St. Basil the Great (330-378)
Much wisdom is shown to us through the holy psalmist king David by the Spirit working in him. Sometimes the prophet, describing his own sufferings and the courage with which he met the adversities of life, through his example leaves us the clearest teaching about patience. For example, when he says: “Lord, how many are my enemies!” (Ps. 3:1). And at another time he describes God’s grace and the speed with which God helps those who truly seek Him, and then says: “When I cry, hear me, O God of my righteousness!” (Ps. 4:2), expressing himself equally with the prophet who says: “Thou shalt call, and He shall say: here am I!” (Is. 58:9), that is, he has not yet managed to call, and God’s hearing has already caught the end of the call. Also, offering prayers and supplications to God, teaches us how those who live in sins should propitiate God. “Lord, do not reprove me in your anger and do not punish me in your anger” (Ps. 6:2). And in the twelfth psalm he shows some duration of the temptation with the words: “How long, O Lord, will you completely forget me?” (v. 2) – and in the whole psalm he teaches us not to lose courage in sorrows, but to expect God’s mercy and to know that God, according to his special arrangement, delivers us to sorrows according to the faith of each one, sending corresponding trials.
Therefore, saying, “How long, O Lord, will you forget me completely?” – and: “How long will You hide Your face from me?” – immediately passes to the madness of unbelieving people, who, as soon as they encounter even a little bitterness in life, unable to bear the difficult circumstances, immediately begin to doubt in their thoughts: does God care about our world, does he monitor everyone’s affairs, does he reward everyone fairly? Then, seeing that their unpleasant situation still continues, they strengthen their wicked opinion and firmly think in their hearts that there is no God. “Said the fool in his heart: there is no God” (Ps. 13:1). And whoever has put this in his mind, he now indulges in every sin without caution. For if there is no judge who renders to each one according to his deeds, what would prevent them from troubling the poor, from killing orphans, from killing a widow, from defiling themselves with impure and abominable passions, all kinds of beastly lusts? Therefore, as a consequence of the thought that there is no God, he adds: “Men have become depraved, they have committed abominations” (v. 1). Because it is impossible for one who is not sick in his soul to forget God to deviate from the right path. Why are the Gentiles given over “to a perverse mind – to do that which is not like” (Rom. 1:28)? Is it not because they said, “There is no God”? Why did they fall into “disgraceful passions: their wives exchanged the natural use for an unnatural one; also the men” (Rom. 1:26-27)? Is it not because “they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man, to birds, to four-footed animals, and to creeping things” (Rom. 1:23)?
Therefore, as truly devoid of mind and reason, he who says: “There is no God” is a fool. But he is close to him, and does not in the least yield to his folly, and he who says that God is the cause of evil. And I suppose that their sin is equally grave, because they both equally deny the good God: the first by saying that there is no God, and the second by saying that He is not good. For if God is to blame for evil, he is clearly not good. In both cases, God is denied.
“Where – they say – are the diseases? Where does the untimely death come from? Where does the destruction of cities, shipwrecks, wars, epidemics come from? This is evil – they continue – and anyway, all this is God’s work. Therefore, who else but God should we consider responsible for what has happened?”
And so, inasmuch as we touch on a frequently repeated question, starting from some universally accepted beginning and more carefully considering the proposed question, we will try to make an intelligible and detailed explanation of it.
It is necessary to confirm the following in our thoughts in advance: inasmuch as we are a creation of the good God and are in the power of the One who arranges everything that affects us – both the important and the unimportant, we cannot suffer anything without God’s will and if we suffer anything , it is not harmful or such that something better could be devised. For though death be of God, it is doubtless not evil; unless someone calls the death of the sinner evil, because for him the exit from here becomes the beginning of torments in hell. But again, not God is the cause of the evils in hell, but we ourselves, because the beginning and root of sin is what depends on us – our freedom. By abstaining from evil, we might not suffer any calamity. But inasmuch as we are caught up in the sin of lust, can we present any clear evidence that we have not become the culprits of our own sorrows?
