Jon asked:

Do you believe it is possible that evil is just another form of good? That is to say that man only
commits evil in an attempt to promote what he has construed as good? Or do you believe man will go
out of his way to create evil for reasons unknown?

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Suppose it were true that when someone does evil, he does it thinking it is good. Why would that
make the evil a form of good? It would not. It would still be evil even if someone did it thinking it good.
Suppose someone tortured a little child to death, but in some twisted way thought that was a good
thing to do. That would not make the torture a good thing. Thinking something is good doesn't make it
good. Why should it?

People do evil for a variety of motives. Sometimes they are able to convince themselves that what
they are doing is good. (Apparently many convicted criminals in prison believe that they are not
"really" guilty, and persuade themselves that they had an adequate excuse or even justification for
what they did.) People deceived and lie to themselves all the time. Sometimes people are just evil
and twisted people and, as a result, do evil and twisted things. For some reason, some people don't
think this is possible. I don't know why.

In John Milton's great Paradise Lost,Satan, who has just been tossed out of heaven by God says,
"Evil, be thou my good." That is to say, I will from now on think of evil as good, and (I suppose) good
as evil." But at least, Satan was honest with himself.

Ken Stern

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