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A Religious Conception of Evil

Steve Clarke

February 2018

1. Introduction

The term ‘evil’ was viewed with suspicion in philosophy, and

generally avoided for most of the Twentieth Century, in much

part because of its religious and metaphysical connotations

(Formosa 2008). In the early Twenty-First Century, it has been

undergoing something of a revival (Russell 2006). While the

philosophers who have contributed to this revival are

interested in evil beings, evil people and evil states of

mind, when they have offered definitions, they have tended to

focus on evil acts.1 Various definitions of evil acts have been

put forward. Adam Morton tells us that:

A person’s act is evil when it results from a strategy or

learned procedure which allows that person’s deliberations

over the choice of actions not to be inhibited by barriers

against considering harming or humiliating others that ought

to have been in place (2004, 57).

According to Eve Garrard:1 Garrard and McNaughton also make this observation (this volume, x -xx).

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an act is evil if it is wrongful, and if the agent silences

the reasons against doing the act, which reasons are

themselves metaphysical silencers, and where the agent’s

reasons for doing the act are members of the class of

considerations which are in this case metaphysically silenced

(1998, 55).

Todd Calder characterises evil acts as involving:

(1) Significant harm, and

(2) What I call an e-motivation. By an e-motivation I mean an

inexcusable intention to bring about, allow, or witness, the

significant harm of (1) for an unworthy goal (2013, 188).2

What is striking about these (and various other) definitions

of evil acts is that all of them are presented in purely

secular terms; and yet, as is acknowledged by many of the

philosophers writing on evil, the term ‘evil’ has strong

religious overtones.3 Why do these philosophers neglect, or

deliberately avoid, reference to religion in their various

definitions of evil acts?

Calder touches on the religious connotations of the term

‘evil’ in a discussion of the ambiguity of the term’s meaning.

According to him:

One reason the term ‘evil’ is thought to be ambiguous is that

it may carry with it questionable metaphysical commitments to

2 The pros and cons of various different approaches to characterizing evil action are discussed by Russell (this volume, x-xx).3 This point is acknowledged by Calder (2013) and Formosa (2008). Philip Cole argues that the term ‘evil’ should not be revived, but should be avoided, because of its religious connotations (2006). For a critique of his line of argument, see Russell (2009).

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Satan, dark forces, or the supernatural, which are not made

explicit, or are concealed. To say that a particular action is

evil may imply that the agent who performs the act is

possessed by a dark force or is working for Satan. Sometimes,

especially in religious or fictional contexts, the term is

meant to carry with it these questionable metaphysical

commitments, while at other times, especially in moral and

political contexts, it is not (2013, 178).4

Calder proceeds to ignore the religious connotations of the

term ‘evil’ in his subsequent discussion. But he does not

appear to have provided good grounds for ignoring these

connotations. At best he has provided reasons for thinking

that there are two (or perhaps more) distinct variants of a

more general concept picked out by the term ‘evil’, a secular

one and a religious one. I will refer to these variants of a

more general concept as ‘conceptions’.5

The fact that a conception of the term evil may carry

‘questionable metaphysical commitments’ does not entitle us to

ignore that conception any more than the fact that causal

language is thought to involve questionable metaphysical

commitments entitles us to ignore causal language.6 If, 4 In a similar vein, Roy Perrett describes the concept of evil as ‘... something to which “a whiff of brimstone” attaches’ (2002, 305).5 Are these really different conceptions of the same concept? The fact that we use the same term to identify both conceptions is prima facie evidence that they are. Despite their differences, it should be apparent that the religious and secular conceptions of evil have much in common. Garrard and McNaughton (this volume), following Russell (2014), identify eight intuitions, or platitudes about evil action. Most of these are true of bothreligious and secular evil action.6 Mid-Twentieth Century positivists and logical empiricists did treat causal language as suspicious in virtue of its apparently dubious metaphysical commitments. Scholars working in these traditions sought to constrain causal language, restricting our entitlement to use such language

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perhaps, the metaphysical commitments involved in a religious

conception of evil could be shown to lead us to hold

incoherent or contradictory beliefs then that might be

suitable grounds to attempt to reform language, cast aside the

religious conception of the term ‘evil’ and focus solely on

clarifying the meaning of the secular conception of the term.

But all we have been told by Calder (2013) is that evil may

carry ‘questionable’ metaphysical commitments. Until we ask

the relevant questions, and figure out what these commitments

are, we are in no position to decide whether or not these are

a sufficient basis upon which to reject the religious

conception of evil.

A specific problem that is often alleged to result from use of

the religious conception of the term ‘evil’ is that it can be

employed to ‘demonise’ people. If people are labelled as evil

and thereby ‘demonised’ or ‘dehumanised’ then they are liable

to not be treated as ordinary humans who are worthy of

respect. Instead, they are liable to be treated as hostile

alien-controlled beings who are appropriate targets of hatred

and who may have a lesser moral status than ordinary humans.7

Formosa associates the tendency to demonise one’s opponents

with the tendency to hold a Manichean world view within which

‘... good and evil are separate and distinct ‘forces’ and the

world is their battlefield’ (2008, 399). This association

to circumstances where Humean-style constant conjunctions could be identified. For arguments regarding the inadequacy of such attempts and foralternative, metaphysically robust accounts of causation, see Bhaskar (1978) and Cartwright (1989).7 This point is made by Perrett, (2002, 305), Neiman (2003, 285), and various other authors; and is developed in some detail by Formosa (2008).

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seems plausible in many cases. Many of those religious

believers who hold that their enemies are demonically

possessed, or otherwise subject to alien control, also hold

that a supreme evil being, such as Satan, is involved in

orchestrating external control of those enemies. Such

religious believers typically also hold that this supreme evil

being is engaged in a cosmic struggle with a good supreme

being.

Formosa proposes that we should retain the term ‘evil’ while

trying to restrict its uses. In his view the term ‘evil’

should only be used to describe acts of ‘moral gravity’ and we

should try to prevent Manichean and/or demonising uses of it

(2008, 410). According to Formosa, the use of Manichean

language to describe the perpetrators of evil acts, ‘... is

dangerous because this way of thinking can lead us [italics in

text] to commit atrocities and to ignore the real causes

underlying such destructive behaviour’ (2008, 410). Here

Formosa appears to assume that the real causes of the evil

acts humans perpetrate do not include demonic possession and

other means by which evil supernatural beings direct the

behaviour of humans towards nefarious ends. Significantly many

(but, of course, not all) religious people do believe that

Satan, perhaps aided by demons, or other supernatural beings,

exercises control of the lives of some people and that this

control compromises the moral status of those people. To those

who believe that supernatural evil beings are active in this

world, Formosa’s line of argument will appear question

begging. Formosa simply assumes that the underlying causes of

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evil acts, whatever these are, are unrelated to the influence

of Satan and other evil supernatural beings. But Manicheans,

and others who believe in the existence of malign supernatural

beings, will not share this assumption. Furthermore, they are

likely to think that a failure to recognise the reality of the

underlying struggle between good and evil can lead to the very

sorts of dangers that Formosa worries about. If we do not

actively oppose Satan, then Satan will flourish and cause more

harm – including atrocities – than he would otherwise be able

to cause. At best, Formosa has given us reason to think that

the secular, as well as religious people who do not accept

that evil supernatural beings are active in this world, should

avoid Manichean and demonising uses of the term ‘evil’; but he

has not given us reason to think that the use of a term that

is shared by the secular and by religious believers of many

different perspectives, including Manichean ones, should be

restricted in the ways that he suggests.

