How do we know that evil really exists?

October 17, 2018
Evil Exist

ANSWER!

St. Thomas Aquinas asked a similar question in his treatise De Malo (On Evil). He asked "whether evil is something" and gave a very complex theological answer.  I hope to provide here a much simpler answer to his complex theology!  In talking about evil (and hence the devil and his demons) we must first talk about good.  St. Thomas says that good is what all things naturally desire. That is, everyone and everything tends toward something good, whether it be a universal good or some particular good. Common sense tells us that "whatever is numbered among the things that are has an affinity with some good."  We  can say that Him there is a progression of lesser goods to which particular things aspire.

However, evil by definition is the opposite of good in that it wishes to deprive things of their true good, and for that reason it cannot be an actual thing (i.e., an object or goal).  It is an antithing, that is, a deprivation of something good.  St. Thomas says that, "if evil were a real thing, it would desire nothing, nor would it be desired by anything."  Evil is, rather, an absence much the same way that sickness is the absence of health and poverty is the absence of prosperity.  It is true to say, then, that evil only exists because good exists first, and this is reflected in nature.  We only see shadows because light first shines on some object.  The shadow would not exist were it not for the light.  Similarly, blindness is the result of a lack of sight, and a hole in the ground is there because it has been created by the removal of some material that was there before it.  Many other examples could be added.

St. Thomas goes on to say that evil, while not existing as a thing in its own right, can however, exist in particular creatures and things because there are many ways and means to deprive us of the good.  It is a matter of Catholic doctrine to recognize that the devil, like all angels, was created good.  By his own free will he chose to reject the true good and suffered the consequences of that choice.  Hence, the devil can subsequently be considered the font of all evil in the world, not because evil has an independent existence in itself but because of the highest angel who was the most sublime of all God's created beings chose to reject the good and thus became the greatest force in the world seducing the rest of creation to choose evil.

By Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer, "Exorcism and the Church Militant" page 18.