The Modern World on Evil

The Western world has largely rejected this dimension of evil that the Bible gives us, and as a result, we, like Job’s friends, are always underestimating—and sometimes misdiagnosing—the power of evil in our lives. For example, deep down we cling to the simplistic idea that if we are good, life will go well.

Yet if there are demonic forces, it stands to reason that true goodness and godliness would actually attract and stir up those powers to attack. And that is just what we see here in the baptism and temptation account…What the Bible says is that evil is both natural and supernatural, that evil is both inside of us and outside of us, that evil is both individual and socially systemic. There’s no human way to get fully away from it or even get to the bottom of it in our understanding.