Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/368

* EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 320 EVIL. the four 'undisputed' Epistles, I. and II. Corin- thians, Romans, and Galatians, even if not t lie others usually attributed to him. We have therefore in this group of writers the Apostolic testimony. Interrogating that testimony as to miracles, apologetics usually expends its chief efforts in •connection with the resurrection of Christ. This is the greatest objective miracle and the most important. If it stands, the rest will stand also. Was this miracle actual? The Apostolic testi- mony, as gained from the Gospels and the four Pauline Epistles, is plain, unanimous, and clear. It is that Jesus Christ really died, and that He rose from the dead and appeared to the ■disciples — to enough of them, and on occasions enough, to exclude the possibility of subjective delusion or of insufficient opportunity to know the truth. Furthermore, it is evident that these Apostles did not expect His reappearance, but were overwhelmed with despair under the influ- ence of precisely the thoughts which the Jews exulted in — that death had brought to an end the dream of, a new kingdom to be set up by Jesus as the Christ. And their honesty is made manifest by their unfavorable account of themselves and of their leaders. No explanation which has been proposed to account for the early and triumphant belief that Jesus had risen, though He had not, has gained any considerable credence or been worthy of it. The natural effect of the testi- mony of the Apostles must be allowed to have its due course, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. This greatest of all miracles thus estab- lished, the credibility of all the rest follows. (6) The argument from the fulfillment of hiblical prophecies is also a branch of Christian evidences. Certain critics of the Old Testament have generally referred prophecy to a later date than the prophesied event, and hence made the argument from prophecy difficult, as in the case of the miracles. But it i- indisputable, upon any sane criticism of the Old Testament, that the Jewish history as a whole is prophetic, that Israel looked forward to a coming Messiah, that there were sufficient indications in the ancient records of His nature to admit of His recognition and to show the divine plan in His coming. But this is the centre and determinative element of the •'lit from prophecy. Consult: For the evidence of experience, Fra'nk. System 0/ Christian Certainty (Edin- burgh, issti): Stearns, of Christian Experienct (New York. 1891) ; Foster, Christian and Theology 1 New York, mm ). Under. Inalogy (London, 1736), i- one of the principal historic treatises. Paley, Evidences (London, 1 7 95), is classic, though in pari superseded. Hop kins. Evidences (Boston, 1864), marked a new era in the abject. Other works are: Fisher, Grounds «/' Theistic and Christian Belief (New York. 1883), ami Manual of Christian E i Xew York, isssi; Itrtice, Apologetics (London, 1892), Several series of apologetic 1 high value have been delivered by Luthardl of Leipzig, EVIL (AS. yfil. Goth, ubils, OHG Ml, Ger. OH< 1 iiber, S. ni,ir. lam. ovt r, Lat. Gl iV 1 p< Skt upari, over 1. Evil ma;. : [as frust rated desire, or the cause or causes of frustrated desire. If a being had no wants, no desires, 110 aspirations, for that being nothing could be an evil. His own destruction would be a matter of absolute indif- ference, and all his experiences would be mere colorless events. It is often said that for science there is no evil in the universe. But this state- ment presupposes that all is law and order in the universe, and that this uniformity of law in nature is what man as an intellectual being de- sires. For a being that wishes to know, igno- rance and all causes of ignorance are evil ; and ehaos would be an insuperable bar to knowledge, hence would be an evil. The l2.w-abidingness of nature makes knowledge possible, hence is for an intelligent being good. But man has other de- sires than curiosity to know. And whatever thwarts any of these desires is so far evil. Evil is absence of food for the hungry, lack of water for the thirsty; rebuff from the beloved for the lover; disappointment for the ambitious; death for him who is filled with a lust for life. To the person, therefore, who inquires why there is evil in the world the answer given must be: ''Because in the world there an- beings possessed of desire, and not possessed of the means to satisfy desire." Usually the question has reference to moral evil. But as an evil, moral evil differs no whit from any other evil. It is an unsatisfied desire or its cause. When the evil is moral, the unsatisfied desire is foi 1 moral order. (For a discussion of the question what morality and moral order are, see Ethics.) What makes moral evil more serious than other evils is the fact that human interests are more intimately and more extensively concerned in the moral order than in anything else. Many theological and philosophical answers have been given to the question as to the origin of evil. Thus the dualism of Zoroaster main- tains that evil arises from the action of Ahriman in his ceaseless antagonism to Ormazd (see A vesta. Zoroaster, Manichjsism, Gnosticism). Traditional Christian theology traces human evil to the fall of Adam and Eve, which, according to the account in Genesis, was brought about by the agency of the serpent. In accordance with later Hebrew tradition, the serpent is regarded as rep- resenting Satan, the personal principle of evil in the universe. Satan differs from Ahriman in not being coordinate with the principle of good. This opens the question of the relation between Satan and God, which has furnished opportunity for many a theological controversy. Again, many philosophers and theologians give a rationalistic account, of the origin of evil by saying that it is a metaphysical counterpart of g 1; thai il is as impossible to conceive good without evil as it is in conceive an inside without an outside. Oth- ers again make evil a necessary result of finitude; whatever is limited is ipso facto evil. Bui none nf their explanations are satisfactory, for rea- sons which here cannot be stated in full. The difficulty is theological rather than scientific, i. e. it is only by reason of the assumption of an ,1 condition of things in which no evil is ever potentially present that one makes it impos- sible i" explain how evil and 'all our woe' first came into the perfect order. A scientific expla- nation i.e tin- origin is a statement of tin' condi- tions and causes of evil. This in general is accomplished in the first part of this article. iii detail, the problem is one that has to he handed over to the practical sciences such as ethics, economics political theory, etc.
 * evil ; probablj connected w it h ( rol h.