More on evil…

I’m still wrestling with the question of evil, especially how it relates to Genesis 3:1-10. I’m currently reading through Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Merton is writing about his call to monastic life in 1939-1940. After spending a summer in a remote part of New York state to think over becoming a Fransiscan and also writing a novel, he returns to New York City and finds Europe at war. He had intentionally not been reading the papers or listening to the radio. Merton writes this as he comes back to civilization:

“There was something else in my own mind- the recognition: ‘I myself am responsible for this. My sins have done this. Hitler is not the only one who has started this war: I have my share in it too…” It was a very sobering thought, and yet its deep and probing light by its very truth eased my soul a little.”

What a sobering thought. There is great evil in the world, and yet I have been one who has shaped this evil. There are those who do deeds I think I can never understand, and yet if I am honest about myself, I have to own that I have particiapted in this evil and have helped shape a world that is contrary to God’s goodness.

Back to Genesis 3… so much of this story of Adam and Eve is the story of all of us. It is the story of all of us who have chosen to think that we have a better way for our lives than God’s plan. It is the story of us all falling into a deception that ends up harming us. It is the story of us all clinging to some fig leaves in order to cover for our shame and to cover over our guilt.

And yet, “But where sin inceased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”