Therefore, one is evil only in our sensations, and another is evil in its own nature. Evil in itself depends upon us, as injustice, depravity, unreason, cowardice, envy, murder, poisons, deceitful deeds, and all the passions akin to them, which, defiling the soul created in the image of the Creator, generally darken its beauty. Moreover evil we call that which is difficult and painful for us as a feeling: bodily pains, wounds of the body, lack of the necessary, infamy, loss of property, loss of loved ones. After all, each of these calamities is sent to us by the wise and good Lord for our benefit. He takes away wealth from those who use it for evil, and thus breaks the instrument of their iniquity. It sends diseases to those for whom it is more profitable to have their members bound together than to pursue sin unhindered.
And the famine, the drought, the rains are some common calamities for whole cities and peoples, through which the evil that has exceeded the measure is punished. As the physician, though he causes discomfort and suffering to the body, is nevertheless a benefactor, because he fights with the disease and not with the sick, so God is good when, by punishing the parts, he arranges the salvation of the whole. You don’t blame the doctor for cutting one thing in the body, burning another, and completely taking away a third. On the contrary, you pay him, you call him a savior, because he controlled the disease in a small part of the body, until it developed in the whole body. But when you see that an earthquake has brought down a city upon its inhabitants, or a ship with passengers has been wrecked in the sea, you are not afraid to speak blasphemous words to the true Physician and Savior. You ought to understand that in moderate and curable diseases, people benefit only from the care of them; but when it appears that the affliction does not give way to the remedies, then it becomes necessary to isolate the damaged, so that the disease may not spread more widely and pass into the principal organs. Therefore, just as the doctor is not to blame for the cutting and burning, but the disease is to blame, so the destruction of cities, having as their beginning excessive sins, casts no reproach on God.
But they say: “If God is not to blame for evil, then why is it said: “I create the light and create the darkness, I make peace and cause calamity” (Isa. 45:7)? And it is also said: “Iniquity has come down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem” (Mic. 1:12). And: “Does an accident happen in a city that the Lord did not allow?” (Amos 3:6). And in the Song of Moses it is said: “Look now, (see) that this is I, I am, and there is no God besides Me: I sea and revive, I wound and I hope” (Deuteronomy 32:39).
But for the one who understands the meaning of Holy Scripture, none of these places hides in itself an accusation against God that he is the culprit and creator of evil.
For he who says, “I create light and create darkness,” declares that He is the Creator of creation, not the creator of evil. Creator and Artist of that which in creation appears opposite, He called Himself, so that you would not think that one is responsible for light and another for darkness, and so that you would not begin to look for another creator of fire, another – on the water, another – on the air and another – on the earth; because these elements, by their opposite qualities, appear as if opposed to each other; as indeed has happened to some people, by which they fell into polytheism.
“I make peace and cause disaster”. He especially creates peace in you, when with good teaching he calms your mind and soothes the passions rising in the soul. It “causes calamity,” that is, it transforms evil and leads to better, so that, ceasing to be evil, it can assume the quality of good. “Create in me a pure heart, O God” (Ps. 50:12). Not to create again, but to renew what has become stale from sin. And: “To create in Himself from the two peoples one new man” (Eph. 2:15). To create, not in the sense of creating from non-being, but that it transforms already existing ones. And: “Therefore whoever is in Christ is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Even Moses spoke: “Is he not your Father, who adopted you, created you and arranged you?” (Deut. 32:6). Here the word “creation” placed after the word “assimilation” makes it clear that it is quite often used in the sense of “improving.” Therefore, the “peacemaker” creates peace by transforming and turning evil into good.
Moreover, if by “peace” you understand the cessation of wars, and as evil you name the hardships accompanying the belligerents – long marches, labors, vigils, anxieties, shedding of sweat, wounds, murders, capture of cities, enslavement, captivity, the miserable appearance of the captives and in general all the sad consequences of the wars, all this happens according to the just judgment of God. Sodom was burned as a result of his lawless deeds. Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple desolate after the attempt of the Jews against the Lord. But how else could this be justly done, if not by the hands of the Romans, by whom the Lord was betrayed by his enemies?