There is a significant conceptual problem with at least one

influential articulation of the Manichean world view and it

may be that the easy dismissal of Manichean world views by

Formosa and others is motivated, at least in part, by an

awareness of this problem. The problem is memorably spelled

out by Friday in Daniel Defoe’s famous novel Robinson Crusoe

(1719). In the novel Crusoe saves Friday from being eaten by

cannibals and teaches him the rudiments of English. He then

attempts to convert Friday from his tribal religion to

Christianity. At first Crusoe makes rapid progress. Friday is

happy to accept that the Christian God is more powerful than

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Benamuckee, the deity that he had been worshipping until then;

and therefore, he reasons, more worthy of worship than

Benamuckee. However, Crusoe finds it much harder to persuade

Friday to accept his Manichean account of the struggle between

the Christian God and the devil. As Crusoe puts things:

I found it not so easie to imprint right notions in his mind

about the devil, as it was about the being of a God. Nature

assisted all my arguments to evidence to him even the

necessity of a great First Cause and over-ruling governing

Power, a secret directing Providence, and of the equity and

justice of paying homage to Him that made us, and the like.

But there appeared nothing of all this in the notion of an

evil spirit; of his original, his being, his nature, and above

all of his inclination to do evil, and to draw us in to do so

too; and the poor creature puzzl’d me once in such a manner,

by a question meerly natural and innocent, that I scarce knew

what to say to him. I had been talking a great deal to him of

the power of God, His omnipotence, His dreadful nature to sin,

His being a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity; how, as

He had made us all, He could destroy us and all the world in a

moment; and he listen’d with great seriousness to me all the

while.

After this, I had been telling him how the devil was God’s

enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill

to defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruine the

kingdom of Christ in the world; and the like. ‘Well,’ says

Friday, ‘but you say, God is so strong, so great, is He not

much strong, much might as the devil?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ says I,

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‘Friday, God is stronger than the devil, God is above the

devil, and therefore we pray to God to tread him down under

our feet, and enable us to resist his temptations and quench

his fiery darts’. ‘But,’ says he again, ‘if God much strong,

much might as the devil, why God no kill the devil, so make

him no more do wicked?’ (Defoe 1719, 183-4).

Friday has put his finger on an apparent contradiction in the

worldview that Crusoe is articulating. Crusoe holds both that

we ought to be highly motivated to participate on the side of

good in a cosmic struggle against evil, and that it is also a

foregone conclusion that good will triumph over evil,

regardless of whether we participate or not. Indeed, God could

end the struggle and destroy the devil without our assistance

right now, if He chose to do so. Crusoe is unable to deal with

Friday’s concern and, as he concedes to the reader, changes

the subject to avoid having to address it (Defoe 1719, 185).

The original Manicheans – the followers of Mani (216-276 AD) –

held that God was a powerful, but not all-powerful being,

opposed by the powerful, but not all-powerful Satan, and that

the struggle between good and evil was not a foregone

conclusion (Coyle 2009, xii-xxii). However, for ordinary

Christians, Muslims and Jews, who hold that God is omnipotent

and therefore, infinitely more powerful than the non-

omnipotent Satan, it can be difficult to understand why we

should be motivated to participate in a cosmic struggle

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against Satan, when the result of this struggle is necessarily

a foregone conclusion.8

Crusoe is in the business of attempting to convert Friday to a

particular religion and even though the apparent

contradictoriness of the broadly Manichean world view that he

outlines is a stumbling block, he does eventually succeed,

appealing to the power of faith to persuade Friday to ignore

the apparent contradictoriness of this world view. What if

Crusoe were attempting to defend the conception of evil that

he appeals to against philosophers who object to Manichaeism?

I want to argue that Crusoe could and should proceed by

separating out a bare religious concept of evil from the

Manichean world view that he is promoting. There is a basic

conception of evil, which Friday definitely can accept,

regardless of whether or not he is willing to overcome his

objections to the account of the Manichean cosmic struggle

that Crusoe attempts to defend. Why do I believe this? Not

because Defoe reveals any further details of Friday’s tribal

religion, but because, as I will argue, there is a basic

implicit conception of evil present in every human religion.

The case for thinking that there is a universal religious

conception of evil draws on recent work in the cognitive

science of religion, which itself draws on evidence of

culturally invariant features of natural human religion. 8 This is not to say that it is impossible to understand. One might, for example, hold that the proper motive for participation is the cosmic struggle against Satan is not to ensure victory but to ensure that you are a participant in this most worthy struggle.

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Scholars working in the cognitive science of religion usually

distinguish between religious beliefs, which are a component

of religion, understood as a naturally occurring, spontaneous

development of human groups, and theological doctrines, which

are created by systematising and extending sets of natural,

spontaneously developed religious beliefs. It is sometimes

supposed that ordinary religious beliefs reflect theological

doctrines. However, ordinary religious believers routinely

ignore theological doctrines that contradict their natural,

spontaneously developed religious beliefs (Barrett 2004, 10-

11). I will argue that there is a basic implicit conception of

evil present in every human religion. I will not argue that

this conception is implicit in every theology.

Imagistic hunter-gatherer religions, which lacked formal

bodies of doctrine, were the only religions that there were

for most of human history (Dunbar 2013). These generally seem

to have involved the postulation of a diverse range of

supernatural beings, some of which were considered to be good,

some evil, and some neither good nor evil (Atran 2002, 75-8).

Permanent human settlements emerged about 12,000 years ago.

When permanent settlements became large enough in size it

became possible for them to support a caste of specialist

religious leaders (Dunbar 2013). Religious leaders would act

to regularise religious rituals and systematize religious

doctrines, thereby transforming imagistic religions into

doctrinal religions. With the invention of writing it became

easier for these leaders to develop and disseminate systematic

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religious doctrines (Whitehouse 2000). Some of the many evil

supernatural beings of older imagistic religions survived in

the official doctrines of doctrinal religions, while others

survived in the more imagistic folk variants of doctrinal

religions that continue to this day, in tandem with official

doctrinal religion.

