Freedom of the Will and the Mystery of Evil.
The fate of mankind is determined by God and by man's free
choice. Man was created with a free will and his original purpose in life was to
strive to reach God. This goal was not accomplished. The efforts of the will
grew weaker and the inertia of nature over came man's striving to reunite
himself with the Divinity. This led to the decay of human nature and the growth
of disorder in the whole world. The universe ceased to be a mirror of the
beauties of the Divinity and the image of God which had been engraved in it grew
faint. This is how evil entered the world. Evil has no foundation in the will of
God because it comes from things which do not exist. "By itself evil has no
existence but exists only as the absence of good." "Evil is the name of that
which is outside of our conception of good." It is primarily as "that which has
no existence" that evil is opposed to the Good which truly exists and to
everything in the world that originates through the will of God.
"Paradoxically," Gregory writes, "it is in its very nonexistence that evil
exists."
Evil is not merely an apparition but is the absence or
insufficiency of good. "Outside of free will there is no independent evil." The
reality of evil is in the distortion of the will. It is a harvest which has not
been sown and a plant which has no roots. Evil is a reality, although it is
unstable and "has no independent hypostasis." It is a shadow which appears when
the spirit is absent. This leads Gregory to conclude that evil will ultimately
be destroyed. It is a tumor and an outer crust which will eventually fall from
every nature which is good and enduring. Evil is not a phantom that will
suddenly be dispersed but it is a reality that will be overcome only gradually
and with difficulty and this will deter mine the course of human history. In his
conception of evil Gregory is closer to Origen than to Plato, from whom he
borrows only his terminology.
The source of evil is in the corruption of the will. "Human
nature is mutable and it began to move in the wrong direction." This movement of
the will was not in accord with its nature and thus the will was harmed and
destroyed. "The fall away from the One Who truly is," Gregory writes, "corrupts
and destroys everything that exists." How did this turn of the will from
existence to nonexistence become possible? How can that which does not exist and
has never existed influence the will and give it motivation? The solution to the
mystery of the first sin and the fall away from God lies in the fact that the
original task of man was dynamic. Human nature was implanted with the aspiration
to good, but not with a clear recognition of good. Man must find out for himself
what is truly good and beneficial for him. The fall came about through deceit.
Man was deceived by external appearances and was "mistaken in his desire for
true good." In his foolishness he considered that things which delight the
senses are good and thus he accepted the "phantom of goodness" as the truth. His
judgment was deceived and he was guided by false standards. "A lie is a
conception which somehow develops in the mind about something which has no
existence, as if that which does not exist were real. The truth is an
unquestionable understanding of the One Who truly is."
Not only did man deceive himself but he himself was deceived
because of the envy of the angel who was offended when man was created in the
image of God. Thus the second root of evil and sin is found in the angelic
world. The erring angel severed his natural ties with good and, like a stone, he
sank to the bottom, dragged down by his own weight. He led man into error and
"treacherously and deceitfully appeared to man and convinced him to bring death
on himself and to become his own murderer."
The serpent tempted Eve with "the apparition of good," with
sensual pleasure, "which is beautiful to look at and pleasant to taste." It is
difficult to determine whether Gregory understands the forbidden fruit literally
or allegorically but his interpretation of the Divine prohibition is clear: "Our
forefathers were commanded not only to acknowledge good but also not to try to
understand that which is opposed to good. They were to flee from that which is
both good and evil at the same time and to enjoy good in its pure form,
untouched by evil." The nature of evil is two-faced and deceitful. It is poison
mixed with honey. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil received its name
because "it produced fruit with a double nature, which was formed from opposing
qualities." The knowledge of good and evil does not only mean that man must be
able to distinguish between them. Man is allured and enticed to evil in the
guise of good and this confuses him. The fruit of the forbidden tree was not
purely evil (because it flourished in beauty), nor was it absolutely good
(because evil was latent inside it). It was an ambiguous mixture of both.
Sensual temptation was born in the lower sphere of man's soul,
in the faculty of desire, which managed to free itself from the control of the
intellect and distracted man's attention to the material world. The intellect
lost its supreme authority and God's commandment was broken. Thus sin is the
result of the disobedience of the will and the existence of evil is ethical and
not only objective. It is not the senses as such, but the fascination of the
senses, the "passion for satisfaction," and the "disposition to sensual and
material things" which are evil and the root and source of sin and sinfulness.
The mind has become similar to a mirror which was turned to the wrong side, so
that "it does not represent the radiant features of good but reflects in itself
the ugliness of matter." Matter becomes ugly at the moment that it is isolated
from that which is superior to ft.
By falling into sin man became subject to the laws of the world
of matter. He became mortal and liable to decay. Death, dying, the succession of
forms and generations, birth, and growth have all been part of the natural world
from the beginning and in nature these processes are neither flaws nor diseases.
Death is abnormal and contrary to the law of nature for man alone, although
Gregory also considers that death is a beneficent healing which leads man to
resurrection and purification. This is because man is saved from corruption by
sin at the resurrection when his original incorruptibility will be returned to
him.
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