AC 6859
There are two origins of evil, and also two origins of falsity.
One origin of evil is from falsity of doctrine or of religiosity;
the other is from the cupidities of the love of self and of the world.
As just said,
the falsity of the first origin is from falsity of doctrine or of religiosity;
and the falsity of the other origin
is from the evil of the cupidities of the said loves.
religiosity - piety, religiousness, showing off of religious activity
cupidities - avarice, greed, lust
(from various sources)
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I’ve been enjoying your emails. Sometimes windows, sometimes mirrors.
Another take on the origin of evil can be found in DLW 265 (Rogers):
That the origin of evil comes from abuse of these [two] faculties
[i.e., rationality and freedom] will be explained according to the
following outline:
(1) An evil person possesses these two faculties just as much as a
good one.
(2) An evil person abuses these faculties to defend evils and falsities,
whereas a good person uses them to defend goods and truths.
(3) Confirmed evils and falsities remain in a person and become matters
of his love and so of his life.
(4) Qualities that have become matters of one's love and life are
passed on hereditarily to offspring.
(5) All evils, both those inborn and those additionally acquired,
have their seat in the natural mind.
In DP 279.5 (Wunsch), evil is defined as "the enjoyment of the lust of acting and thinking contrary to divine order."
Elsewhere it is said that, "If man believed, as is the truth, that...
all evil and falsity from hell, he would not... appropriate evil to
himself and make himself responsible for it." DP 309.3 (Wunsch)
Still elsewhere, and in keeping with DP 309.3, it is said that, "all
evil flows in from hell... But the reason why evil is appropriated to a man is that he believes and persuades himself that he thinks and does it from himself, and in this way makes it his own. If he believed as is really the case, then evil would not be appropriated to him, but good from the Lord would be appropriated to him; for the moment that evil flowed in, he would reflect that it was from the evil spirits with him, and as soon as he thought this, the angels would avert and reject it."
AC 6206 (Potts)
Glenn
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