Activity and Ontology

Activity and Ontology.

Ontology (a static condition):

Something is to be labeled evil when it is in opposition to God’s desires.

Evil is a label, not a unit of measurement. There is no degree or scale to the label. Something is in conflict with God’s desires, or it is not.

Every human is born into a condition opposite of what God desires.

Every human is evil.

Activity (fluid decisions):

How often each human chooses to actively engage inclinations proceeding from their evil condition is a matter of personal decision.

Illustration: Jane is a sexual creature. That condition she did not choose and cannot unchoose (repress, yes, but not unchoose). How often and to what degrees she chooses to express that condition is a choice she constantly makes.

(  Excursus: This is why Paul taught that we are doubly guilty; (1) we were born into a condition we cannot change, and (2) all have at one time or another made choices in accordance with that condition.  )

The effect of these two realities:

Jane jaywalks and John eats babies. Both humans are evil. And one is choosing to participate in that condition to agreater degree than the other.

How will God handle these varying degrees of participation at the last judgment? He hasn’t told us. Dante in his Divine Comedy suggests that the degree of each person’s suffering in hell is related to their degree of participation in their evil condition through this life. That doesn’t seem likely to me as hell isn’t pitchforks but separation from God’s relational presence and the bearing of his image. Will there be degrees, then, of separation from bearing God’s image and experiencing his presence? I don’t think we’re going to know before it happens.