The Role of Satan in God's Creation - Part 4

[Guest guest]

The objective force

of evil in creation

independent of man's

actions

 

(p.137) While all of these facts support the contention that evil is

subjective--that man may be accused of misusing his reason and, by creating

inharmony with God's laws, of giving birth to evil--this explanation does not

adequately account for every aspect of evil inextricably bound into the myriad

manifestations of creation.

 

Millions of bacteria and virulent, invisible armies of germs move silently about

the earth seeking, like devouring locusts, to destroy the crops of human lives.

Numberless diseases infest plants and animals who have no free choice and

consequently could not attract these evils due to prenatal bad karma.

 

Why is there death by floods and cataclysms? It does not seem possible that all

of the millions of people destroyed by floods and famine in China could have

suffered due to their past actions in previous lives. [1]

 

Why is there cannibalism in nature? The baby salmon lives on the flesh of its

mother; the big fish eats the little fish. Then the fisherman finds joy in

catching the big fish, deceiving it with hooked food; and the more the fish

struggles for life, the more the sportsman enjoys it and says, " My, it is a game

fish! " Who would like to change places with the fish?

 

Why do men murder each other in war? Why do even the thoughts of wrong judgment

and emotions of jealousy, revenge, greed, and selfishness arise at all in the

human mind? If man is made in the image of God, and God is good, then the

logical deduction is that man could become nothing else but good. Wars result

from industrial and territorial selfishness, from nations fuming with national

selfishness and greed for possession; but why are conflicts not avoided by

parliamentary discussions? (p.138) Why was it that the slaying of the Austrian

Archduke Franz Ferdinand threw the world into furious conflagration

precipitating World War I? Think of Tamerlane, emperor of India, slaying one

million Hindus after his victory. Think of the Aztecs who used to cut out the

hearts of their prisoners of war, hundreds at a time, in front of their idol

gods. Think of the burning of witches and martyrs under the zeal of the

Christian faith. How do despots such as Hitler gain the power to wreak untold

horrors on humanity? And what of the war of the Crusades, fought in the name of

Jesus' teachings, which stress only love for one's enemies--thousands of priests

advocated this war and prayed for the destruction of their enemy brothers and

victory for themselves.

 

Man did not create physical temptation, death-dealing bacteria, natural

cataclysms. From the very beginning evil existed to delude man and influence his

free choice. How easy it is for the majority of people to be tempted materially,

to languish spiritually and do the very things that will hurt themselves.

 

The warfare of animals preying on each other, the battle of opposites and

destructive forces in nature, predatory germs, delusion's power to effect wrong

judgment in men, infinitely creative temptations to do wrong even against better

judgment, distinctly show that there is an objective evil force that tries to

destroy the evidential expressions of the Infinite Good.

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within

You) Volume 1, Discourse 7, pg. 137-138

Paramahansa Yogananda

Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1

ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

 

Notes:

 

[1] Reference to the summer flood along the Yangtze during July-August 1931.

Over 51 million people were affected (one-fourth of China's population). 3.7

million people perished due to disease, starvation, or drowning. This flood was

preceded by a prolonged drought in China during the 1928-1930 period, causing a

famine in which 3 million people died, according to the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. ('Publisher's Note')