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| False views of the nature of evil: viz., that evil is something in the nature of things, and has substantive existence. (a) Heathen thinkers: (evil resides in matter). Their refutation. (b) Heretical teachers: (Dualism). Refutation from Scripture. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
§6. False views of the nature of
evil: viz., that evil is something in the nature of things, and has
substantive existence. (a) Heathen thinkers: (evil resides in matter).
Their refutation. (b) Heretical teachers: (Dualism). Refutation from
Scripture.
Now certain of the Greeks, having erred from the
right way, and not having known Christ, have ascribed to evil a
substantive and independent existence. In this they make a double
mistake: either in denying the Creator to be maker of all things, if
evil had an independent subsistence and being of its own; or again, if
they mean that He is maker of all things, they will of necessity admit
Him to be maker of evil also. For evil, according to them, is included
among existing things. 2. But this must appear paradoxical and
impossible. For evil does not come from good, nor is it in, or the
result of, good, since in that case it would not be good, being mixed
in its nature or a cause of evil. 3. But the sectaries, who have fallen
away from the teaching of the Church, and made shipwreck concerning the
Faith113 , they also wrongly think that evil has a
substantive existence. But they arbitrarily imagine another god besides
the true One, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that he is the
unmade producer of evil and the head of wickedness, who is also
artificer of Creation. But these men one can easily refute, not only
from the divine Scriptures, but also from the human understanding
itself, the very source of these their insane imaginations. 4. To begin
with, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ says in His own gospels
confirming the words of Moses: “The Lord God is one;” and
“I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth114 .” But if God is one, and at the same
time Lord of heaven and earth, how could there be another God beside
Him? or what room will there be for the God whom they suppose, if the
one true God fills all things in the compass of heaven and earth? or
how could there be another creator of that, whereof, according to the
Saviour’s utterance, the God and Father of Christ is Himself
Lord. 5. Unless indeed they would say that it were, so to speak, in an
equipoise, and the evil god capable of getting the better of the good
God. But if they say this, see to what a pitch of impiety they descend.
For when powers are equal, the superior and better cannot be
discovered. For if the one exist even if the other will it not, both
are equally strong and equally weak equally, because the very existence
of either is a defeat of the other’s will: weak, because what
happens is counter to their wills: for while the good God exists in
spite of the evil one, the evil god exists equally in spite of the
good.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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