Evil is not making mistakes, then asking for forgiveness and being obedient to good.
O bad it is acting according to personal interest above the collective. To do this, the other must serve him, losing tranquility and happiness, which the selfish person does not want for himself. To submit the other, he must act not out of duty that cooperates, but out of submission that makes him a kind of slave.
God punishes? No! What is punishment?
O punishment, according to divine or natural law, consists of the constant suffering of those who consciously err, acting driven by personal interests, using lies and violence as means to achieve their objectives.
Isn't this concept totally different from what we have learned? Is punishment something that happens in the world? No, the punishment is the person's moral suffering and, if they do not change, they will not find happiness.
No selfish person is happy, because they know, intimately, that they are not doing good. But why would someone be selfish, knowing they are wrong, suffering because of it, and still continuing in the same selfish behavior?
Through Spiritism, we uncover the roots of selfishness and pride. Spiritism does not confront people or ideas; he confronts selfishness and pride as concepts that harm spiritual progress.
The guilty Spirit first suffers in spiritual life due to the degree of its imperfections, and is then granted bodily life as a means of reparation. That is why the Spirit finds in her, either the people she offended, or situations similar to those in which she committed evil, or even situations opposite to those she experienced, for example, facing misery if she was a bad rich person, or a humiliating condition if was proud. This is not a double punishment, but the same one that is continued on Earth, as a complement, with a view to facilitating your progress towards effective work. It depends on the Spirit himself to make it profitable. Isn't it better for him to return to Earth, with the possibility of gaining Heaven, than to be condemned without remission when he leaves it? This freedom that is granted to him is proof of the wisdom, goodness and justice of God, who wants man to owe everything to his own efforts, thus being the architect of his future. If you are unhappy, whether you are unhappy for a longer or shorter period of time, complain only to yourself – the path to progress is always open to you.
Allan Kardec. Heaven and Hell: Or divine justice according to Spiritism, publisher Feal (p. 78). Kindle Edition.
However, it is crucial to fully understand what selfishness entails in order to combat it effectively. Recognizing your mistakes and feeling guilty is the first step towards change. Otherwise, the individual will continue to suffer.
The false idea that God is the cause of our suffering is wrong. In fact, we are judges and prisoners of ourselves and our own thoughts. Spiritism teaches us this. Knowing this, will you choose to remain trapped or free yourself? To be a slave or free? It's your choice.
No one is obligated to act for the good. Freedom is fundamental to acting in good ways. God does not put anyone to watch anyone. When you do good, you will do it with all your effort. The moment you act with integrity, other spirits approach to do the same: the network of kindness is created.
If you are acting with ulterior motives, other spirits notice and you isolate yourself by choice. That's the mechanism!
Is someone really watching us in the spiritual world? No! Is there a specific place to be punished? No! This is false! Does Emmanuel mention the threshold? Yes, he mentions it, but they are deluded spirits that gather there. Good spirits see bad spirits as sick people to be cured and not as adversaries to be fought. The fight between good and evil is a false idea!
This article was prepared based on a lecture given by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. Click here to meet her.
The double principle of good and evil is a mistake!
The belief in existence do mal, como algo criado por Deus (ou pelo “diabo”, quem, por ter sido criado por Deus, acarreta a mesma consequência) e que vem de fora, é algo muito difundido, em todo o mundo e em todas as crenças. O Espiritismo, porém, é a única doutrina filosófica, até hoje existente, a to demonstrate, rationally and factually, that this is not true.
Começamos citando Kardec, em A Gênese, no texto “Fonte do Bem e do Mal”:
being God the the beginning of all things, and this beginning being all wisdom, all goodness, and all righteousness., whatever proceeds from him must share these attributes, for what is infinitely wise, just, and good cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil, and unjust. The evil we observe cannot have originated from him.
If evil were the responsibility of a special being, whether he was called Ahriman or Satan((Zoroastrianism, the ancestral religion of Persia, proposed the existence of twin gods: Ahura Mazda, of goodness and light, and Angra Mainyu, the Ahriman , god of darkness and evil. The world would be in a battle between good and evil. Satan, a character from the Bible, is identified as a fallen angel in the new testament. (N. do E.))), of two, one: Either he would be equal to God and, consequently, also powerful and eternal, or he would be inferior.
In the first case, there would be two rival powers, fighting incessantly, each trying to undo what the other is doing, opposing each other. This hypothesis is irreconcilable with the harmony that is revealed in the order of the Universe.
In the second case, being inferior to God, that being would be subordinate to him. Not being able to be eternal like him without being his equal; could only have been created by God. If it was created, it could only have been by God. In this case, God would have created the Spirit of evil, which would be a denial of his infinite goodness..
KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis. FEAL Publisher. 2nd edition, 2018.
Thus, Kardec demonstrates that it would not be possible for a being to exist that gave a principle to evil, because, since this principle is God himself, it would not be in accordance with his attributes (being He the good); being another being, that being would have been created by God, which would mean that evil would still be God's creation.
In Heaven and Hell, Kardec talks about the origin of the principle of good and evil:
For long centuries and under different names, the double principle of good and evil was the basis of all religious beliefs, being personified in the figures of Ahura-Masda and Ahriman among the Persians, and of Jehovah and Satan among the Hebrews. However, as any sovereign must be aided by ministers, all religions have admitted secondary agents, good or bad geniuses. The pagans represented them through an innumerable multitude of individuals, each with special attributions for good and evil, for vices and virtues, and to which they gave the generic name of gods. Christians and Muslims received angels and demons from the Hebrews.
KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. FEAL Publisher. 1st edition, 2021.
These doctrines, which, in truth, answer to the heteronomous moral, lead to the belief that evil is something external, defined. In the case of Christian religions, this principle was reproduced in the belief of angels and demons, and this mainly after the Roman Church appropriated Christianity:
The doctrine of devils has its origin, therefore, in the ancient belief in the principles of good and evil.. Let us examine it here only from the Christian point of view, verifying that it accords with the most exact knowledge we have at present of the attributes of the Deity.
These attributes are the starting point, the basis of all religious doctrines ((The confusion between the material principle of pleasure and pain (good and bad) with the moral principle (good and evil) is the basis of the heteronomy present in beliefs of ancestral religions. The animal submits to instincts, thus acting blindly to the needs of the species. But the human being has a dual nature, participating in animal life through the body and spiritual life through the soul. Treated slavishly, the human being becomes a machine It is up to the human spirit to abandon the heteronomous condition of subjection to the will of others (blind faith and passive obedience) in order to achieve free will and moral sense, as proposed by Spiritism. (N. do E.))). Dogmas, worship, ceremonies, customs, morals, everything is in harmony with the more or less fair, more or less elevated idea of God, from fetishism to Christianity. If the intimate essence of God is still a mystery to our intelligence, we understand Him today, however, better than ever before, thanks to the teachings of Christ. Christianity teaches us, in line with reason, that God is one, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good, and infinite in all his perfections..
Thus, as has been said before (chap. VII, “Eternal punishments”), “If the smallest fraction of one of his attributes were subtracted, there would be no more God, since there could be a more perfect being.”. Such attributes, in their absolute fullness, are therefore the criterion of all religions, the measure of the truth of each of the principles they teach. And in order for any of these principles to be true, it is necessary that it does not attack any of the perfections of God.. Let us see whether this is so in the common doctrine of demons.
ibid.
Kardec continues to weave a line of reasoning from which it is not possible to escape: either God is sovereign, in everything, or he is not.
According to the Church, Satan, the chief or king of demons, is not an allegorical personification of evil, but actually a real being doing only evil, while God does only good. Let us therefore take it as it is presented to us.
Does Satan exist from all eternity, like God, or is he later? If he exists from all eternity, he is uncreated, and therefore equal with God, in which case God would no longer be unique, as there would be a god of good and a god of evil.
Is Satan later than God? So he is a creature of God. Since he only does evil, being incapable of doing good and of repenting, God will have created a being eternally consecrated to evil. If evil is not the work of God, but the work of one of his creatures predestined to do so, God will always be the first author of evil, not being, therefore, infinitely good. O mesmo acontece com todos os seres maus, chamados demônios((Sabemos que a palavra “demoônio” vem do grego, e significa “gênio” ou “Espírito”.)).
ibid.
If, to say that God did not create evil, it is said that the devil also exists from all eternity. If so, then God would no longer be God, because he would not be unique, since there would be a god of good and a god of evil.
Kardec advances:
According to Spiritism, neither angels nor demons are separate beings, since the creation of intelligent beings is one and the same.. United with material bodies, they constitute the humanity that populates the Earth and other inhabited spheres. Freed from these bodies, they constitute the spiritual world or the spirits that populate the Spaces. God created them to be perfectible, giving them perfection and the happiness that comes from it, but he did not give them perfection. God wanted them to reach it through personal effort, in order to have the merit of their conquest.. Beings progress from the moment of their creation, whether incarnated or in the spiritual state ((The heteronomous beliefs of ancestral religions affirm the false idea that souls were created by God perfect in wisdom and virtue. Evil would occur through sin and would cause the fall in the world, where the vicissitudes would be divine punishments. Thus, all of humanity would be in this condition. Everything changes with the autonomous moral theory of Spiritism, where all souls are created simple, ignorant and perfectible, happiness is the goal, and evil, when it exists, is temporary, being overcome by effort. (N. do E.))) Once they reach their apogee, they become pure spirits, or angels, according to the common expression, so that, from the embryo of the intelligent being to the angel, there is an uninterrupted chain in that each link marks a step on the scale of progress
ibid.
We are therefore not created perfect. We are created simple and ignorant and, by our will, we progress or stop, we develop virtues or imperfections. Now it is already established that the existence of the devil is, in fact, an impossibility. Where was the evil then? Evil is in each one, when one moves away from the good by living in imperfections.
As a result, there are spirits in all degrees of moral and intellectual advancement, depending on the position they occupy on the scale.((VIDE a “Spiritist Scale. There are, therefore, spirits in all degrees of wisdom and ignorance, of goodness and evil. In the lower classes there are those who are still deeply inclined to evil, delighting in it. If we like, we can call them demons because they are capable of all the transgressions attributed to the latter. If Spiritism does not call them that way, it is because such a name is linked to the idea of beings distinct from humanity., of an essentially perverse nature, consecrated to evil for all eternity, incapable of progressing in the direction of good.
ibid.
We said, then, that evil is the departure of the individual from the morality of the divine, natural law, to live in imperfections. We therefore want to understand: how does evil develop? We will deal with this in a next article, under that title!
