Steven Davison is back, with a look at Quakers’ unease with evil
If there is something divine or at least quasi-divine about the human, then where does human evil fit in? How could the two coexist? I suspect that this cognitive dissonance explains part of our our unease with evil.
When I first began to learn about the beliefs of the Religious Society of Friends, one that I welcomed happily was the belief of that of God in everyone. I thrilled to the belief that in the worst of us – terrorists, violent criminals, abusers of the worst kind – it takes only the right person sharing Light with them, and that person could reach the Light within them, no matter how deeply it was hidden. Good could always overcome evil.
I’d sought that kind of spirituality all my life, but it collided with a reality in my life.
I’ve had brushes with a few sociopaths. I’ve had two people close to me who found themselves married to a sociopath. The damage they do to their victims’ psyches and lives is beyond devastating. They leave destroyed lives in their wake, and when that unfortunate soul no longer is of use to them, they move on to another. Their psyche is radically different from ours, so much so that it’s very difficult to comprehend. They lack conscience. Any conscience. They understand the difference between right and wrong, but the distinction means nothing to them. It does not limit their behavior. There is no reaching them with Light. They would see anyone trying to reach that of God in them as a gullible fool. For anyone interested in learning how they move through the world, I recommend Martha Stout’s book “The Sociopath Next Door.” In the U.S., sociopaths make up four percent of the population. One person in twenty-five has no conscience.
I struggle with this. How do I acknowledge the existence of these dangerous predators and take steps to avoid them, while believing that there is that of God in everyone? If sociopaths do hold that of God in them, they have it hermetically sealed. That’s as close as I can come to believing they do hold Light within themselves.