INTRINSIC EVIL'S ELEMENT OF INTRINSIC GOOD
The religions and philosophies of today usually say that good just exists and
has an independent existence. Evil does not have an independent existence and
needs good to grow on like a fungi a parasite. But good must be flawed if the
fungi can grow on it. The fungi does have independent existence. If you look at
fungi there is something there.
If pure good or intrinsic good exists then impure good can exist. Evil is seen as impure for it is a parasite so there must be a such thing as pure evil!
The assumption is that good is pure and ideal and out there. None of that is true. The good is always grey. It is grey in how we have to treat it for if oil does not mix with water and good does not mix with evil it is the same to us as if it does. Paradoxically, misrepresenting good like that is a way of being evil! Even if good is real and true we can only see grey for we are just imperfect creatures. If good is grey then if we claim to be firm in our moral rules we are either pretending or just using morality as an excuse for feeling in control.
If evil is a form of good and is good in the wrong place at the wrong time
then it is inevitable that some good can come of it. But if you believe in God
you believe that God works to bring more good out of it that would not happen
without his intervention.
This view means you will not take evil that seriously. Good is not that great
when it needs help from God to get stronger. To not take good seriously is
not to take evil seriously.
If you do take evil seriously, that will not last long.
If you do take it seriously, then if you are doing so in spite of your faith
then you need to dump your faith in God.
And you risk seeing the good that was to happen anyway as the work of God. You
will never know what was intervention and what was the natural consequence.
You don’t want to mistake the natural consequence for God’s intervention and his
taking control of the mess. Why?
It means that you mistake what is not evidence for God as evidence.
You risk dimming your understanding of how terrible what is happening is. That
is a reduction of compassion and empathy.
Evil has a good side in so far as it is good that is mistaken for proper good.
The good in evil is intrinsic.
The good that follows evil is extrinsic.
The good that is intrinsic and has to happen is the good that is mistaken for
God working to bring good out of the evil. God working on evil to bring good out
of it is nonsense. If selfish Joan gets kinder because she has suffered a car
crash and this kindness is not intrinsic, then rather than God bringing good out
of what happened to her he in fact created a brand new good. The kindness
following the crash does not mean the kindness was in any way caused by the
crash. Not all things that look like causes actually are.
To say then that the good that is intrinsic is not as important as the extrinsic
good makes no sense. If you really believe evil is part of God's loving plan
then you have to praise the good in the evil right now instead of waiting to see
its allegedly good consequences. It is bad enough to look at them and say the
evil was God's plan. But it is worse to say that BEFORE any good results arise!