Blog 3403 – 02.26.2025

The Three Faces of Evil

The Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” I think it is also foolish to think there is no Evil in this world to tempt, trouble, and torment us.

Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Doors and several others recorded a song in the sixties that says, “I’m not scared of dying and I don’t really care. If it’s peace you find in dying, let the time be near…I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I prayer there ain’t no hell.” For a number of years I thought the opposite was true, that there was a heaven but no hell. I have come to believe that we can make our lives both heaven and hell right here by our thoughts, words, and deeds. I remind myself of this daily with a line in my mantra that goes, “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in my sight, oh LORD , my rock, my strength, and my redeemer.”

I met a young man yesterday. He drew my blood for lab work for my annual physical. Though he was a phlebotomist by trade he was as theologian and evangelist at heart. He probably will if he has not already get into trouble for using his work place to “sell his take on God and the devil.”

I am reminded of a favorite line from a favorite movie. The movie is An Unfinished Life with Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, and Morgan Freeman leading the cast. Let me set the stage for the line. Jennifer Lopez plays Robert Redford’s daughter-in-law. He is bitter toward her and the world in general at the loss of his son ten years previously in a terrible car accident in which Jennifer was driving. Jennifer is fleeing an abusive boyfriend with her ten year old daughter named after her deceased father and also her grandpa that she has been told has also died. Their car honks-out somewhere near Wyoming so Jennifer decides her only option is to ask her step-dad if she and her daughter can stay at his ranch till she can work and earn some money so they can move on. Robert Redford learns he has a ten year old granddaughter that he never knew about and the granddaughter discovers that she has a grandfather that she thought was dead. Surprise, surprise.

Jennifer gets a ride home with the County Sheriff whose office is near the restaurant where she works as a waitress. The granddaughter has seen her mama with several boyfriends over the years and does not trust her taste in men so she is rude to the Sheriff when her mom asks him if he’d like to stay for dinner. So he leaves and after he does Robert Redford scolds her for being rude to a guest at his house and says, “There is no excuse for that unless it is someone trying to sell his take on God.”

My new friend wanted to expound on his belief that Evil was uncreated but very real and powerful. I interrupted his train of thought with my own theory on the subject, that man created evil/ego/satan so that he would have a choice to worship someone other than the one true God. It is not a real choice but a very strong illusion that God allows so mankind can have free-will to break His/HerTheir one rule about eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil.

God is good, everything that She/He/They created is good including mankind. But man brought the serpent into the garden and the temptation, trouble, and torment to follow.

Evil, ego, and Satan exist in the minds of men and women and so we are capable of thinking, saying, and doing monstrous things to ourselves and to others. But Love (God’s most perfect name) is forever. Evil, Ego, and Satan has an expiration date.

That is my theological treatise on the existence of evil in a nutshell. I hugged my new brother at our parting yesterday and said “I think that we will both understand everything better bye and bye.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White