When we say something evil happened to a person, we mean something that is bad and should not have happened, unfortunately happened. When we say someone did something evil, we mean that the person did something that is bad, and he or she should not have done it because what the person did brings harm to people.
Then what should have happened? What should the people have done that is not evil?
Buried in our ideas of evil, whether it is in the sense of moral evil or pain and suffering, there is the idea of something that ought to happen or ought to be done. In the case of moral evil, we would feel that the person ought not to harm people. Instead, he or she should do good to himself or herself, and perhaps even seek to do something that benefits people instead of harming people. In the case of pain and suffering, we feel that the persons who suffered ought not to suffer. Happiness to people should be the way to go in the whole world!
Then there are things that “ought to be”. A person “ought to” seek good to others, and people “ought to be” feeling happiness instead of suffering. I think it is not an exaggeration to assume that these are what everyone in the world longs for.
We can go one step further. If there is a way that things “ought to be”, then an implication could be that there must be some purposes or ends to which things are directed. Because there are purposes or ends that things are supposed to be heading towards, then things should not deviate from the path that brings them to the designated ends or fulfills their intended purposes. Therefore, there are ways that things “ought to be”.
But where did the purposes of things come from?
It could be hard to find purposes from naturalism, which asserts that there is nothing other than physical materials in the world, and that everything originated from random undirected collisions of particles. How can there be any purposes if everything is a result of pure chances? It is entirely meaningless to talk about anything that “ought to be”. According to naturalism, any person suffering from anything is pure chances. In fact, even our sympathy to the unfortunate is not justifiable. We are being irrational when we show sympathy because we ourselves are here because of countless accidents – starting from random collisions of particles, all the way through mutations and evolution, and somehow survive today. How can we feel anything towards the unfortunate, as what happened to them came from pure chances, just like our own existence.
A rational and personal Creator is the best reason for purposes, because He creates everything out of His own good will.
Comments