Last Things: How Evil Is Evil? How Good Is Good?

from firstprinciples:
All of our literature depicts something of the extent and nature of evil, not just of evil alone but of the responses to it. The drama is no less poignant and burdensome among the ordinary people and among the poor than it is among the great and powerful. The reason for this is that all are called to salvation on the basis of their lives no matter in what sort of polity or economy they lived in. If there is anything that is strange about evil, it is the response to it. The whole dramatic interest of Christianity itself is the life of Christ. He came into the world, it is said, not to abolish evil directly but to enable us to have our sins forgiven, almost as to say that by removing evil as such, something greater would also be removed, namely our freedom. The removal of evil could not be a one-way operation on the part of the Godhead.