The words: “I sea and revive” can be taken in any sense. For many people, fear is also edifying. “I hurt and I heal”. And this is useful even in the literal sense of the words, because defeat inspires fear and healing awakens love.
But you can find a higher meaning in what was said. “I see” – through sin, and “I revive” – through righteousness. Because to what extent “our outer man is decaying, but the inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Therefore, do not understand that it kills one and revives another, but that the same person revives by what he strikes, according to the parable that says: “You will punish him with a rod, and you will save his soul from hell” (Prov. 23:14). So the flesh is smitten, that the soul may be healed: sin is put to death, that righteousness may live.
When you hear: “Does an accident happen in a city that God did not allow,” understand that the Scriptures speak of disasters that befell sinners in order to turn from their sins. Thus it is said, “To humble thee, and to test thee, that he may do thee good” (Deuteronomy 8:16), putting an end to iniquity before it overflows, like a stream held back by a solid wall and dammed up.
Therefore, diseases, drought, the barrenness of the earth, and the calamities that befall everyone in life, cross the increase of sin. And every evil of this kind is sent by God to prevent real evils. For both bodily sufferings and external calamities restrain sin. So God destroys evil, and evil is not of God. And the doctor removes the disease, not putting it into the body. The destruction of cities, earthquakes, floods, deaths of troops, shipwrecks, and every death of many people, caused by land, sea, air, or fire, is an effect to make wise, to mend the survivors. Therefore, evil in its proper sense, that is, sin – its most accurate definition – depends on ourselves, because it is our will to protect ourselves from vice or to be vicious. And of the other evils, some, like exploits, are necessary to show manliness (for example, the sufferings of Job); and others are sent as a remedy for sins (for example, in the repentance of King David). And we also know of terrible punishments of another kind, permitted by the righteous Court of God, which by their example make the rest chaste. Thus Pharaoh was drowned with all his army. Thus the former inhabitants of Palestine were exterminated.
Therefore, though the apostle calls such “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (Rom. 9:22), we must not think that Pharaoh was ill-made; but on the contrary, by hearing about the vessels, understand how each of us is created for something useful. As in the great house one vessel is of gold, another of silver, another of earthenware, and another of wood (2 Tim. 2:20), and on the personal will of each of us depends our likeness to one or another substance (the morally pure and honest a person is a golden vessel, the inferior in dignity is a silver vessel, the wise vain and vulnerable to crushing is a clay vessel, and the easily defiled by sin is a wooden vessel).
And so, having been taught this by God, having an understanding of what evil is real, namely, sin, the end of which is destruction, and what evil is imaginary, painful in feeling, but having the power of good, such as the suffering sent to curb sin, whose fruits are the eternal salvation of the soul – do not be upset by the provisions of God’s household and do not at all consider God guilty of the existence of evil and do not imagine that evil exists independently. Evil is the absence of good. An eye was created, and blindness came from the loss of the eye. Thus, if the eye were by its nature invulnerable, there would be no blindness. Thus, evil does not exist by itself, but appears when the soul is damaged. It is not unborn, as the wicked speak, who make the evil nature equal to the good nature, acknowledging both to be without beginning and superior in origin; it is not even born, because if everything is from God, then how can evil come from good? Ugliness does not come from beauty; vice does not come from virtue. Read the history of creation and you will find that there “everything he created (and behold) was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Therefore, evil was not created together with that which is good. But even the rational creatures that came from the Creator were not brought into being with an admixture of cunning. For if the corporeal creatures had no evil in them when they were created, even more the rational creatures, so different in their purity and holiness.
(to be continued)
Source: Works of Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea Cappadocia. Ed. 4, h. 4. Holy Troitskaya Sergieva Lavra, 1901 (in Russian).
