Why Is There So Much Evil in the World?

Everybody should be sad that evil is so widespread today — and most people do oppose evil, except, of course, the evil they commit. Nobody, not even Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, is 100 percent evil; that is, not every deed they do is “evil.” And nobody is 100 percent “good,” either. So, “goodness” and “evil,” in one sense, are relative. More on that in a moment.

But that “evil” exists in the world is undeniable. A lot of it. Why? Why do people do evil?  A few possible reasons.

1. Evil is fun. Lots of evil, especially things like sexual promiscuity, are enjoyable — even the Bible speaks of the “pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). If people didn’t enjoy doing sin, then they obviously wouldn’t do it. Such is why “self-control” is such a monumental virtue —“Virtue is the only good, and self-control is the only means of achieving virtue.” Antisthenes of Athens said. God certainly wants to see if we’ll practice self-control, rise above pusillanimity. There is obviously great failure among mankind in this regard.
2. Sin is easy. If everybody does it, it’s simple to “follow a crowd to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). It takes great courage and personal strength (self-control) to stand up against a multitude, and not many people have that. Self-control and self-discipline are rarely defined as doing what one wants to do and what everybody else is doing. To say “yes” to the multitude is much easier than to say “no.” Such is also why virtue has almost disappeared in American discourse today.
3. There is a lot of evil around. There is so much evil in the world today that we become inured to it. We are bombarded with it. We see it in the movies, on TV programs, in the news — it has become a “zeitgeist” of our age, so common we just accept it — and accept that maybe it’s not so “evil” after all. The commonality of evil makes it almost unnoticeable anymore. How often do you notice the blue sky above you? You see it every day. It’s become common. You rarely think about it anymore. Such is also the way of evil, so familiar that we either don’t notice it anymore, or, like Democrats, come to justify it and call it “good.”
4. Evil doesn’t get immediately punished. Solomon explains this better than I can: “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is full set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). We sin. We get away with it because God, in His love and longsuffering, doesn’t (usually) immediately punish us for the evil we’ve done. So, we conclude (falsely) that He either doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care, or isn’t looking — or some such. We sin and often escape immediate consequences. Thus, evil becomes more and more habitual.

Again, no person is 100 percent evil or 100 percent good. But perhaps we ask the questions “what is good?” and “what is evil?” And there is certainly no unanimity on that — and never has been. To the Christian, “good” is what God says it is; it flows from His very nature, and “evil” is what is opposite His nature. But unbelievers don’t operate under that canon, and thus find it much more difficult to define what is “good” and what is “evil.”

For example, Democrats think Donald Trump is “evil,” and Republicans think Democrats are “evil.” Who’s right? Most people think Nazis were evil, but Nazis didn’t think that, and the communists didn’t think that what they did was evil, either. Apparently, some people in North Carolina no longer think the Nazis are evil, either, because they just elected to Congress a woman who wants to put all Trump supporters in concentration camps.

In America, “good” and “evil” are no longer based on the Judeo-Christian standard, but have become a matter of subjective relativism wholly. Such people will be “good” and not do “evil” for totally personal reasons, and decide in their own minds, for themselves, what is “good” and “evil.” In effect, every man does that which is right in his own eyes. And under that principle, there can be no possible absolute definition of what “good” and “evil” are — each person decides for himself/herself what they are.

Communists and Nazis obviously didn’t believe that murdering millions of people was “evil,” even though most of the rest of us do. But are “good” and “evil” to be decided by majority vote? Is that what we want? What about the “minorities” who disagree? Where’s DEI?

If every man decides what is right in his own eyes, then obviously many people will — and do — conclude that some things others consider “evil” are actually “good”—one person’s “good” is another person’s “evil.” With no absolute standard, who can say they are wrong? Good and evil become nothing more than a matter of personal opinion, of personal choice.

But evil exists. Even atheists admit that. But humanity has never fully agreed on what evil is, and never will. The “good person” who operates under “every man does that which is right in his own eyes” is actually culpable of the evil others commit if “good” and “evil” are nothing more than personal opinion, because they operate and condone a principle that allows people to decide what “evil” is for themselves. If “every man does that which is right in his own eyes,” then what right does anyone have to condemn what anyone else does?

So, my ultimate conclusion on why there is so much evil in the world is: humans do not agree on what evil is, and we are now fearful of calling something “evil” for fear of offending someone or “hurting their feelings.” But if we don’t even know what evil is anymore, how in the world do we ever expect to eradicate it?

Check out my Substack: “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com) and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Read my great tales of the Old American West, available on Amazon and Kindle: “Whitewater,” “River Bend,” “Return to River Bend,” “Allie’s Dilemma,” and “Kendrick and other stories.” Follow me on X: @thailandmkl

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