As I write, many of us are in a state of deep shock at the attacks in New York and Washington. Are people so evil that they can take lives in this way? Did God make us this way?
The answer to both questions is yes. We are creatures made for conscious love. Love for God, love for our neighbours, and love for ourselves. And love, to be true love, must be freely given. If it is not freely given, it is worthless.
Evil is putting our love for ourselves before our love for others. When this does not actually harm others, it is merely foolish - like the rich man who decided to build bigger storehouses so that he could "take his ease for many years, eat, drink and be merry," and died the next night (Luke 12:15-21). But all too often it does harm others.
Evil can be personal, or it can be corporate, within a group, within a party, within a nation. For groups and parties and nations are ways of joining with others in love, and this love, too, is free, and can easily become misdirected.
Harming others tends to sow more evil. The remedy proposed in Exodus was to cancel evil out by retaliation - life for life, wound for wound, burn for burn. But this kind of satisfaction does not get rid of evil, because it does not get to grips with its cause. Only love, and in the last analysis only the love shown on the Cross, can overcome evil.
Our response to evil must always be repulsion. One of our harder choices is to opt for "the lesser of two evils", for who are we to judge degrees of evil?
Our response to evildoers must always be love. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers to love our enemies, for we are all children of the same heavenly father (Mat 5:44-5). If we do not listen to our enemies, if we demonise them and dehumanise them, we merely compound their evil with our own evil. Paul's message to the Romans sums it all up (Rom 12:15-21):
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
HD