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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > General Chat > Defining Evil | Forum Quick Jump
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/3/2010 3:47 PM (GMT -6) |   | | My new definition of evil:
"Evil is unfulfilled potential."
Tom
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/3/2010 4:05 PM (GMT -6) | | I would agree with that term if the "unfulfilled potential" we are talking about is the potential to perceive and lovingly enjoy God with one's totality...the potential God designed into all creaturely personal beings.
To the degree that potential for creaturely existence isn't fulfilled is to the degree that creaturely existence will be susceptible to evil.
Think about it. Can a person really perceive and lovingly enjoy God with one's totality, living a sacramental life of worship...and then judge, contradict, spite or ignore God at the same time? No way.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/3/2010 4:12:28 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/3/2010 5:42 PM (GMT -6) | | All I mean is that a thing's potential is defined by its logos, which is that things's capacity to maximize good/beauty. Evil, as privation of the good, is just a failure of a thing to fulfill its logos, pure and simple. What other account of this failure can we give? So I'm saying "privation of good" and "failure to achieve potential" are the same thing. The potential is the potential "to be" what a thing has the capacity to be. To fail to achieve it is to suffer privation of the good.
We can define one's potential in terms of perceiving and loving God. That's cool. For the moment I'm just equating a thing's potential with it's logos and then arguing that evil is just the privation of this good (or the failure to achieve one's logos). And our logos is our potential for being--thus, evil as privation of good is failure to achieve potential.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 10/4/2010 7:22:49 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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