What I seek to locate is a religious sense of evil that is

common to natural religions and which emerged before the

development of doctrinal religion, but which forms the basis

for subsequent doctrinal conceptions of evil. I will locate

this with the aid of studies in the cognitive science of

religion. Before discussing details of these studies, however,

I will discuss Durkheim’s attempt to articulate a universal

natural account of religion (1912). Durkheim’s efforts will be

instructive for us, both because he provides a definition of

religion, which informs my own approach to religion, and

because an account of evil falls out of Durkheim’s account of

religion.

2. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

In his The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Durkheim (1912) outlines

what he takes to be an account of the general conceptual

structure common to Australian Aboriginal religions. Durkheim

developed this account with a larger purpose in mind. He

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considered Australian Aboriginal religion to be the simplest

known form of religion and he wished to conduct ‘one well-made

experiment’ to identify the basic conceptual structure of all

religions (Cladis 2001, xvi). In other words, he treated his

study of Australian Aboriginal religion as a template on which

to base his interpretations of all religious behaviour.

Durkheim’s account of religion, as is well known, has it that

religion is an essentially social phenomenon. The inter-

related beliefs and practices of communities sustain religions

and religions strengthen social cohesion within communities.

According to Durkheim (1912), the religions that are sustained

in human communities all make a basic distinction between the

sacred and the profane. Sacred objects, people and practices are

understood to be supernaturally-infected entities, beings and

processes which interpenetrate the natural world. These

extraordinary entities, beings and processes are liable to

transmit some of their otherworldly power to hitherto ordinary

natural beings and entities via simple association. If an

ordinary person, a place, or an object associates with a

sacred entity or being then that person, place or object is

liable to acquire sacred properties. The Shroud of Turin is

considered to be a sacred object because it was supposed to be

the shroud that the body of Christ was wrapped in. Similarly,

the bones of long dead Saints are often considered to be

sacred relics because they were once parts of living sacred

beings.

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The proper religious attitude to sacred entities, beings and

processes, according to Durkheim, is one of reverence, and the

appropriate form of behaviour towards sacred objects is to

keep these ‘... protected and isolated by prohibitions’, in

order to regulate their contact with the profane world (1912,

40). This is not the only possible attitude to sacred

entities, beings and processes, even among those who accept

that these are sacred. Given that sacred entities, beings and

processes are thought to be infused with supernatural powers,

it might also be thought that we could take advantage of such

powers and use them for our own ends. This is the

opportunistic attitude of magicians, according to Durkheim

(1912, 223). As well as having an opportunistic attitude to the

sacred, magicians are distinguished from the genuinely

religious in another way, which is that they lack the closely

integrated social structures of religious communities.

According to Durkheim, ‘magic does not bind its followers to

one another and unite them in a single group living the same

life. A church of magic does not exist.’(1912, 43, italics in text).

Magicians do associate with one another, but they and their

followers do not form the strong social bonds that are

characteristic of religious communities. Magicians and their

followers associate with one another in order to advance their

own individual interests, rather than the interests of a

greater community, so their associations are by nature loose

and are usually short-lived.

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Having drawn the distinctions between the sacred and the

profane and between magic and religion, Durkheim provides his

famous definition of religion, which is perhaps the most

influential of all definitions of religion:

a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices

relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart

and surrounded by prohibitions – beliefs and practices that

unite its adherents in a single moral community called a

church (1912, 46).

With the idea of the sacred, as the key concept in religion

now in place, it might be thought that we could simply define

evil in direct relation to the sacred. Indeed, this is exactly

what the social psychologists Jesse Graham and Jon Haidt do.

According to them ‘Evil is whatever stands in the way of

sacredness’ (2011, 18).9 However, Durkheim’s understanding of

evil is more complicated than this. He argues that:

Religious forces are of two kinds. Some are benevolent,

guardians of the physical and moral order, dispensers of life,

health, all the qualities that men value ... On the other hand

there are negative and impure powers that produce disorder,

cause death and illnesses, and instigate sacrilege (1912,

304).

9 They also define evil as ‘... that threatens to hurt, oppress, betray, subvert, contaminate, or otherwise profane something that is held as sacred’ (2011, 17).

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Durkheim informs us that ‘… the pure and the impure are not

two separate genera but two varieties of the same genus that

includes all sacred things’ (1912, 306). So evil, on

Durkheim’s account, is a form of the sacred. Both forms of the

sacred are opposed to the profane. Just as a holy relic is

protected from profanation by prohibitions, so too an unholy

or accursed relic is kept away from the profane natural world

by the truly religious, for fear that association with the

natural world will lead to the creation of disease, death and

disorder.

Durkheim’s distinction between the sacred and the profane has

been extremely influential in sociology and in anthropology

(Stirrat 1984). However, his view that the distinctions

between the sacred and the profane, and between religion and

magic are universal, does not stand up to scrutiny. There are

cultures that do not employ any variant of the concept

‘sacred’ and who do not recognise either of these distinctions

(Goody 1961). Durkheim’s approach of seeking to understand all

religions on the basis of ‘one well-made experiment’ was a

methodologically flawed one, which left him oblivious to the

actual variety in the concepts deployed in different

religions.

3. Religion and the Cognitive Science of Religion

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Durkheim overestimated the extent to which the different

religions of the world share the same underlying conceptual

structure and for most of the Twentieth Century studies of

religion have tended to emphasise the diversity of human

religions. However, since the 1990s a growing number of

academics working in the cognitive science of religion,

including Scott Atran (2002), Pascal Boyer (2002), Justin

Barrett (2004) and Stewart Guthrie (1993), have all argued

that there are key aspects of natural human religion that are

universal. One aspect of religion that is universal is

participation in ritual activities. Participation in every

known natural religion involves participation in ritual

activities (Wade 2009, 40). Ritual activities are extremely

diverse and include, inter alia praying, singing, chanting,

clapping and dancing. These activities are often combined to

create elaborate religious ceremonies. A second feature of

religion that is universal, which Durkheim recognised, is its

relatedness to morality. Every known religion is involved in

shaping the moral beliefs and behaviour of its practitioners,

although the ways in which different religions shape morality

and the degree to which they do so seem to vary significantly

(Boyer 2002, 27-8 & 192-8). A third feature of religion that

is universal, which will be most relevant for our purposes, is

that every known religion involves the postulation of the

existence of supernatural beings (Atran 2002; Boyer 2002).

