My last post alluded to the problem the above question raises. Based on the Bible, my answer is, “I don’t know. But, what I do know is that God is good. Etc.” Surd evil (physical chaos) is present in the beginning, such that God’s creative action is to speak order into chaos (Gen 1). Moral evil (the serpent figure) is present before Adam and Eve rebel against their creator (Gen 2). The Adversary (Satan) who appears before a heavenly council in the wisdom literature of Job is also without an explained origin. However, since people are not content without answers to such issues, they “find” solutions in Scripture.
The most popular explanation for the origin of Lucifer (equated with Satan) comes from a literary taunt against the king of Babylon (Isa 14:3-23), particularly verses 12-15 about “lucifer.” [See similar taunts against the king of Tyre in Ezek 28.] However, this text models an Ancient Near Eastern taunt genre against a ruler and is based on imagery that is taken from ancient mythology in which a “heavenly host”( = a star = a god) rebels and is cast down, becoming the lowest “star” on the horizon, probably the planet Venus: “Look how you have fallen, O Shining One, Son of the Dawn” (Isa 14:12a). The name here, which from the Hebrew is “Helel, Son of Shachar,” and in the KJV was translated “Lucifer (light bearer) Son of the Morning,” was a god in Canaanite lore who had a failed coup against the main god. However, people who must have an answer to the origin of evil (e.g. Satan, who is not mentioned here) first turn the order of literary borrowing upside down and then convert the text into heavenly history!1,2
Reflection: Life as we know it (not God’s “existence”) requires a delicate balance of both order and chaos. Too much chaos and no organized systems supporting life could emerge in our universe. Too much order and all would be “crystalline.” This observation supports a supposition that surd “evil” (physical chaos) is necessary for life in this universe and that perhaps even moral “evil” is necessary for the capacity for a “free” relationship with God.
Application: What is most important to me is
that, as a being who must live with the chaos of surd and moral evil, I have a
God who became in-fleshed in this same world of chaos, who died and rose “above” it, and
who now intercedes for me and walks with me through the chaos that I face and so
brings divine order into my life. The
Christian witness to others, then, is not that we escape the chaos in this life,
but how we face it in Christ.
Lord, I trust you to take my hand amid life’s chaos, so that I find
“order” in You. Amen.
Notes
1) The idea of the origin of evil being attributed to fallen angels
is at least as early as the Jewish intertestamental Book of Enoch, a book which was quoted
by the second-century Christian, Justin Martyr. However, the Book of Enoch was rejected
from the Hebrew canon apparently in part because of this teaching; and, it was
also not accepted as part of the Christian Scriptures.]
2) Interestingly, Venus as a bright “star” being visible in the early evening or dawn also developed into positive symbolism and is used of Jesus (Rev 2:29; 22:16, see, too, 2Pet 1:19).
3) Also, fun to think about: At the level of neurology, scientists would also note that genetically much about a person is generically ordered/fixed. However, although the topic of why humans have a sense of “free will” is certainly debated, some people point to how the billions of neurons of the brain function probabilistically and/or to the rise of unpredicted emergent systems of the brain lead to a sense of consciousness and agency that transcend the ever-changing individual atoms, molecules, cells that make up the material brain. Again, both order and chaos.
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