, we’ve bred a society that are, in many ways, like a bunch of adult two-year-olds, grown-ups who believe it’s their divine right to feel every pleasure they can possibly feel, to never encounter any difficulty, any pain, any suffering. And if they do, then God must be a cruel God.

Now I realize that some of you might be thinking, Come on, Koukl, you’re really whitewashing this, aren’t you. How can so much egregious suffering be justified?

I don’t at all mean to brush away the terrible impact of evil on people’s lives. But I’m talking about a frame of mind that we do seem to have, a frame of mind that we are first and our pleasures are first and God owes that to us. And if He denies us our pleasures to any degree, then there must be something wrong with Him.

Now if God is a good God, and He denies us our pleasures, then I’ll tell you one thing, there’s a good reason He does so. That’s what it means to be a good God. I’m not going to buy the idea – the infantile idea that Americans have-that in order for God to be considered good, He has to give me everything I want, when I want it, or conversely, He must protect me from every injury and every difficulty. No, it’s fair to say that God has allowed suffering in the world for very good reasons, even though we’re not clear on all of those reasons.

By the way, what’s the alternative? If you conclude there’s no God because of the existence of evil, then there’s no possibility of ever redeeming that evil for good.

British philosopher Bertrand Russell said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying child and still believe in God. My response to Mr. Russell is, “What would you say to a dying child?” What could an atheist say? “Too bad”? “Tough luck”? “Bum deal”? You see, in that circumstance, there’s no possibility of redemption for that evil. In fact, it doesn’t seem to make sense to even call it evil at all if there is no God.

But with God, at least there’s the possibility that the evil can be used for good. That’s the promise of the Scriptures.

And so, instead of the syllogism, “God created all things, and evil is a thing, therefore God created evil,” we start from a different point. “All things God created are good – which is what the text says – and evil isn’t good, therefore God didn’t create evil” Then we can progress to, “If God created all things, and God didn’t create evil, then evil is not a thing”

You see, those two syllogisms are just as valid as the first one (if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil), and it seems that the premises are more reliable. The premises seem to be accurate and true.

The questions we have to ask ourselves are: Do we have reason to think that God is good, and do we have reason to think that evil is not a thing? If we have good reasons to think those two things, then our new set of syllogisms work.

We can then strongly trust that when God does allow a privation of good (evil) to influence our lives, He does it not for evil designs, but ultimately for good purposes.

This is a transcript of a commentary from the radio show “Stand to Reason,” with Gregory Koukl. It is made available to you at no charge through the faithful giving of those who support Stand to Reason. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©1997 Gregory Koukl. For more information, contact Stand to Reason at 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA 90755. (800)2-REASON (562)595-7333 www.str.org

(via Wreck & Salvage: Colossal: news.com.au)