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Powerless Freedom: About Good and Evil

Manicheism makes human freedom relative; it does not make it the active locus of the clash between good and evil. The struggle takes place elsewhere. Professor Botturi deals with the timely question of morality

edited by Davide Perillo

“The reason, after all, is one: the experience of evil is something imposing. Always, in all times. The Manichean attitude arises from this.” Francesco Botturi, a teacher of moral philosophy at the Università Cattolica in Milan, too, was struck by this mention made on Saturday morning of the Fraternity Retreat. Fr Pino spoke of a “return to Manicheism,” of a conception that “liquidates freedom,” setting good and evil in opposition as “predetermined ideas.” Or rather, he put alongside each other “an idea (not an experience) of good, but above all the inexorability of evil.” This is a recurrent temptation, which was crystallized in doctrine as early as the third century, but often returns in history, even today. But in what form? And above all, why? “It is true, Manichean dualism is current today, at least as an attitude, if not as a doctrine. In Manicheism, evil is viewed as something that confronts good, as a principle that fights with the principle of good, wanting to overcome it. It is a radical struggle. From this point of view, the Manichean vision contains some truth: it is born out of a dramatic gaze on reality. This is its charm.”

In other words, it takes the question of evil seriously…
Right. This is what attracted St Augustine, too, in the beginning; before his conversion to Christianity he was a Manichean for a while. Later, he was the very one who shed light on the theoretical weakness of Manichean dualism: evil is not something (because this would make it positive), nor is it only negation (because it simply would not exist); it is merely privation, the lack of something that should be there. In any case, it is not a principle that has substance in itself. In this way, Augustine overcomes the theoretical contradiction of Manichean dualism, but does not take away the dramatic nature of the problem of evil. In short, he leaves all the drama of existence marked by evil intact.

Manicheism starts from the dramatic experience of evil, but ends up petrifying it into a principle. Isn’t this the reason that, later, “responsibility is eliminated”?
Manicheism makes human freedom relative. It does not make freedom the active locus of the clash, but only the theater of the clash. The clash between good and evil has metaphysical principles as its protagonists.

How is this tendency documented today?
Today, there is no real, proper conception of Manicheism, no theorization of it, because contemporary culture does not possess an adequate metaphysical sensibility. However, there do exist Manichean attitudes, a typical effect of ideological positions, in which the factors in play are equated with certain subjects of society.

In short, we go from the struggle between good and evil to the counterposition of good guys and bad guys…
Exactly. It is a temptation typical of the modern age: messianic Communism needs the capitalist as an absolute enemy, Nazism needs the Jew, etc. And these are schemes that come up even today. The fundamentalisms on every side have this scheme; there is something other that is simply an adversary, but is equated in a paranoiac way with evil. It is very reminiscent of the idea of the “scapegoat” (re-examined today by R. Girard), onto which social conflicts and blame are dumped in order to safeguard social unity, and thus peace.

What is behind this mechanism?
The unbearable nature of evil; the fact that it is scandalous, and if there does not exist a reason and an energy capable of overcoming it, the spontaneous temptation is to expunge it from oneself, from one’s group… to project it outside, so as to get it in front of you and in some way to contain and master it. It is a problem of insufferance: we are not able to bear the suffering that evil brings about so we create a mechanism of resentment against it that takes concrete form–so to speak–against someone. It is a deep, insidious resentment that can even take the form of humanitarianism. Just think of certain ways of looking at pathetic cases in order to justify divorce, abortion, genetic manipulation, euthanasia…. In reality, it is to alleviate our own anguish and satisfy our own resentment toward a suffering that makes us feel our powerlessness.
So what does it mean to say that in this game “freedom stops in front of the experience of limitation”?
It is the basic question. Freedom is autonomous adherence to the good. But in its very capacity to adhere, it is put to the test, because adherence to the good passes through choice, which is a power exposed to risk and drama. The dualist vision is petrified by the experience of evil and cannot manage to look at itself as the locus where the drama is played out. But by doing this, it does not succeed in living the depth of freedom. Throwing evil out, equating it with something “other,” means giving up the depth of one’s own freedom.

…to the point of being afraid of it, as Fr Pino says?
St Thomas wrote that “malum etiam habet quamdam infinitatem,” evil too has a certain infinity. At first sight, this seems like the Manichean position. In reality, it means that the deeper evil is, the more it puts the relationship between freedom and being into play. Looking at this breadth of freedom head-on and taking it upon oneself is a dizzying task. Exciting, but also intimidating. This is why we are tempted to run away from it.
However, experience teaches us that “there is something inside freedom itself, a poison inside my freedom,” as was said at the Retreat–this is original sin.
Yes, because the enigma remains of freedom’s capacity to do evil. If freedom is essentially autonomous adherence to the good, why is it capable of evil? Here, the scandal, from being external, becomes internal. The man who reflects on his own possibility for doing evil cannot be scandalized at himself. This is why man is not capable of truly confronting the enigma of his freedom, except on one condition: that his evil be in some way already redeemed. It is only on the horizon of a future promise or a present salvation that it becomes possible to overcome the fear of freedom. The ancient Hebrew–and later Christian–concept of evil attributes it to man. But this idea is contemporary with the “promise” and an early form of “covenant” with man: being thrown out of the earthly paradise is coeval with the promise of the woman’s struggle with the serpent and God’s care for mankind, lovingly dressed in garments of skin (cf Gen 3:15, 21).
And by virtue of the promise of salvation, we have the courage to go all the way in the drama of freedom.
Only in light of grace can the very idea of original sin be borne. If we think about it, the idea of original sin is terrible. It is no less dramatic than the Manichean idea.

What difference is there, then, between the elevation of evil to an inexorable principle, as happens in Manicheism, and the fact that freedom is inexorably wounded and thus incapable, by itself, of doing good?
In one case we speak of an unalterable metaphysical principle, in the other of a condition of freedom that in itself remains a desire for good. If we deny this, we sink into Lutheran pessimism. On the contrary, the judgment on sin takes on meaning only in light of grace, which gives a meaning to freedom, as St Paul saw in an insuperable manner.

But if this is the case, sin is no longer objection. It becomes a sign referring to something greater. The boundary becomes a “stepping stone,” as Fr Giussani often says…. But then, what aspect does grace have?
The fact that sin is a matter of freedom and that evil is tied to freedom implies one thing: if an answer to evil exists, it cannot but be the work of another freedom. It cannot be the effect of an anonymous principle or the application of rules. The nature of the problem is such that no device can answer it, neither individual nor collective; neither interior nor exterior. Freedom by nature cannot be measured by anything but freedom, and if a freedom is sick, its measure can only be taken by a healthy freedom that agrees to take care of it, ie, a freedom capable of the love of which it is not capable (any longer). It is the freedom of Christ that comes to meet man’s freedom. Mercy alone is the adequate measure of freedom that has lost its way. Mercy, as Fr Giussani defines it–that is to say, “justice that re-creates.”