1. EvilEvil

2. EvilEvil

3. Do you want God to rid the world of evil?

4. What if He starts with you?

5. Ev il ?

6. “As far as I know we just don't have any intrinsic instincts for evil.” – Abraham Maslow

8. “The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment, or as the Nazi liked to say ‘of blood and soil’. I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz were ultimately prepared not in some ministry of defense in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of Nihilistic scientists and philosophers.” - Victor Franko

9. Old Testament Survey on Moral Evil "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) “ The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:1-3) "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) "Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

10. “I do not find that…evil is inherent in human nature” – Carl Rogers

11. New Testament Survey on Moral Evil “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” (Matthew 15:19) "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23) "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12) "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

12. Did Jesus Think Mankind was Evil?

13. “If each one of us is born without a sinful nature, how do we account for the universality of sin? If four billion people were born with no inclination to sin, with no corruption to their nature, we would reasonably expect that at least some of them would refrain from falling.... But if everybody does it, without exception, then we begin to wonder why.” - R. C. Sproul

14. “The doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.” - Reinhold Niebuhr

15. Ev il ?

16. “The words ‘image’, ‘appearance’, and ‘outwardly’ are crucial to understanding the morality of the evil. While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness’ is on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie. This is why they are the ‘people of the lie’.” - M. Scott Peck People of the Lie

17. Is Evil a Genetic Defect? John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection in the early morning hours of May 10, 1994 for the rape and murder of 33 young men and boys, 29 of whom he buried in the crawl space beneath his own Chicago home between the years of 1972 and 1978. After his death, he was delivered into the hands of Dr. Helen Morrison to perform a very unique autopsy. Dr. Morrison had previously interviewed Gacy, along with many other serial killers, in an attempt to isolate personality traits that were common among such ruthless murderers. Now at the request of Gacy’s family, Dr. Morrison was going to remove the brain of the notorious serial killer in hopes of discovering some sort of physical abnormality that would provide answers for why Gacy destroyed so many innocent lives.

18. "He is a serial killer when he is a fetus, even as soon as sperm meets egg to create the genes of a new person” Dr. Helen Morrison

19. Is Evil a Genetic Defect?

20. “One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people.... And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.” -Thomas Merton

21. Total or “Radical” Depravity

22. Radical Depravity Effects

23. “We are the wild animal.” - G. K. Chesterton

24. Ev il ?

25. A Monster’s Conclusion

26. “That children generally lie and steal and cheat is routinely observable. The fact that sometimes they grow up to become truly honest adults is what seems the more remarkable. Laziness is more the rule than diligence. If we seriously think about it, it probably makes more sense to assume this is a naturally evil world that has somehow been mysteriously ‘contaminated’ by goodness, rather than the other way around.” - M. Scott Peck People of the Lie

27. Rousseau’s Conclusion

28. Man Created in God’s Good Image "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

29. Man Falls in the Garden of Eden “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” ” (Genesis 2:16–17) “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ” (Genesis 3:6)

30. The primal sin in humanity consisted in putting the knowledge of good and evil before the knowledge of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

31. Fallen Man begets Fallen Man

32. "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

33. Moral Evil Begins its Journey “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. ” (Genesis 4:3–8)

34. www.confidentchristians.org Ev il ?

35. www.confidentchristians.org “[Let’s say] you’ve been rock climbing and have sustained injuries to your knee. You mention it to a physician friend, who predicts the pain will leave of its own accord. Meanwhile, he says, there’s nothing he can do, short of amputating your leg above the knee to remove the pain, Now the pain in your knee is an evil state of affairs. And it is within the power of your friend to eliminate this evil. Does his failure to do so mean that he is not a good person? Of course not; for he could eliminate this evil only by bringing about another, much worse evil.” - Alvin Plantinga

36. www.confidentchristians.org “It is entirely possible that a good person fail to eliminate an evil state of affairs that he knows about and can eliminate. This would take place, if, as in the present example, he couldn’t eliminate the evil without bringing about a greater evil.” - Alvin Plantinga

37. www.confidentchristians.org “Such is the generosity of God’s goodness that He has not refrained from creating even that creature which He foreknew would not only sin, but remain in the will to sin. As a runaway horse is better than a stone which does not run away because it lacks self- movement and sense perception, so the creature is more excellent which sins by free will than that which does not sin only because it has no free will.” - Augustine

38. www.confidentchristians.org The Worlds God Could Have Made This world may not be the best possible world; it may be the best way to get to the best possible world

39. www.confidentchristians.org “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who wants to destroy a piece of his own heart?” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

40. www.confidentchristians.org Ev il ?

41. www.confidentchristians.org Step 1: Be Born Again “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”” (John 3:3–8)

42. www.confidentchristians.org

43. Can Sin now vs. Can’t Sin now

44. www.confidentchristians.org Step 2: The Glorified New Body “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ” (1 Corinthians 15:42–44) “Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. ” (1 Corinthians 15:49) “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. ” (1 John 3:2)

45. www.confidentchristians.org Step 3: The New Heavens and Earth “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. ” (2 Peter 3:10) “And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” ” (Revelation 21:5)

46. www.confidentchristians.org Conclusions If God were to wipe evil completely off the map, He would have to remove us as well To remove evil would be to remove human choice and freedom Being evil means we are radically depraved; it goes to the core of our being The cure for moral evil is to be born again by the Spirit of God, receive a glorified new body, and be free of the corrupted world

47. www.confidentchristians.org EvilEvil