“Evil arises from the abuse of the free will God has granted his higher creatures and is tolerated for a while as the price of their significance. But it is derivative, not original, and thus doomed to eventual defeat because God as the Creator of all is the greatest Power that is or can be. We give God our best, physically, mentally, and morally, because He deserves no less—not because we think our best is worthy of Him or adequate to achieve His purposes. We give Him our best efforts because He is worthy, but we do not trust in them but in Him.” (Donald Williams)
“Evil is something we cannot overcome by simple human good will and teaching. Evil is, at its root, demonic and too great for us to overcome. It is for this purpose that Jesus came: to overcome evil. Evil cannot be overcome just through teaching ethical values, but by the power of God, which is given to us by the Holy Spirit. Through prayer—prayer for healing and prayer for deliverance— we become channels for Jesus to heal and to free people (as well as institutions and societies) from the evil that weighs them down.” (Francis MacNutt)
“St. John Chrysostom teaches us that all evil comes first from ourselves and only secondly from the devil. If we keep our minds vigilant and our hearts strong in the Faith, the devil has no access to us. The devil only acts on our own evil thoughts and wishes. When we are angry or envious, or when we have violent feelings toward someone, often or over a long period, we ourselves open the window of our heart to the demons.” (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)
“God is powerful and He can deliver us from any evil…Christ purges evil from the hearts and souls of those who submit to Him.” (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Dynamis 4/5/2019)
“Do you know that, as there are evil-doers, there is a countless multitude of good and pure people, a great army of the Saints of God? They are worth the world, that among the hundreds of thousands of evil men, might shine the tens of millions of sons of God, sons of grace. Because of this the Lord endures. He endures that the sheaves of the garden of Christ might be numbered.” (St. Luke of Simferopol)
“The egotistical and carnal man is easily deceived by the cunning devil… If a person does not have his guard up, the evil one can readily enter his mind with fantasies and false lights—none of which can raise us to Paradise. Instead, they will hurl us into chaos. This is why a person must seek repentance, not lights and divine gifts. It is repentance that leads to humility, and then the Benevolent God provides for us all that is necessary.” (St. Paisios the Athonite)
“Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him: because evil is but a chance misfortune, an illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of that person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.” (St. John of Kronstadt)
“The reason we have so much peace and spiritual growth when we are selflessly loving another is because that is when are, in our complete being, acting most like God. It is more powerful than prayer or faith…Love is greater than prayer, because prayer is a particular virtue but love embraces all virtues. Love is essentially the banishment of every kind of contrary thought for love thinketh no evil.” (Sacramental Living Ministries, Saint John Climacus)
“The cross stands as the final symbol that no evil exists that God cannot turn into a blessing. He is the living Alchemist who can take the dregs from the slag-heaps of life—disappointment, frustration, sorrow, disease, death, economic loss, heartache—and transform the dregs into gold.” (Catherine Marshall)
“Despite the world’s darkness and the evils it spawns, God infuses His will into everything that happens here.” (Dynamis 4/28/2015)
“...while nothing happens outside of God’s plan, God does not will evil things like He wills the good. God is not out of control of history, yet He does not enjoy seeing people suffer. Evil and suffering are not God’s original intent for the world, and therefore only a temporary condition until its renewal.” (Pastor Timothy Keller)
“God brings good from evil for those who trust Him…God can overrule people’s evil intentions to bring about His intended results.” (Life Application Study Bible, Genesis 50:20) “God hates evil and is never the cause of it. Nevertheless, He uses it for his own purposes. Everyone is an instrument in His hands, either voluntarily and willingly or involuntarily in spite of His intentions. God will complete the story according to His plot, and all the characters will bring about the conclusion He wants. It’s for us to choose whether to be evil characters who get our comeuppance in the end or good ones..." (Thomas Williams)
“...from the vantage point of eternity, looking back on all of history, it will be clear that even the genuinely bad things that happened were incorporated and used by God—so that in the end they only accomplished the opposite of what they intended. We will see that evil things ultimately brought about more glory and good than if they had not happened.” (Pastor Timothy Keller)
“ God values deeds according to their intentions. For it is said, "The Lord grant unto you according to your heart" (Psalms. 19:5) ... Therefore, whoever wants to do something but can't is considered as having done it by God, who sees the intentions of our hearts. This applies to both good and evil deeds alike.” (St. Mark the Ascetic)
“However, though we accept evil as real, we also know paradoxically it is unreal and not the true or ultimate reality. We don’t believe in evil as an equal and opposite power to God. It is not a power outside of God nor is it a power at all…it is taking that which is good and using it for our own willful purposes. Therefore, in reality, the answer to the question “what is evil?” is that evil is a counterfeit power.” (Sacramental Living)
“… evil is both real and unreal at the same time. It is real in that exists because of created beings’ choices, but it is unreal in that it has no lasting permanence because it not created by God. Only God and his goodness are the true and lasting reality. (Sacramental Living)
“Wickedness, when you examine it, turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way…Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing…Evil is to good not as black is to white but rather as rust is to metal, as disease is to health, and as death is to life. It can exist only where it can feed on good.” (C.S. Lewis, Thomas Williams)
“And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing.” (C.S. Lewis)
“…our greatest weapon against evil is prayer.” (Marianne C. Sailus)
“The most cunning thing about evil is that it is most frequently disguised as something good.” (Marianne C. Sailus)
“Good knows evil, but evil knows neither good nor itself...Our tendency toward self-justification is evidence that evil does not know itself.” (Thomas Williams)
“...the line of demarcation separating good and evil runs, not between nations or classes or political parties, but right through the middle of every human heart; and this line constantly shifts and oscillates." (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
“Evil actions are always someone’s misuse and abuse—knowingly or unknowingly, voluntarily or involuntarily—of what is substantially good.” (Father Thomas Hopko)
“The reality is that it is impossible to distinguish evil from good unless one has an infinite point that is absolutely good. The infinite reference point for distinguishing good from evil can be found only in the person of God, for God alone can exhaust the definition of “absolutely good.”
(Norman Geisler)
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