It is easy to be misled about the universality of the

postulation of supernatural beings in religions, as it is

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often said that some religions, especially Buddhism,

Confucianism and Jainism, do not postulate supernatural

beings. Indeed, Durkheim considered including mention of ‘gods

and spirits’ in his definition of religion, but decided

against it on the grounds that Buddhists and Jains do not

postulate the existence of a supreme being (1912, 32-4). But

while Buddhists do not posit a supreme being, it does not

follow that Buddhists do not accept the existence of

supernatural beings. Practicing Buddhists generally do

postulate a large number of ‘devas’. These are supernatural

beings that are more powerful than humans, but less powerful

than a supreme being (Sadakata 1997). Jains usually accept the

existence of a variety of minor deities (Dundas 2002, 212-4);

and ancestor worship amongst Confucians is very widespread,

along with the belief that ancestors can be transformed into

supernatural beings after death (Rainey 2010). These beliefs

in supernatural beings are endorsed by some, but not all,

Buddhist, Confucian and Jain theologians.

Believers have a tendency to ignore official interpretations

of doctrine, and are apt to adopt beliefs in supernatural

beings in a promiscuous manner, regardless of what religious

authorities instruct them to believe (Boyer 2002, 322-3).

Christian ministers struggle in many part of the world to try

to convince their parishioners not to believe in ghosts,

witches, goblins, and so on. A parallel struggle takes place

when Muslim imams attempt to persuade practicing Muslims not

to believe in jinns and ifreets. This is not to say that there

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are no scriptural bases for belief in these less-than-supreme

supernatural beings. The Bible makes reference to a great many

demons,10 the Qur’an contains many mentions of jinns,11 and

Buddhist holy texts refer extensively to various different

devas (Sadakata 1997). A diversity of supernatural beings is

part of the heritage of all major religions, having been

carried over from imagistic hunter-gatherer religions, and

theologians who deny this are attempting to revise their own

traditions rather than attempting to represent them

accurately.

Scholars working in the cognitive science of religion often

mention a further generalisation about religion, which is that

in every known human culture, both now and going back for tens

of thousands of years, at least one religion has been

practiced (Winzeler 2008, 3). Why should religion be

ubiquitous and why should the aforementioned universal aspects

of religion repeatedly emerge amongst very diverse human

cultures? It seems possible that a society could exist without

religion, or that a society could practice a religion without

believing in supernatural beings, without undertaking ritual

activities, or without relating their religion to their moral

beliefs and practices. The answer that most scholars working

in the cognitive science of religion give to this question is

that the strong cross-cultural similarities found amongst

religions are not accidental; they are the consequence of 10 For example, see Leviticus 17:7; Deuteronomy 32: 17; Matthew 4: 24; Matthew 8: 31; Mark 1: 34; Luke 9: 42 and James 2: 19.11 For example, see Surahs 6: 128; 7: 38; 11:119; 15:27; 18:50; 27: 17 and 34:12.

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religion having emerged spontaneously in many different human

cultures and having evolved.12 There are various ways in which

religion may have evolved. The possibility that most scholars

working in the cognitive science of religion, including Pascal

Boyer (2002), Scott Atran (2002) and Justin Barrett (2004)

favour, is that a disposition to religiosity is a by-product

of our evolved cognitive structures. Other possibilities are

that religion is a series of virulent memes that have infected

human populations and function for their own ends, rather than

those of humans, as might a disease (Dennett 2006), and that

religion is a group-level adaptation that has enabled some

human societies to outcompete other human societies (Haidt

2012).

Why should we have evolved a disposition to believe in

supernatural beings? The dominant answer to this question, in

the cognitive science of religion, starts with the observation

that we have a disposition to over-attribute agency to the

world (Atran 2002; Boyer 2002). That we might have evolved a

disposition to over-attribute agency seems very plausible.13

The greatest threats to our safety are other agents and the

greatest opportunities to improve our safety, to reproduce,

and to otherwise flourish are provided by association with

other agents. It is unrealistic to expect that our minds would

have evolved perfectly accurate agency detection mechanisms

(Perlman 2002, 272). In practical terms evolution is faced 12 For further discussion of the case for religion having evolved, see Powell and Clarke (2012) and Clarke (2014, 35-49).13 According to Barrett (2004), this may well be because our brains contain a ‘Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device’.

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with a choice between over-attributions of agency to the world

– producing many false positives and few false negatives – and

under-attributions of agency to the world – producing many

false negatives and few false positives. But this choice is

not hard to resolve. We hear a rustling in the bushes. It

might be a dangerous predator or it might simply be branches

flapping in the wind. It is much safer to ‘err on the side of

caution’ and assume that we are in the presence of a predator

than to dismiss this possibility. Those early humans who were

not hyper-vigilant and did not act to protect themselves from

possible imminent threats – many of which turned out to be

‘false alarms’ – did not flourish and did not survive long

enough to become our ancestors. Our ancestors were those early

humans who, like us, were inveterate over-attributors of

agency, seeing faces in clouds, hearing voices in running

water, and so on.

But why does our tendency to over-attribute agency lead us to

make attributions of supernatural agency? Barrett (2004) and

others argue that this is because we have a disposition to

accept and transmit attributions of ‘minimally

counterintuitive agency’.14 Reports of talking mountains,

people who can walk through walls, people who can turn into

animals at will and so on are much more likely to be

14 Evidence that minimally counterintuitive representations are transmittedat a high rate relative to ordinary representations is provided by Boyer and Ramble (2001) and also by Barrett and Nyhof (2001). Powell and Clarke argue that currently there is insufficient evidence to substantiate Barrett’s assertion that out disposition to accept and transmit attributions of minimal counterintuitive agency explains why people are disposed to believe in supernatural agents (2012, 469-470).

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transmitted accurately than mundane reports, or reports of the

highly counterintuitive, which are too complicated to recall

easily (e.g. a tree that can sing, change colour at will, grow

legs, levitate, and produce many different kinds of fruit).

The propensity of people to transmit stories of minimally

counterintuitive agency may more than compensate for the

difficulties involved in overcoming people’s initial

resistance to accepting such stories, and so belief in

minimally counterintuitive beings tends over time to become

entrenched in the cultures of human social groups.

Now it might be objected, to the above line of reasoning, that

many of the supernatural beings that are postulated by

religious believers are not minimally counterintuitive – a

minimally counterintuitive conception is normally understood

as having one or two counterintuitive aspects only (Barrett

2009, 84) – but are highly counterintuitive. On most accounts

the Christian God is said to be immortal, all powerful, all

knowing, and not constrained by space and time; so clearly, on

most accounts, the Christian God is more than just minimally

counterintuitive. But we need to distinguish between the gods

of theologians and those that are accepted by ordinary

religious adherents. While ordinary Christians may learn to

endorse the official account of the Christian God, as having

all of the aforementioned qualities, there is good evidence

that their actual ordinary thinking about God is not guided by

the belief that God possesses all of these qualities (Boyer

2002, 102).

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As we have seen, recent work in cognitive science of religion

teaches us that the religions we find occurring naturally

always involve the combination of three invariant

characteristics. Elsewhere I have argued for a new definition

of religion which is intended to take account of this lesson.

I define religion as:

a collection of beliefs, always including beliefs in

supernatural agents, and practices, always including

ritualistic practices, that a community have in common and

which help to shape the morality of that community (Clarke

2014, 53).

