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!

SOURCE OF GOOD AND EVIL
Extracted from A Genesis, 4th edition, FEAL — Allan Kardec

1. God being the beginning of all things, and that beginning being all wisdom, all
goodness and all righteousness, whatever comes from him must share these attributes, for the
who is infinitely wise, just, and good cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil, and unjust. The evil we observe cannot have originated from him.

2. If evil were in the attributions of a special being, be he called Ahriman, or Satan, 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 seeking 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, this 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 that case, God would have created the Spirit of evil, which would be a denial of his infinite goodness.

3. According to a certain doctrine, the evil Spirit, created good, would have become evil, and God,
to punish him, would have condemned him to remain eternally evil, giving him the mission of
seduce men to lead them into evil. Now, with the possibility of a single fall ((The fall, for dogmatic religions represents an event in which man, in his origin, committing a serious offense against God, losing his original sanctity, justice and wisdom, falling through punishment in his present condition: with suffering, ignorance, drift into sin and death. In other words, there would be degradation of the soul. The Spiritist Doctrine, based on the concept of the evolution of the soul from being simple and ignorant due to its effort, establishes its theory through this solid logic. (N. do E .))) cost them the cruelest punishments for eternity, without hope of forgiveness, there would not only be a lack of kindness. However, a premeditated cruelty, because, to make the seduction easier and better hide the trap, Satan would be authorized to to transform himself into an angel of light and to simulate the works of God, even to the point of deceiving. Thus, there would be more iniquity and improvidence on the part of God, because giving Satan all the freedom to emerge from darkness and surrender to worldly pleasures to drag men, the provoker of evil would be less punished than the victims of his tricks, for these, falling through weakness, once into the abyss, they can no longer come out. God refuses them a glass of water to quench their thirst, and throughout eternity, with the angels, He hears their groans, without being moved, while allowing Satan all the pleasure he desires.

Of all the doctrines on the theory of evil, this is undoubtedly the most irrational and the
most offensive to the deity. (To see Heaven and Hell according to Spiritism.
First part, chapter IX, The demons.)

4. However, evil exists and has a cause.

There are several classes of evil ((At the time of Allan Kardec, the Philosophy taught at universities, in normal schools (currently teaching) and in colleges was rational Spiritualism. In the discipline of theoretical morality (one of the Philosophical Sciences), it was taught to difference between physical and moral evil, to demonstrate a revolutionary theory based on personal freedom, contrary to the dogma of the fall and divine punishment of ancestral religions and external coercion, by materialism: “Physical evil consists of pain, illness, death . They are inevitable consequences of the organization of sentient beings, an essential stimulant for their activity. Moral evil is the fundamental condition of freedom. Without evil, good is not possible in the world, because if man could not make mistakes, he would not be free nor would I be able to do good. This life is a time of trial and, without physical and moral evil, there is no place for courage, patience, dedication and other virtues.” (Le Mansois-Duprey. Cours de Philosophie Élémentaire em L 'école normale: journal de l'enseignement pratique. v. 13. Paris: Larousse et Boyer, 1864. p. 235.) Spiritist moral theory was a development of rational Spiritualism: “Spiritism rests, therefore, on general principles independent of all dogmatic questions. It has, it is true, moral consequences like all Philosophical Sciences.” (Spiritist Magazine, 1859.). (N. do E.))). Firstly, there is physical evil and moral evil. We can also classify evils into those that man can avoid and those that are independent of his will. Among the latter, it is necessary to include natural scourges.

Man, whose faculties are limited, cannot understand all of them or encompass all the Creator's designs; he judges things from the point of view of his personality, interests and artificial conventions he has created for himself, which do not belong to the order of nature. That is why, in general, what he would consider just and admirable, if he knew its cause, its objective and the final result, seems to him harmful and unjust. By investigating the reason for being and the usefulness of each thing, you will recognize that everything has the imprint of infinite wisdom and will bow before that wisdom, even in relation to things that you do not understand.

5. Man has been given an intelligence by which he can ward off, or at least
greatly diminish the effects of natural scourges. The more knowledge you acquire and
advances in civilization, the less these calamities are disastrous. with wise organization
social, may even neutralize their effects, when they cannot be fully
avoided. In this way, for the same scourges which are useful in the general order of nature and for the future, but which attack us in the present, God has given to man, with the faculties with which he has endowed his Spirit, the means to paralyze their effects.

Thus, man cleanses unhealthy regions, neutralizes pestilent miasmas, fertilizes
uncultivated lands, preserves them from flooding; healthier houses are built, stronger to withstand the winds, so necessary for the purification of the atmosphere, and protection from the climate. It is thus, finally, that, little by little, necessity made him create the Sciences, with the help of which he improves the conditions of habitability of the globe and expands the whole of its well-being.

As man must progress, the evils to which he is exposed constitute an incentive for the exercise of his intelligence and of all his physical and moral faculties, inviting him to research the means to avoid them. If he had nothing to fear, none
necessity would drive him to seek the best; he would numb himself in the inactivity of his mind; I wouldn't invent or discover anything. Pain is the sting that pushes man forward, on the path of progress..

6. But the most numerous evils are those created by man through his own vices;
from your pride, your selfishness, your ambition, your greed, your
excesses in all things. This is the cause of the wars and calamities that cause
disagreements, injustices, the oppression of the weak by the strong, and, finally, most diseases.

