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By Root 395 0

do bad things happen to good people? This perennial question has been especially troubling for philosophically inclined men and women who believe that some all-powerful, perfectly good being rules the universe. Why? Because a perfectly good being that has control of all things would presumably have created a world where good people are rewarded for their virtue and evil people are punished for their crimes. Yet good people often go unrewarded for their good deeds, and some even suffer terribly in this life. Meanwhile, bad people prosper. They even manage to attain the most prominent places of power. If goodness is more powerful than evil, why is there so much evil in the world? Could it be that evil is actually stronger?

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker raises this very question while listening to one of Master Yoda’s early lessons on the Force. Yoda warns Luke about the Dark Side, the path that Darth Vader has followed. Luke asks Yoda, “Is the Dark Side stronger?” Yoda responds: “No . . . No [softer] . . . No [even softer yet]. Quicker, easier, more seductive.” Although Yoda answers Luke’s question in the negative, his delivery suggests that Yoda is not certain, but at most only wistfully hopeful, that good will overcome evil in the end.

Intelligent attempts to make sense of the apparent power that evil has over goodness in this life are bound to lead to more basic questions about evil. Why do bad things happen at all? What is the ultimate origin of evil? And what is evil, anyway?

Something Wicked This Way Comes. But From Whence Does It Come?

There is genuine evil in the universe. This is obvious to most of us. Philosophers of religion—those who try to make sense of, support, or refute the claims of world religions—traditionally have distinguished two varieties of evil: natural evil and moral evil. A natural evil is an event that occurs in the universe that is painful, unpleasant, or destructive and does not occur as a direct result of someone’s choosing to do what is harmful. Examples of natural evils are Luke’s being attacked by a wampa on Hoth and bigger fish eating smaller fish on Naboo. Although it is good for a wampa to eat, Luke isn’t too happy about the prospect of being on the menu that particular day! And though it isn’t morally wrong for one fish to eat another fish, because the destruction of a living organism is something bad—at least for the fish that’s eaten—philosophers call it a “natural” evil. In contrast to natural evil, moral evil results from someone’s choosing to do what’s harmful to either one’s self or another. Grand Moff Tarkin’s ordering the destruction of Alderaan and Darth Maul’s murdering Qui-Gon Jinn are prime examples of moral evils.

But why do we live in a universe full of natural and moral evils? Maybe any serious talk of goodness in the world implies that there is evil in the world too. Perhaps the relation between good and evil is analogous to the relation between light and darkness. Darkness is the absence of light and light is the absence of darkness. In a world of perpetual light—where one would have no conception at all of darkness—the word ‘light’ would have a meaning totally different from what it has for us who dwell in alternating periods of light and darkness. Indeed, we might think that the words ‘light’ and ‘dark’ would have no meaning for us at all in such a context. If good and evil are opposites in the same way as light and darkness, then in order for us to have any real experience that we might label ‘good,’ we must also have genuine experience of evil.

As Qui-Gon Jinn reminds Masters Yoda and Windu, the ancient Jedi prophecies speak of “one who will bring balance to the Force.” Harmony in the universe will not be brought about by destroying evil. Indeed, if good and evil are opposites, it may be impossible to destroy evil in the universe without also destroying the possibility of real goodness. The best state of affairs for the universe would then involve keeping the Dark Side in check, or “balanced” against the Light Side of the Force. There would