To create this definition of religion, I have taken Durkheim’s

definition of religion as a starting point, and updated it in

five ways. First, I have removed the stricture that a religion

must involve a set of unified beliefs. Many religious beliefs

are only loosely connected and it is misleading to call these

unified. Second, I have dropped Durkheim’s reference to the

sacred as not all religions appear to employ this category

(Goody 1961). Third and fourth, I have made explicit reference

to ritual and belief in supernatural agency in my definition;

and fifth, I have removed the stricture that a religion always

results in the formation of a church. Non-doctrinal religions,

especially the religions of hunter-gatherer societies, do not

involve the formation of a formal church or any other formal

organisation. Instead religious practices are centred on semi-

regular, ecstatic rituals that are organised by a community

23

without the need for a formal organisation, such as a church.

These typically involve the worship of supernatural beings and

typically promote pro-social behaviour (Whitehouse 2000).

My definition and Durkheim’s definition are of slightly

different, but overlapping subject matter. I am concerned to

define ordinary religion as it is practiced and I happily

concede that the refined religious beliefs of some theologians

do not conform to this definition. Durkheim made no

distinction between ordinary religion and the refined

religious beliefs and practices of theologians.

4. Defining Religious Evil Action

As we saw in Section 1, the definitions offered by scholars

working on evil are typically focussed on evil action. In

keeping with this approach, I will now attempt to define

religious evil action. As was discussed in the previous

section, all cultures posit a variety of supernatural beings.

Some of these are conceived of as beings that are disposed to

help members of the culture that posits them, but many are

conceived of as hostile beings (Atran 2002, 75-8; Boyer 2002,

166). Typically, there are a few helpful supernatural beings

that are posited, along with a variety of hostile supernatural

beings: ghosts, goblins, sprites, devils, demons, zombies and

so on. In some cultures, particularly those in which a

monotheistic religion has attained widespread acceptance,

24

hostile supernatural beings are understood to be working for a

supreme evil supernatural being, but this is also often not

the case. Some people are said to become possessed by evil

supernatural beings – the idea of supernatural possession is

found in many cultures (Atran 2002, 165-6; Lewis 2003) – and

hostile acts conducted by possessed people, who are controlled

by supernatural beings, look like they are prime candidates to

be counted as evil acts. But it is not necessary for people to

be possessed by a supernatural evil being to be capable of

conducting evil acts. People can be induced to do the bidding

of hostile supernatural beings without being possessed by

them, and hostile acts conducted by people who are voluntarily

acting on behalf of hostile supernatural beings also look like

prime candidates to be counted as evil acts.

Evil supernatural beings are typically supposed to

intentionally cause harm to particular individuals or groups.

Sometimes they are supposed to intentionally cause harm simply

because they dislike those particular individuals or groups;

and sometimes they are supposed to intentionally cause harm

because those individuals or groups have offended or otherwise

upset them in some way. Harms need to be understood broadly

here. An evil supernatural being might cause pain to a person,

or might cause some indirect form of harm, trying to damage

their reputation by tricking them into breaking a promise, for

example. But not all intentionally harmful acts, conducted by

supernatural agents, should be considered to be evil acts. In

Psalm 78 a series of intentionally harmful acts undertaken by

God against the Israelites is reported, including slaughtering

25

the ‘choice men of Israel’ (Psalm 78: 31) and declining to

allow Israelite maidens to be ‘given in marriage’ (Psalm 78:

63). However, these acts are not considered by the Israelites

to be evil acts. Their God is a good God and they are his

chosen people. The Israelites are being punished by God for

failing to perform their religious duties and for having

‘refused to walk in His law’ (Psalm 78: 10). Although God

deliberately acts to harm the Israelites he does not intend

long-term harm to the Israelites. What God intends is to

reform their behaviour. His intentional harming of the

Israelites is part of a long-term plan to motivate His people

to improve themselves.

Just as good supernatural beings sometimes commit harmful

acts, as a part of long-term plans to benefit people, evil

supernatural beings can sometimes commit acts that benefit

people, as a part of long-term plans to cause harm. Satan

might intervene in the world and cause me to win a bet that I

would otherwise lose. This is a beneficial act (at least for

me), so in itself, it is not an evil act. However, if it is

part of a long-term plan of Satan’s to cause me to become

addicted to gambling and end up bankrupt then it should be

understood as an evil act. It is possible for evil

supernatural beings to perform acts that are not evil because

these are not intended as part of any harmful plans. If,

acting out of character, Satan helps a little old lady to

cross the street, and if, in this instance Satan has no

ulterior motive then Satan has performed an act that is not

evil. If I assist Satan in helping the little old lady to

26

cross the street have I committed an evil act? Although Satan

is an evil supernatural being and generally only enlists

others to assist him in performing evil acts, in this scenario

Satan enlists my aid to perform a good act. As long as helping

the old lady across the street is not part of a long-term plan

to cause harm then my aiding Satan in this scenario is not

evil.

Not all harmful acts undertaken by good supernatural beings

can be explained away as being part of longer-term plans to

cause overall benefit. Consider the following passage from

Deuteronomy:

But of the cities of these peoples which the LORD your God

gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that

breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them: the

Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite

and the Hivite and the Jebusite; just as the LORD your God has

commanded you. (Deuteronomy 20: 16-17)

Committing acts of genocide against the various peoples listed

in the above passage is of benefit to the Israelites because

it allows them to take control of the lands that the peoples

mentioned have hitherto occupied. However, from the point of

view of these peoples, God’s command is as harmful as it is

possible for a command to be and does not result in any long-

term benefit to them.

How are we to deal with the above passage? We don’t want to

have to deny that God is a good supernatural being as God is a

paradigmatically good supernatural being. One possible

27

solution might be to try to argue that God’s command results

in overall good. But this does not seem like a very plausible

claim. It is hard to see how the benefit to the Israelites of

having additional land could plausibly be thought to outweigh

the harm of several other peoples being genocidally murdered.15

Christians can (but don’t always) claim that the Old Testament

represents an imperfect understanding of God’s will, which is

more accurately represented in the New Testament (e.g. Ward

2006, 114). However, we are concerned with postulated

supernatural beings in general and we do not want to end up

characterising acts commanded by the Old Testament God as

evil. The same problem occurs in other religious traditions,

as there are various supernatural beings, postulated by

different religions, who are generally considered to be good,

but who occasionally command their followers to commit what

look like horrific acts.16 The way to deal with this problem is

to understand the evilness (and goodness) of supernatural

beings from the perspective of particular people. God is a

good supernatural being from the perspective of the Israelites

because he has a persistently positive attitude towards them.

