Morning Confession.

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen.

Great Quote

"The most important thought you will ever think is what you think when you think about God. For what you believe about God determines every other facet of your life."
- Dr. Jeffrey Bingham

Evil Defined as Privation of the Good

What is evil? Is it a substance? I now think not. Evil is an absence, a privation of that which is substantively good. It would be slightly misleading to say that evil does not exist; however, it seems fully accurate to say that evil is not a created substance. Furthermore, evil might rightly be defined through its non-existence.

Maybe we should start at the beginning.

God saw His creation as good, to which He declared it so. It is important to remember that God is Himself the definition of good. This is not just an adjective, for God is neither the apotheosis of our own understanding of good, nor is He a sort of ultimate quintessence or exemplar of a generally human quality. No, good finds identity in God Himself, for God as good is a confession not of mere acts but of very substance and being.

Scripture testifies through Genesis 1 & 2 that the "what went wrong" had not to do with how God made it. So again, God created the heavens and earth as good. Creation was good and had been. God created out of Himself, out of His own goodness; however, He did not duplicate Himself. He did not breathe life into another Divine. His creation is representative of His goodness but it does not share substance. Such would be panentheistic. God did not, either, create evil. Again, evil merely privates the good that He did create. This is integral to proper understanding, for as only God is Divine and moreover the very nature and substance of goodness, He alone is incorruptible. His creation, though it reflects His goodness, is not itself divine and thus not incorruptibly good. All created things, by very nature not being God, are corruptible. The angelic fall should well enough demonstrate that only God is holy in His property.

So, sin (we shall for simplicity synonymize sin with evil) is neither created, nor though is it creative. Only God creates ex nihilo. True creation is a divine act, alone. Evil makes nothing new but merely breaks down things that were already. This breaking down, this privation or lack, is the “what went wrong” with creation and still is the “what is wrong” in our post fallen world.

I was given a simple analogy that I believe represents this concept of privation well. Think of a coffee cup. As created, the cup is all there, fully substantive as constructed. When you pour coffee into it, the coffee stays in. It is and functions as it was created. It is virtuous, which is actually a statement of its being. (Virtue/Vice/Sin/Good - all are actually statements of being, but this may be a point to follow up on at a later time). Sin would manifest itself as a hole at the bottom of the coffee cup. This hole is not anything in itself but merely a lack, though with a powerful effect. If you poured coffee into this sinful coffee cup, coffee would spill out. This coffee cup does not stand up to its creation. Sin, seen in this way, is a lack of what should be, of what was created good. It is less than how God created it. Note in this analogy that there is nothing new added to the coffee cup, but merely an absence.

Think also of darkness. Darkness really does not exist in itself; rather, it is defined as the absence of what is extant: light. Light is the created existent property.

Moreover, sin is taking a step back from the good, specifically from God Himself. Evil manifests as the separation and isolation of oneself from God, both in regards to relationship with Him and harmony with His creation. This later is evidenced through the breakdown of community and stewardship that occur as a result from sin. Such is why all of creation is groaning for redemption, as enduring labor pains for the birth of the new heavens and earth, the ultimate realization of creation and Creator being reconciled through Christ (through Whom they were first created). Such is why the Christian hope is resurrection. It is the new creation in Christ, the shedding the perishable for the imperishable, the redemption found in being made whole once again...but this too is a topic for another day.

Sin, furthermore, misshapes the created good and is thus habit forming. More correctly (and dangerously), sin progressively more grossly redefines one’s very being or identity. Think of grooves in a hand, or better yet, (for those familiar with the science) the brain. Augustine described sin (again, think here of a state) as being curved in on oneself, homo curvatus in se. I think this may actually be the best depiction of evil, especially relating to its effect onto the created being. Allow me to explain.

Curving into oneself is a near perfect image, because it both illustrates the directional movement, as well as, the resultant implosion, which is much like a black hole. The greatest two commandments the Christian has is to love God and love his neighbor. Satan and the demons are the great example of turning away and leading away from love for God and neighbor. They do this themselves, and they inspire such action in man. When neither God nor neighbor is loved, though, all that is left is self. Those driven by self, those fully directed by their own desires, become possessive without satisfaction, which ultimately leads to destruction.

J.R.R. Tolkien does masterful work illustrating this idea with the depicted result through the character of Gollum. Gollum was once a happy hobbit known as Sméagol, content as hobbits are with they joys of life they have been given. Sméagol, progressively driven through maintaining possession of the ring, was led to a murderous and cannibalistic life, as he progressively deteriorated into a form barely recognizable to what he once was. The character of Gollum quite literally curved in upon himself to where he was literally a shell of his own greed, almost completely absent of good. He was barely able to even remember love and friendship.

Satan himself, the once great Lucifer, archangel of light, is but a wafer of his former glory. Satan, like Gollum, like Adam and Eve, were all guilty in the same mannar. Instead of receiving in love what was given to them, they tried to possess it all. Sin, in this light, manifests itself in the creature as a sort of grasping, not accepting what is given to us as a gift from the Creator. As such, evil turns us away from God and towards self pursuit, casting us into an abyss of self destruction.

Evil then is a perversion both of the divinely created substance and of the human heart desiring such object. Influence, wine, shelter, love, etc: all are gracious gifts from God too often abused by a wicked heart. The consequence of such abuse is murder, greed, and selfishness, let alone war, global debt, and environmental irresponsibility. Evil as privation of the good is evident not only in genocide and tyranny, but in all those we know whose lives have been partially destroyed, even in small ways, eaten away through their turing away from God and neighbor and instead towards self. We too know this in ourselves.

For the answer to evil, I invite you to begin by reading, in addition to Evil and the Justice of God, Bishop Wright’s Surprised by Hope and then joining me in Samuel Wells’ God’s Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics.

Our Christian Confession:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.