What God created is good; this is why, though sometimes we speak in ways contrary to this, nothing is truly evil by nature. It’s when nature is corrupted, or defiled, so that something or someone is hindered from attaining their true natural potential, we find evil emerging. Thus, while conventionally we treat evil as some sort of thing in and of itself with its own substance or nature, in reality, it is not; evil is nothing but the defilement or corruption of some good. Often, we see and experience it in the way it lies on the surface of the person or thing it corrupts; it is like rust, where the greater damage which is being done is hidden from view. Nonetheless, the way everything is created good is the reason why we must believe no one is inherently evil. Sin is not natural, and so what it has us do is act contrary to our natural good:
There are no words for sin which do not reveal in their very utterance that sin is an unnatural state of man, a condition brought about by the destruction, distortion, and loss of something good which was originally present. Every sin and wickedness exists only because man’s being and life are naturally positive and good. Every evil and sin act only as “parasites” on that which is primarily perfect and whole. Thus, in the Orthodox tradition, sin is not considered to be a normal and natural part of human being and life. To be human and to be a sinner is contradictory. Rather, to be truly human is to be righteous, pure, truthful, and good.[1]
There is always something of that good which remains in the person or thing corrupted by evil; even the people who has done the greatest evil has something good in them which can be taken by God. That good can be freed from the bondage and corruption of sin, healed from the damage which has been done to it, and become saved. In the process of saving someone or something, God will reveal evil for what it is, something which is insubstantial in itself, that is, something which only exists through others, like a parasite. Thus, when it is separated or cut off from the good on which it thrives, it will have nothing it can use to continue acting, meaning, it will come to an end. This is why St. Gregory of Nyssa can say, following the way God will be all in all in the eschaton, that all things will be liberated from evil:
Clearly, in the final phrase of the passage, Paul presents the insubstantial character of evil in his very words, by saying that God will be “in all things,” having become everything to each [creature]. For obviously it will be then true that “God is in all things” when no evil is to be seen in the things that are. For surely it is not likely that God will also be “in” what is evil! [2]
While we can and often discuss evil, treating it as a substance, we must remember that it really has none of its own. And while we make many analogies concerning evil, ultimately, those analogies fail. This is because no analogy can truly present to us the insubstantial nature of evil. Parasites, for example, are creatures in their own right, creatures with their own existence, their own good. Rust is something substantial, and so, if it is removed from the surface on which it is found, the rust particles will remain. Nonetheless, the way parasites and rust acts helps us understand the way evil acts, which is why using them as analogies for evil works. Evil takes but does not give; it destroys and rots those things it touches.
Thus, while we have analogies which we can use to represent evil, there is a sense that, like God, there is no word which can really represent it. For God, this is because God infinitely transcends anything which can be said of the divine nature, while for evil, it is because it really has no nature which can be named. Nonetheless, we talk about God and evil, and we do so based upon the activities which we see being done by them, which is why we can have conventions to represent both. Perhaps one of the best analogies for evil is that of the darkness, and when that is the case, then one of the best conventions for God is light, because, as Gregory of Nyssa said, darkness is itself, in reality, insubstantial:
Because darkness has no substance while light does (if nothing obstructs the sun’s rays, we have no darkness), this example shows that evil does not exist by itself but is a deprivation of the good, while the good always remains fully itself and is not preceded by deprivation. However, anything contrary to the good lacks substance; it cannot exist by itself nor be complete because evil is a deprivation, not a substance. Therefore the difference between light and darkness, wisdom and foolishness, is similar. The good as a whole takes the name of wisdom from a part, and the world “foolishness” explains the nature of evil. [3]
When we experience evil, when we experience the harm which evil does, we can apprehend that something has gone wrong, that there is some good which has been defiled, corrupted, or destroyed. When we do some evil, when we sin, we corrupt ourselves by our own actions even as we corrupt the world around us due to our own interdependent relationship with it. Everyone and everything can be influenced by our sin, leading others (and not just humans) to take up some evil for themselves, allowing evil to grow and develop further in the world around us. But if we can do that with the evil, we can do so with our good actions, and the grace which we have been given; this is why Paul says the world has been waiting for the children of God, those with grace, so that the world can be freed from the bondage of sin and the good which is in all things can be revealed. When that happens, then, in the end, God truly can be all in all.
[1] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4: Spirituality (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981; rev. ed. 2016), 23.
[2] St. Gregory of Nyssa, “On the ‘Final Subjection’ of Christ” in On Death and Eternal Life. Trans. Brian E. Daley (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2022), 77.
[3] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes. Trans. Richard McCambly. Ed. John Litteral (Ashland, KY: Litteral’s Christian Library Publications, 2014), 48-9 [Homily 5].
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