He generally tries to assist them, and when he harms them he 15 It has been suggested to me that divinely ordained genocide may benefit the Hittites, Amorites etc., because God intends to send them to Heaven. Myresponse to this suggestion is that there is no textual evidence in the Bible to back it up. Also, it would presumably be even better for them if they were able to lead happy, flourishing lives and then die of natural causes before going to Heaven, and if the Israelites carry out God’s command, then these peoples will be denied this opportunity.16 Another example is from the Qur’an, where Allah commands Muslims to slaughter all polytheists who fail to repent:

And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way (Surah 9:5).

28

does so as a form of punishment, with their long-term benefit

in mind. However, if the Hittites, Amorites etc., were to

recognise the existence of the Israelite God, then they would

understand Him to be an evil supernatural being, who has a

long-term plan, which He instructs his followers to act upon,

to cause them maximum harm.

There are two different groups of beings who are supposed to

be able to conduct evil acts: supernatural beings that have a

persistent attitude of hostility toward a social group, and

humans.17 The actions of supernatural beings that are evil, on

a religious conception of evil, are easy enough to define, if

we take into account what has been said so far:

To assert that an action of a supernatural being is evil is to

assert that it is conducted by a supernatural being that has a

persistent attitude of hostility towards a social group that

the speaker identifies with, or members of that social group;

and to assert that that action is intended to cause harm to

that group, or to members of that group, or is part of a long-

term plan to cause them harm.

Human action that is evil, on the religious conception of evil

is more difficult to define. Action that is conducted by

humans in the service of a supernatural being that has a

persistent attitude of hostility towards a social group that a

speaker identifies with clearly counts as evil. But what of

action that is not conducted in the service of a supernatural

being, but which is intended to cause harm to that group, or 17 There are reports of animals conducting evil acts in many religious traditions. But these invariably seem to be either supernaturally possessedanimals, or supernatural beings which happen to have taken animal form.

29

to members of that group, or is part of a long-term plan to

cause them harm? Most ordinary instances of such action will

not be evil in the religious sense. If I steal from a social

group, or members of a group, or otherwise harm that group, or

members of that group, and do not do so at the behest of an

evil supernatural being, then it seems that what I have done

is merely bad rather than evil. If my action satisfies one or

more sets of the various criteria mentioned in Section One,

where we looked at secular definitions of evil action, then it

could count as evil it the secular sense, on those definitions

of secular evil action that it met, however, there doesn’t

seem to be anything distinctively religious about such action.

But what if I attempt to thwart the plans of a supernatural

being that has a persistently benevolent attitude towards a

social group that I identify with – a good supernatural being?

I might do this without acting at the behest of an evil

supernatural being. If I do so, then it seems very plausible

to describe my action as evil, on a religious conception of

the term evil.

To see why it is plausible to think that action that is

intended to thwart the plans of a good supernatural being is

evil action, even if it is not conducted in the service of an

evil supernatural being, suppose the following: God has a

long-term plan to maximise the number of Israelites who meet

the entry requirements for Heaven, where they will enjoy

eternal happiness, and Satan is scheming to thwart God’s plan

and minimise the number of Israelites who end up in Heaven.

When an Israelite does Satan’s bidding and assists him in

30

preventing a fellow Israelite from meeting the entry

requirements for Heaven they are committing a paradigmatically

evil act. Now consider the case of an Israelite who is not

influenced by Satan but who is motivated to thwart the ends of

God and prevent another Israelite from going to Heaven. It

seems at least possible to acquire such a motivation

independently of the influence of Satan. If such a person

succeeds in preventing another member of a social group that

they identify with from entering Heaven, perhaps by persuading

that other person to accept a heresy, then they have achieved

the same outcome as is achieved in our paradigmatic example of

an evil act. So, surely, their action should also count as

evil, on the religious conception of evil action.

Taking the considerations so far considered in this section

into account, we can formulate the following definition of

religious evil (human) action:

To say that an action is evil is to assert either:

That it is conducted in the service of a supernatural being

that has a persistent attitude of hostility towards a social

group that the speaker identifies with, or members of that

social group; and to assert that that action is intended to

cause harm to that group, or to members of that group, or is

part of a long-term plan to cause them harm.

Or that it is intended to thwart the long-term plans of a

supernatural being that has a persistent attitude of

benevolence towards a social group that the speaker identifies

with, or toward members of that group, and that these are

31

plans which are intended to benefit that group, or members of

that group.

The two definitions of religious evil action offered here are

relativistic. Attributions of evil action are understood in

relation to the effects that actions are intended to have on a

particular group, or members of that group. This may seem

dissatisfying because it is common to think of evil as an

absolute concept. However, for most of the history of

religion, significantly many supernatural beings have been

understood by reference to their relationship to particular

peoples. Tribal Gods are understood to bear a special

relationship to religiously observant members of particular

tribes (Durkheim 1912, 210-18). The Old Testament God’s

relationship with the Israelites is a typical example of this

pattern. Religious evil needs to be understood relative to

particular groups because supernatural beings are often

conceptualised in relation to particular groups. Gods that

care about all of humanity, such as the Gods of Christianity

and Islam, are recent innovations, atypical of most religions.

Christians and Muslims take the view that God does not favour

any one particular group, and is not hostile to any one

particular group, but has a positive attitude to the whole of

humanity. In both Christianity and Islam, one pre-eminent evil

supernatural being is also recognised – Satan – and it is

usually taken that Satan has a persistent attitude of

hostility towards all of humanity; associated with his

interest in undermining God’s beneficent plans for humanity.

The definition of religious evil human action offered above

32

can accommodate universal approaches to understanding evil

which have it that there are pre-eminent good and evil

supernatural beings, concerned with the whole of humanity. The

definition refers to a social group that a speaker identifies

with, when describing an action as evil. A speaker who

identifies with the whole of humanity can rightfully refer to

an act caused by, or undertaken on behalf of Satan, who has a

persistent attitude of hostility to the whole of humanity, as

an evil act, when that act is intended to harm some, or all

humans, or is undertaken as part of a long-term plan to cause

them harm. Similarly, a speaker who identifies with the whole

of humanity is warranted in referring to an act that is

intended to thwart the long-term plans of God, which are

directed at benefitting some or all humans, as evil.

5. Religious Evil and Theological Conceptions of Evil

The definitions of religious evil action presented in the

previous section are intended to capture what ordinary

religious believers ordinarily mean when they describe an act

as evil, and are not intended to capture any particular

theological view about evil. As we saw in Section 3, ordinary

religious beliefs are often not ‘theologically correct’.

Ordinary religious believers behave much like Robinson Crusoe.

