Evil and the Cross

Maximus the Confessor on the insubstantiality of sin

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, but with a notable difference. While the heavens were created fully complete–as the very dwelling place of God–the earth was as yet incomplete; formless, void, and dark. Throughout the 6 days of creation, we see God form, fill, and glorify the world, uniting heaven and earth. Ultimately, we see this plan fulfilled in the final chapters of the Bible, where we read of the New Heavens and New Earth, where the “firmament” or veil separating the heavens and the earth has been taken away. This is called the eschaton, where sin and evil no longer exist, and God has fully united Himself with His creation. St. Maximus the Confessor describes the union of God and creation as a cosmic event where God draws the entire world into His very mode of being, one that is eternal, uncreated, and infinite. 

But the eschaton is not yet here, and there was a little hiccup in the original plan: the original sin. There was no evil in creation until Adam and Eve transgressed the law of God–which is the definition of sin. We know this because God blesses all that He has made as “good” all throughout the first chapters of Genesis. We also can be certain of the goodness of the prelapsarian world for theological reasons since God, as the Good by nature, cannot create evil. In fact, according to St. Maximus and essentially all the Church Fathers, evil is not a creature and not even a substance. If evil were a substantial reality, that would mean one of two things: either God is the author of evil, which is impossible and blasphemous, or evil is an equal reality alongside God, which is equally impossible and blasphemous.

A substance refers to “what” something is, and we know “what” things are by their active existence. This applies even to God, as we know Him not in His “essence” directly but through His essential energies or operations (when He freely chooses to make Himself present to and in us.) This is the basis for what we call “apophatic theology,” which consists of saying things about God via negations. In fact, even a statement like “God is infinite” is an apophatic statement, as all we are saying is God is beyond finite; He is “in”-finite. Now, in a strangely similar yet completely reversed way, we need to use an apophatic approach when talking about evil. This is not because the substance of evil is so transcendent that we can never grasp it fully, as in the case of God, but because evil is so insubstantial and so inactive that there’s nothing positive we can even say about it. 

But how does this work concretely? It is beyond obvious that evil exists—it’s all around us every day, is it not? Here, we must again turn to St. Maximus, who provides an excellent explanation with concrete examples to show why evil has no substance:

Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.

Nothing in the world is evil; what’s evil is the way things are used. And all things are used or move themselves—all things are in motion—and since they are created by God to be united with Him, the natural “purpose” or “telos” of all things that move and live is God Himself. Thus, the motion of all creatures is meant to be towards God. But the paradox of free will, given to man because God wishes to have a free and reciprocal relationship with humanity, is that we as creatures have been granted the power to accept or reject our purpose, that is, God Himself. Sin is simply the failure to act in accordance with our purpose: instead of acting in a way that brings us closer to God, we turn away from Him. Becoming closer to God involves receiving His power in order to do what He does and become like Him, which includes being faithful, humble, and loving. Evil, then, is simply the failure to do this; it is our free choice to use what God has given us, including our own existence, in a way that does not bring us or the world closer to or more like God. Because God is the source of all beings, and the only One who exists in Himself, all things that exist do so only by participating in Him. Since sin is the striving to not participate in God, it can be nothing other than a striving towards non-being. And for the same reason, sin has no teleology or purpose. We could talk about many paradoxes and deep theological topics here, but it's a bit beyond the scope of this post. However, we talk about these topics in detail in our book on the theology of eternity and time, so make sure to pick up a copy for yourself!

Moving on, let’s get even more concrete. Imagine a scenario where I stab and murder a guy. Obviously, murdering someone with a knife in cold blood isn’t exactly Christ-like. However, we know that the very act itself, involving my muscles, my bones, and my whole body—along with the knife and the motion of my body in a stabbing gesture—all of these things are good “in themselves,” as things and activities made possible and sustained in existence by God. We know this is the case because we can simply change the scenario, and my stabbing is no longer evil—if the person I stabbed was actively trying to kill my family, I was justified.

So, context matters, and intentions matter. If the source of sin is our own free will, then our intentions are really the only “thing” evil is, the only operation behind it. Again, evil has no substance, nothing you can point to or grab, and that is precisely because it only “exists” as a state of our very soul, as the ultimately futile act of rebelling against God’s will to enter into a relationship with us. This is not God’s work, but our own, so we have no one else to blame but ourselves.

The consequence of sin is death, as God is the source of life. When we commit evil, we choose ourselves, our own self-will over the will of God: this is what we call a self-relational as opposed to a communal movement. Pure self-relation is, ultimately, impossible, because we all exist only insofar as we are united with God, so the attempt to live self-relationally actually leads to the very destruction of ourselves. In fact, death is described in self-relational terms in Scripture itself: “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return.”

The introduction of death into the world through sin is contrary to the will of God. Since He is all-powerful and infinitely loving, God has worked in order to solve both the problems of sin and death, along with accomplishing His eternal plan to enter into communion with us. This plan is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For St. Maximus, divine providence is essentially identified with the hypostatic union because it is by becoming a man that God fully unites Himself to Man and, through Man, the world. 

This is, in essence, the Gospel. The Gospel is hope for the righteous, and terror for the unrighteous, because it shows us that God triumphs regardless of what we choose to do with our free will. Evil has no true telos, no real purpose, and whenever we commit evil and justify it in any way, we fall into the delusion that somehow we know what is better for us than our very Creator. 

Our telos, our goal—the “end” of all our movement—is God Himself. Thus, evil is simply the irrational movement of choosing anything other than Him as our ultimate Good. As Maximus emphasizes, the choice of evil always involves both ignorance and delusion. While we can remain in the delusion of our “subjective” imagination, in objective reality, God has determined that the “plans of the wicked will perish,” so that, objectively speaking, all evil acts will ultimately serve the will of God, no matter their intention. This is hope for us because it means that even if we come to God with imperfect intentions—and even if we have lived our whole lives in utter sin—God has already shown us that no matter how evil an act is, He will accomplish His will through it. And if we are willing to cooperate, He will allow us to share in His victory. Christ has already won the battle against Satan; now it's up to us to take a side.