The Nature of Evil: Gnostic, Augustinian, and Kantian Views

Introduction

The question of the existence and nature of evil has concerned philosophers, theologians, and thinkers for centuries. The very existence of evil is the central impetus for many major religious worldviews, and the nature and origins of evil are factors which often determine the trajectory of religious thinking and faith.

The central thesis of this study is that understanding the nature of evil requires a perspective that includes both external and internal views of its origins. In other words, evil can be understood as an entity or force that exists outside of human nature, as well as a propensity that is internal or innate in human beings. In the history of philosophical thinking about evil, two important trajectories of thought have been debated: the idea of evil as something independent of human nature and human psychology, and a contradictory view which sees evil as created by human will and by separation from God and the good.

This paper therefore explores the question of the nature of evil from two standpoints. The first, found in Gnostic and Manichean thought, holds that evil is a separate and distinct entity from good — one that originates outside the essence of goodness and stands in sharp contrast to God and the themes of goodness and mercy. This is known as the dualistic view of good and evil, and it is evident in Gnostic myths and theories about the origins of the universe. This view has also influenced many theologians and philosophers in the West, including St. Augustine.

In seemingly stark contrast is the view that evil is not a separate malicious entity or force, but can rather be understood in terms of the relationship between God and humanity. In this sense, evil is a measure of the distance or separation between humanity and God's goodness — understood as a lack of goodness, or as a separation from the Good. This view relates to the Christian concept of original sin and the idea that evil enters human life to the extent that humanity becomes distanced from the moral world and law of God. As will be discussed, this view leads to a more humanocentric conception of evil and to the idea of free will as developed in the works of Kant and others.

In explicating this central thesis, it will also be suggested that while the latter view — that evil can be understood as the degree of distance from God in relation to human will — is arguably the more plausible perspective from a modern standpoint, what is ultimately needed to understand the nature of evil is a combination, or synthesis, of these two central trajectories in the philosophy of evil.

Overview of the Question of Evil

The question of evil, its origins and nature, has concerned philosophers and theological thinkers for a number of obvious reasons. The fact that war, genocide, rape, and murder occur as part of human history leads to the question of why these events take place in a world presumed to be presided over by a caring and benevolent God. One only has to think of names like Auschwitz, the Gulag, Bosnia, and Rwanda to confront the question of evil in the world. Evil revolts us because it contradicts our innate sense of moral order: "Our moral sensibility revolts against them and marks them as being somehow unprecedented, inexcusable, incommensurable with customary forms of immorality…" (The Fragmented Will — Kant on Evil).

The realization that evil exists leads to a feeling of "moral homelessness" in an age that seems suffused with events and actions we can only describe as evil. For theologians, the question demanding an answer is: how can evil exist at the same time as good? This question "presupposes that one acknowledges a magisterial god who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. If such a being exists, then the existence of evil becomes a moral mystery" (Kant, Schopenhauer, and the Problem of Evil). Understanding the nature and meaning of evil is therefore an essential aspect of modern theological and philosophical thought.

The Gnostic View

Gnosticism is a worldview and faith that has in recent years been revived by the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls in Egypt in 1945. The Gnostics were early Christians who questioned many orthodox religious beliefs of their time. They believed that spiritual understanding occurred through revelation and through direct knowledge — or gnosis — of God. "The designation Gnosticism, derived from the Greek gnostikos, refers to one who has gnosis or 'secret knowledge'" (The Secret Knowledge: Enmity Between Flesh and Spirit).

The Gnostics believed in an extreme form of dualism and a radical difference between good and evil. They held that evil is a distinct and separate entity existing outside of, and in contradistinction to, goodness and God — the latter referred to as the Pleroma.¹ This dualism is clearly evident in the Gnostic myths of the origins of the universe and of our world.

Briefly, the Gnostic account of the Fall and the creation of Adam and Eve holds that the creation of humanity originates not from God but from a false "Demiurge." The significance of this is considerable: "This idea of the Fall…goes far beyond the Christian myth of Adam and Eve disobeying God" (The Gnostic Account of the Fall and the Creation of the Material World). In this account, it was a false or evil god who actually created the world in which we live. This inferior god was also intent on preventing humanity from obtaining true knowledge of the real God, seeking to enslave mankind in ignorance. Much of Gnostic doctrine is based on this fundamental premise and is concerned with ways of escaping the control of the false creator-god through true knowledge, or Gnosis. This typical Gnostic view is summarized as follows:

"The creator of the world was not the God over all; the absolute power from above was stronger than the weaker…power of generation, which was symbolized as the power of the impure world-womb, containing heaven and earth within it — the sensible world. But this sensible world was, as it were, an after-birth…compared with the true birth from the virgin spiritual womb, the ideal world of the æons above." (The So-Called Cainites)

The myth also describes the divine figure of Sophia, who creates an image of herself — an offspring — without the consent of the gods, resulting in the birth of the Demiurge who rules the world. A lengthy overview of the Gnostic myth is outside the parameters of this paper; the central point to be stressed is that evil is conceived as the false god who exists and acts outside of the control of mankind. At the same time, humanity can escape the Demiurge through direct revelation — through gnosis of the true God. An important aspect of evil's nature in Gnostic thought, which will be seen to relate to Kant's views, is that Sophia falls prey to the illusion of self-love, and this is in effect a cause of evil within the human heart.

In essence, the myth expresses a perennial existential crisis in human existence. The Gnostic view attempts to answer the question of why there is evil in the world by directing that question toward a false god who is innately evil. While many assume that Gnosticism represents a completely dualistic view of good and evil, this is not strictly accurate: the Gnostics also believed that evil was to a great extent dependent on how human beings acted and perceived reality. This perspective deeply influenced theologians and philosophers such as Augustine, partly through the Manichean view of reality.