God has established laws full of wisdom, the aim of which is good. man finds
in itself all that is necessary to follow them. Your path is traced by your
conscience, and the divine law is engraved in his heart. Furthermore, God remembers him,
constantly, by its messiahs and prophets, by all the incarnate spirits that
received a mission to clarify, moralize and contribute to their improvement, as well as
as, in recent times, by the multitude of disembodied spirits that manifest themselves on all sides. If men strictly conform to divine laws, there is noThe doubt that they would avoid the most serious evils, living happily on Earth. If he doesn't, it's because of his free will, and he must accept the consequences.

7. But God, full of goodness, placed the remedy on the side of the evil; that is, from evil itself it gives birth to good. There comes a time when the excess of moral evil becomes intolerable and makes man feel the need to change his life. Instructed by experience, he feels obliged to look for the medicine he needs in the good, always by virtue of free will. When he takes a better path, it is of his own volition and because he has recognized the disadvantages of the other road. Necessity compels him to improve morally in order to be happier, as this same necessity compelled him to improve the material conditions of his existence.

it can be said that evil is the absence of good, as cold is the absence of heat. The evil
it is no longer a distinct attribute, any more than cold is a special fluid; one is the
denial of the other. Where good does not exist, there is necessarily evil. Not doing evil is already the beginning of good. God only wants good, evil only comes from man. If there were in Creation a being in charge of evil, man could not avoid him. However, having the cause of evil in yourself and, at the same time, having his free will and the divine laws for his guide, he will avoid it when he will.

Let's take a common fact by comparison: an owner knows that, at the
of your land, there is a dangerous place where you can be injured or die. What do you do to avoid
accidents? Place, near the place, a sign to move away, because of danger. This is the law; she is wise and provident. If, in spite of this, a reckless person ignores the warning and has an accident, who could be held responsible but himself?

So it is with evil. Man would avoid it if he observed divine laws.
God, for example, has placed a limit on the satisfaction of needs; the man is
warned by satiety; if he goes beyond that limit, he acts voluntarily. The illnesses, the bodily weaknesses, the death that can result are your doing, not God's.

8. Evil being the result of man's imperfections, and man created by God, they will say, that if he did not create evil, at least he would have created the cause of it. If I had created the perfect man, evil would not exist.

If man had been created perfect, he would be fatally inclined towards good. Now,
by virtue of his free will, he does not inevitably tend towards either good or evil. God wanted him to be subjected to the law of progress, and for this progress to be the result of his own work, so that the merit would be his, even though he is responsible for the evil he commits by his will. The question, therefore, is to know what, in man, is the origin of his propensity to evil((The error consists in claiming that the soul came perfect from the hands of the Creator, when he, on the contrary, wanted perfection to be the result of the gradual refinement of the spirit and its own work. God wanted the soul, by virtue of its free will, to be able to choose between good and evil, reaching its ultimate ends through a dedicated life and resistance to evil. If he had created the soul with perfection in his likeness – and, leaving his hands, he had linked it to his eternal beatitude –, God would have made it, not in his image, but similar to himself, as already said. Knowing all things due to its essence and without having learned anything, but moved by a feeling of pride born of the awareness of its divine attributes, the soul would be induced to deny its origin, to ignore the author of its existence, remaining in state of rebellion against its Creator. (Bonnamy, investigating judge. The reason for Spiritism, chapter VI.) (Note by Allan Kardec.))).

9. If we study all passions, and even all vices, we see that they have their principle in the instinct of conservation. This instinct, in all its strength in animals and in the primitive beings that are closest to animal life, dominates alone, because, among them, there is still no counterbalance to the moral sense. The being has not yet been born for intellectual life. Instinct weakens, on the contrary, as intelligence develops, because it dominates matter. With rational intelligence, free will is born, which man uses at will: then only, for him, does the responsibility for his actions begin ((In the spiritist moral theory, free will arises after the development of rational intelligence. From this In this way, moral responsibility only begins there and gradually expands, in direct proportion to rational development. In animals and in beings that are still simple and ignorant, free will, moral sense and responsibility for their actions did not arise. These concepts Psychological approaches completely remove the dogmas of original sin, the fall and incarnation as punishment. The scientific hypotheses of selfishness and antisocial feelings innate in all individuals are also false. It brings encouragement, because the greater the intelligence, the greater the responsibility. Finally , for the full moral evolution of humanity it is necessary to guarantee for all individuals the opportunity for rational development through education. (N. do E.))).

10. The destiny of the Spirit is spiritual life. But in the early stages of its existence
bodily, he has only material needs to satisfy. For that purpose, the
exercise of the passions is a necessity for the conservation of the species and individuals,
materially speaking. However, coming out of this period, he has other needs, at first semimoral and semimaterial, and later exclusively moral. It is then that Spirit dominates matter. As he frees himself from his yoke, he advances through the proper life and approaches his final destination. If, on the contrary, he lets himself be dominated by matter, he delays and identifies himself with the irrational. In this situation, what was once a good, because it is a necessity of its nature, becomes an evil, not only because it is no longer a necessity, but because it becomes harmful to the spiritualization of the being.. Therefore, evil is relative, and responsibility is proportional to the degree of progress.

All passions have their providential utility, without which God would have done something useless.
and harmful. It is abuse that constitutes evil, and man abuses, according to his free will. Later, enlightened by self-interest, he freely chooses between good and evil.