They may sometimes wonder about conceptual theological

problems, such as the problem that Friday raised, but these

problems do not grip them and they do not usually feel

compelled to revise their religious beliefs in light of such

33

problems. Theologians, of course, are highly concerned with

conceptual theological problems. Many theological discussions

of evil in the Christian tradition have been centrally

concerned to provide solutions to ‘the problem of evil’, which

is a sophisticated version on Friday’s problem. Friday

wondered why God, who is stronger than the Devil, does not

just kill the devil. Christian theologians wonder why, given

that the Christian God is perfectly good and infinitely

powerful, that He allows evil acts to occur. The conceptions

of evil that many Christian theologians have articulated have

been importantly shaped by the ways in which they have sought

to address this conundrum.

Theologians develop systematic interpretations of religious

texts and ideas. In doing so they often find themselves

redefining the naive concepts implicit in ordinary religious

thought. Cognitive scientists of religion emphasise the

importance of cognitive biases that shape human thinking in

maintaining and propagating ordinary religious beliefs

(Barrett 2004). As we saw in Section 3, belief in (minimally

counterintuitive) supernatural agents is natural for humans.

The same is true of many other widespread folk religious

beliefs, such as belief in a soul, and the belief that one or

more supernatural beings watch over you and assess your

behaviour (Atran 2002). However, systematic, rigorous

theological reasoning does not come naturally to humans any

more than does systematic, rigorous scientific reasoning

(Barrett 2011; McCauley 2011).

34

There is a danger of overstating the differences between

theology and religion. The concepts implicit in ordinary

religious belief provide much of the raw material for

theology. All things being equal, theologies that employ

concepts that are closely related to the concepts that are

familiar to ordinary religious believers are more likely to be

propagated, by those ordinary religious believers, than

theologies that employ concepts that are unfamiliar to

ordinary religious believers. We can reasonably expect that

many of the beliefs articulated in the most influential

theologies will resemble ordinary religious beliefs (De Cruz

2014). Theological thinking about evil, in the Christian and

other traditions can seem remote from ordinary religious

thinking about evil, especially given the preoccupation of

theologians with the problem of evil. Still, it would be

surprising if we were unable to discern the influence of the

religious conception of evil on at least some of this thought.

An influential strategy that Christian theologians have

employed to try to address the problem of evil has been to

blame evil on human choice and argue that while the perfectly

good God allows humans to choose evil outcomes, He is not

responsible for our choices (Taylor 1985, 36). For Biblical

literalists who subscribe to this line of reasoning, such as

Calvin (1536), evil is understood to have entered the world at

the time of The Fall, as described in Genesis 3, where Adam

and Eve chose to defy God’s orders by eating from the tree of

knowledge. For Calvin this was the first evil act and remains

the exemplar of evil acts, involving action that clearly

35

demonstrated unfaithfulness to God (Rorty 2001, 109). This way

of thinking about evil action is consistent with the religious

conception of evil. God is a supernatural being who held a

persistent attitude of benevolence towards Adam and Eve and

who was implementing a plan designed to benefit them. He had

created an idyllic care-free life for them in the Garden of

Eden. However, Adam and Eve thwarted His plan by eating from

the tree of knowledge. So, their action counts as evil on the

religious definition of evil (human) action presented in

Section 4.

Relations between other theological treatments of evil and the

ordinary religious account of evil are less direct, but still

discernible. Consider Aquinas’ (1265-1274) articulation of

Augustine’s ‘privation’ account of evil. On this account evil

is not something present in the universe that needs to be

explained. It is merely the absence of goodness. At first

glance this abstract theological account of evil seems

entirely disconnected from the ordinary religious conception

of evil. However, when we fill in some of the details of

Aquinas’ view, its connections to the religious conception of

evil start to become apparent. Aquinas held a teleological

account of goodness, according to which there are proper goods

for humans, which are different from the proper goods for

other beings (Davies 2011, 36). We possess knowledge of these

proper goods as a component of our nature, which has been

designed for us by God, as part of His long-term plan to

enable us to attain salvation. We commit an evil act, on

Aquinas’ view, when we aim for an outcome other than one of

36

the proper goods that God intends for us. We thereby deprive

ourselves of a good, or goods, that God intends for us, and

that deprivation is what constitutes evil (Davies 2011, 69).

Aquinas’ privation account of evil is highly abstract, but it

should not be hard to see, now that I have fleshed out a few

of its details, that it is not altogether removed from the

ordinary religious account of evil. When we commit an evil

act, on Aquinas’ privation account of evil, we intentionally

thwart the long-term plans of a good supernatural being. In

doing so, we commit evil, on the religious definition of evil

(human) action presented in Section 4.18

6. Resisting Religious Evil

Are there objections to the coherence of the religious

conception of evil that ought to concern us? One line of

objection might be to the use of the natural-supernatural

distinction and to the postulation of supernatural beings. In

previous work I have defended the coherence of the concept of

the supernatural, as well as the natural-supernatural

distinction (Clarke 2007), and have argued that the existence

of the supernatural is consistent with a modern naturalistic

and scientific world view (Clarke 2009). My views are,

however, minority ones in analytic philosophy and it may well

be that some philosophers who feel that there is something

suspicious about the metaphysics of evil have in mind an

18 For recent exposition and discussion of Aquinas’ privation account of evil, see Davies (2011) and Echavarría (2013).

37

objection to the very use of the natural-supernatural

distinction and/or the concept ‘supernatural’.19 If so, then

their line of objection is not one that seems to be

particularly targeted at the term ‘evil’. If we are not

allowed to employ the natural-supernatural/distinction and

postulate evil supernatural beings, then we should not be

allowed to use the same distinction to postulate good

supernatural beings, such as the Christian God, either.20

Are there particular objections to postulated evil

supernatural beings that do not apply to postulated good

supernatural beings? Not as far as I can see. A supernatural

being that aims to harm particular people seems, prima facie, as

believable as a supernatural being that aims to help

particular people. There may be well-founded objections to

particular postulated evil supernatural beings, but then there

are well-founded objections to particular postulated good

supernatural beings. The Christian God is a supernatural being

that is supposed to possess a combination of properties that

has seemed to many to raise paradoxes. He is supposed to be

all knowing and yet to have created beings with free will; and

much ink has been spilled trying to work out if it is possible

for Him to be all knowing if we are genuinely free. Also, as

19 Russell simply assumes that someone who is a naturalist must reject the supernatural. See Russell (2006, 96).20 A small minority of Christian philosophers of religion, including Peter Forrest (1996), reject the usual characterisation of the Christian God as asupernatural being. Although Forrest rejects the characterisation of God assupernatural, he does not characterise God as a merely natural being either. So, although Forrest does not require a natural-supernatural distinction he does require a natural-non-natural distinction and this seems to raise most of the same concerns as the natural-supernatural distinction (Clarke 2007, 282).

38

has already been discussed, the combination of Him being

perfectly good and all powerful, and yet allowing evil acts to

occur, has seemed, to many commentators, to be highly

problematic, if not paradoxical.21 People who are willing to

countenance the paradox-raising Christian God should have no

conceptual objection to belief in most postulated evil

supernatural beings either.

