Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

Finally even what humanity defines as progress cannotalways diminish evil. Thus the discovery of atomic energy hideswithin it the possibility of the total destruction of this worldand of all life. Research in the medical and biological fields hascreated the possibility of incredible cures, but also of manipulationand threats to life. The debates surrounding the ethicalquestions of biogenetics bear sufficient witness to this. Thehigher man climbs on the ladder of knowledge and discovery,the deeper the abysses of evil seem to become.Such paradox and complexity make it difficult to arrive at asimple definition of evil that could express exhaustively boththe fact that it exists and that it should not exist. In all of this,the traditionally Christian definition of evil maintains its validity:“Evil is a privation of some good which should be present.” 5This definition reflects both the monotheistic and Thomistphilosophical-theological understanding of privation: here privationindicates not only negativity or nothingness, but specificallythe absence of something that ought to be present. 6 Butfor contemporary human beings, such an understanding of evilas an absence violates the experience of evil as a threateningpower and as a terrible reality. Because our sense of this violationis so strong, contemporary human beings often reject thetraditional definition of evil as privation. How far such rejectionsare justified is an interesting question, but lies beyond thescope of this essay.In any case, a definition of evil should express both the privationof a due good and evil’s destructive power. It will probablynever be possible to offer an unequivocal definition of evil.But with regard to the tension between evil as privation andevil as presence or power, it is worth looking again at the definitionthat St. Augustine gave in his essay De moribusManichaeorum (written in the years 387-388). There he succinctlyand precisely calls evil id quod nocet, “that whichharms.” 7 EVIL: QUESTIONING AND CHALLENGING THEOLOGY AGAIN AND AGAIN 975Thomas Aquinas, De malo, qu. 1 a. 2. “Cum malum nihil aliud sitquam privatio debitae perfectionis.“6See Charles Journet, The Meaning of Evil (New York: P.J.Kenedy &Sons, 1963), 27-49, above all 41-42.7Augustine, De moribus Manichaeorum. II, 3, 5. PL 32,1346.