The question of evil - its nature, indeed, even its existence - is back on the table. All thanks to those determined materialists who work in the field of neuroscience.

A couple of decades ago Andrew Delbanco studied the history of the idea of evil in America - which, by the mid-90s, was pretty much a thing of the past - and concluded that we could not continue to exist as a society without some idea of evil to keep us from our worst tendencies and tastes.

Then came Oklahoma City, 9/11, school massacres, and the like, and everyone was talking about "evil" once again.

Well now certain neuroscientists are trying to debunk the whole idea, saying that all our decisions and actions are determined by material causes, not by anything like free choice, and so we can't really help who we are or what we do.

Ron Rosenbaum offered a very healthy reflection on these opinions in a posting on Slate on Friday, September 30, 2011. After sumarizing the argument of several pop-science books on neuroscience, Mr. Rosenbaum raised the question again of whether we can continue to exist without a concept of evil. He observed concerning evil, "We tend to believe it exists: Popular culture has no problem with it, giving us iterations from Richard III to Darth Vader; politicians use it promiscuously ('the axis of evil'). But even religious thinkers continue to debate what it is..."

He seems persuaded, however, that evil is more than just the electricity and chemicals of the brain reacting to gene impulses or external stimuli. He's not persuaded by all that brain-scan evidence that the fact of brain activity under certain circumstances means that brain activity causes certain kinds of behaviors or choices. As he puts it, "correlation" - brain waves and certain choices - "doesn't always equal causation."

He's correct in this, of course. You have to be a thoroughgoing materialist and an absolute relativist to want to do away with freedom of choice and individual responsibility. But that's precisely where a good many neuroscientists are trying to lead us.

Mr. Rosenbaum doesn't have an answer, but he's sure the neuroscientsts are wrong: "As for evil itself, the new neuroscience is unlikely to end the debate, but it may cause us to be more attentive to the phenomenon. Perhaps evil will always be like the famous Supreme Court pronouncement on pornography. You know it when you see it. I don't like its imprecision, but I will concede I don't have a better answer. Just that we can do better than the mechanistic, deterministic, denial of personal responsibility the neuroscientists are offering to 'replace' evil with."

I'm sure he's right, and I'm not surprised he doesn't have a better answer than this. Mr. Rosenbaum admits to being agnostic about God and faith, so he is not likely to take too seriously anything the Bible or Christian theology might teach concerning the origins, existence, and nature of evil.

And even though Christian theology has struggled for two millennia to resolve certain crucial questions concerning the subject, still, the explanation of evil that sees it has a spiritual phenomenon which affects rational beings as well as the entire created order is the one that makes the most sense.

The Christian view, moreover, preserves, if not a full-blown theory of free will, at least a firm conviction about individual responsibility when it comes to moral and ethical behavior.

Materialists and unbelievers continue to appeal to the idea of evil, even when their best science is trying to persuade them to chuck the notion once and for all. They hear what the guys in the lab coats are telling them, but it just doesn't sit well. Something in them - some as yet unrecognized and unacknowledged aspect of what it means to be a human being - insists that they hold on to evil and individual responsibility, or else.

The believer knows that this is the image of God asserting itself into the conscience, even of the unbeliever.

Here is yet another area where theology could complement science with respect to a question that affects every one of us.

But given the reluctance of scientists to listen to theologians, and the reluctance (or unpreparedness) of theologians and pastors to engage the debate with reverence and respect; and given materialistic science's increasing desire to establish hegemony over all areas of learning and knowing, the future for the concept of evil seems bleak.

And once the concept of evil is effectively shelved, where will that leave us as a society?

Related texts: Genesis 3.1-6; Romans 3.1-14; Romans 12.21; 2 Corinthians 10.3-5

A conversation starter: "What do you think? Are some people just 'evil'? Or is 'evil' just a figment of our imaginations"?

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.