Why are so many of the academic philosophers who seek to

revive the term ‘evil’ hostile towards, or dismissive of, the

religious conception of evil? Belief in evil supernatural

beings is very widespread. According to a 2007 Gallup Poll 70%

of all Americans believe in the devil (Miller 2011). One

problem is that academics are very unrepresentative of the

world around them and many may simply be unaware of the extent

to which ordinary people who use the term ‘evil’ to describe

particular acts often have in mind acts that are conducted by,

or on behalf of, supernatural beings. We academics, as Joe

Henrich and colleagues have pointed out, are very

unrepresentative of the world’s population in that we are

generally ‘WEIRD’: Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and

Democratic (Henrich et al., 2010). But most ordinary people

are not WEIRD, so the views of academics on many matters are

idiosyncratic. WEIRD academics are much less likely to be

religious than ordinary people and, if they are religious,

then they are much less likely to be religious conservatives;

and religious conservatives are more likely to believe in the

21 For further discussion of conceptual difficulties raised by the combination of properties usually attributed to God, see Oppy (2009).

39

devil, and perhaps other supernatural evil beings, than are

religious liberals.22

A related problem is that philosophers can get a misleading

impression of ordinary religion if they take their opinions

about religion from academic theologians, who, for the most

part, are as WEIRD as other academics. Contemporary Christian

theologians seem to be particularly unrepresentative of

ordinary religious believers in relevant respects. In the

Twentieth Century Christian theologians became progressively

more hostile to the concept of Hell, their principal objection

being that it seems very difficult to accept that a perfectly

good God would condemn sinners to eternal damnation in Hell

(Walter 1996). If one rejects the possibility of Hell then it

is hard to see why one would want to retain belief in Satan,

whose major goal is supposed to be to tempt people away from

God and lead them to Hell. Although theologians who reject

belief in Hell and Satan, and interpret Biblical stories of

Satan and of Hell metaphorically, are prominent in liberal

academic and theological circles, their views do not reflect

those of ordinary Christians, and they have not received

official endorsement in mainstream churches, such as the

Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as most

evangelical protestant churches, all of which continue to

endorse belief in both Satan and Hell.

22 According to a 2001 Gallup Poll, 84% of Americans who describe themselvesas ‘members of the religious right’ believe in the devil (Robinson 2003).

40

Some of the academic philosophers who want to revive the term

‘evil’, but also want to avoid its religious connotations, may

be aware that religious belief is very widespread and that

many religious people believe in evil supernatural beings.

However, they may also assume that religious belief will

become increasingly less common in the future as people

advance economically and become more educated. So, they may be

planning ahead as it were: trying to shape the language that

we will need in an anticipated post-religious future. The

prediction that religious belief will become increasingly

uncommon with the benefits of economic advancement and

education has a long pedigree and is, of course, closely

associated with the Marxist tradition. However, although

particular religions, such as Manichaeism have died out,

religion itself shows little sign of doing so. If, as we saw

in Section 3, there are good reasons to think that religion

has evolved, then there are also good reasons to think that

religiosity is entrenched in human populations (Clarke 2014,

202). It is, of course, possible, that religion will die out,

but given the lack of reason to think that this possibility

will be realised, it seems that there is also a lack of reason

to plan for a post-religious future.23

7. Concluding Remarks

23 While overall secularization does not appear to be taking place, there are regional patterns of secularization that can be observed. For discussion see Norris and Inglehart (2011).

41

The secular do not have a use for the religious conception of

evil, but if they are serious about trying to capture the

meaning of the term ‘evil’ in its various senses, then they

need to acknowledge that this conception is current. The

metaphysical commitments implied by the sincere use of the

religious conception of evil will not be acceptable to the

secular. But this is not because they are particularly

mysterious as Calder (2013) suggests. It is because the

secular are clear enough about what these metaphysical

commitments are, and they are able to infer that they are not

warranted in accepting them.

I have argued that the secular conception of evil is not the

only one that deserves to be recognised. Sometimes I hear

people assert that the religious conception of evil is the

only one that deserves to be recognised. According to this

line of thought, secular uses of the term evil are hyperbolic

and confusing and add nothing to secular ethical discourse.24 I

do not wish to enter into this debate. Secular uses of the

term ‘evil’ are now a part of public discourse. Understanding

that there are both secular and religious uses of the term

‘evil’ that are current, and trying to be clear about when

these are being used, can help us avoid confusing the two.

Given that religious believers are liable to employ either or

both conceptions of evil, we are especially liable to confuse

the religious and secular conceptions of evil.

24 For discussion of this line of thought, see Russell (2008) and Calder (2013).

42

George W. Bush is a devout Christian. However, when he

famously described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as forming an

‘axis of evil’ he was not using the term ‘evil’ in a religious

sense, even though he could be said to have ‘demonised’ the

governments and perhaps the peoples of Iran, Iraq and North

Korea in uttering this phrase. If one reads the State of the

Union address in which the phrase was first famously used

(Bush 2002), it becomes evident that is was intended in a

secular sense. The context is a discussion of terrorist

activities and world political events, and neither Satan nor

any other evil supernatural being is mentioned. The actual

phrase was the result of a last-minute revision of the text of

Bush’s speech. His speechwriters had originally drafted a

speech about an ‘axis of hatred’ (Noah 2003). It would be

misleading to ascribe use of the religious conception of evil

to him on this occasion as it would suggest that he believed

that Satan was orchestrating the activities of the ‘axis’

countries.25

Some uses of the term ‘evil’, due to religious believers, are

susceptible to another form of misunderstanding. In some

contexts, we are liable to assume that when religious

believers describe worldly actions as evil that they are

employing the secular conception of evil, when they are

actually employing the religious conception. Osama bin Laden

was a devout Muslim who believed that America is an evil

society (Ibrahim 2007, 130-6). It is plausible to attribute

25 According to Noah (2003), the last-minute change was made by Bush’s chiefspeechwriter Mike Gerson who was aware of the political impact that Bush was able to make when wielding language laden with religious undertones.

43

the use of the religious conception of evil to bin Laden when

examining transcripts of his judgments about America. Bin

Laden genuinely appeared to have believed that Satan was

orchestrating the actions of America and its allies. He

described America as a country which has made ‘a clear

declaration of war on God’ (Juergensmeyer 2003, 148), and he

described America and her allies as the ‘devil’s supporters’

(Ibrahim 2007, 61), and as the ‘the allies of Satan’ (Lawrence

2005, 180).26 But bin Laden has been frequently misunderstood

by many secular Western commentators who find his deeply

religious world view alien and hard to comprehend. Only by

taking seriously the fact that there are both religious and

secular conceptions of evil that are current in ordinary

discourse, and being alert to the propensity of religious

believers to employ both conceptions, can we hope to avoid

confusing uses of the two different conceptions.27

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