4171. “被野兽撕裂的, 我没有带来给你” 表那良善所具有的邪恶并非因祂的过错. 这从 “被野兽撕裂” 的含义清楚可知, “被野兽撕裂” 是指别人所造成的死亡, 因而是指非他过错的邪恶. 人所具有的邪恶有许多来源. 第一个来源在于遗传, 从祖父辈和曾祖父辈到父辈, 再从父辈传到他这里, 邪恶在父辈里面就已经堆积如山了. 第二个来源在于他自己实际造作的, 也就是说, 在于人通过邪恶的生活为自己所获得的. 这邪恶部分地由他从遗传, 如同从邪恶的海洋所得来并付诸实践的东西组成, 部分地由他在此之上为自己大量添加的东西组成. 这就是人给自己所获得的自我. 人将其变成自己的这种实际邪恶也有各种来源, 不过通常有两种: 第一种是他从别人那里, 但非因自己的过错而得来的东西; 第二种是他自愿, 因而通过自己的过错而得来的东西. 在圣言中, “被 (野兽) 撕裂的” 就表示人从别人那里, 非因自己的过错而得来的东西; 而 “(动物) 尸体或尸首” 则表示人自愿, 因而通过自己的过错而得来的东西.

正因如此, 无论在古教会还是犹太人当中, 他们都禁止吃自死的, 也就是动物尸体, 以及被 (野兽) 撒裂的. 以下经文就有这项禁令:

凡吃自死的, 或是被野兽撕裂的灵魂, 无论是本地人, 是寄居的, 必不洁净到晚上, 都要洗衣服, 用水洗身, 到了晚上, 才为洁净. 但他若不洗衣服, 也不洗身, 就必担当他的罪孽. (利未记 17:15-16)

又:

自死的或是被野兽撕裂的, 他不可吃, 因此污秽自己. 我是耶和华. (利未记 22:8)

“被 (野兽) 撕裂的” 表示出于虚假的邪恶, 是由林中撕裂的野兽所指的恶人造成的; 因为在圣言中, 凡在地狱者都好比野兽. 出埃及记:

你们要归我作圣洁的人; 因此, 田间被野兽撕裂的肉, 你们不可吃, 要丢给狗. (出埃及记 22:31)

以西结书:

先知对耶和华说, 我的灵魂素来未曾被玷污, 从幼年到如今没有吃过自死的, 或被野兽撕裂的, 那可憎的肉也未曾入我的口. (以西结书 4:14)

又:

无论是鸟是兽, 凡自死的或是撕裂的, 祭司都不可吃. (以西结书 44:31)

这论及主的国度, 新地就在那里.

从这些经文可以看出, “被 (野兽) 撕裂的” 在内义上是什么意思; 为了使这一点显得更清楚, 我们举个例子. 某人过着良善的生活, 也就是出于愿意别人好而向他行善. 假如这人允许自己被陷入邪恶的人说服, 从而相信良善的生活无助于救恩, 因为所有人都生在罪中, 没有人能凭自己意愿良善, 因而行出良善. 假如他由此允许自己被这一观念说服: 所提供的得救方法就是那被称为信的; 因此人凭着信得救, 无需过良善的生活, 即便在临终的那一刻接受信也可以. 如果过着良善生活的这个人允许自己被这样的观念说服, 然后不再关心生活, 甚至蔑视它, 就可以说他 “被 (野兽) 撕裂了”; 因为 “被撕裂” 论及虚假被引入的良善, 那良善由此就不再活着了.

再以婚姻为例, 如果有人一开始将婚姻视为天上的制度, 但后来他 (或许还有他的配偶) 允许自己被说服相信, 婚姻的设立纯粹是为了这个世界的秩序, 为了抚养和照料孩子, 以及继承财产. 另外, 他还允许自己被说服相信, 婚姻的纽带无非一种契约, 若对方同意, 任意一方都可终止或放宽这个契约. 一旦接受了这些观念, 对于婚姻, 他就不再视为天上的事了. 假如这一切导致放荡, 那么后果就是所谓的 “被撕裂”. 其它例子也一样.

恶人就是那 “撕裂” 者, 他们通过基于外在事物的推理而这样做, 而内在事物由于生活的邪恶而无法被引入外在事物. 这一事实从以下经文可以看出来, 耶利米书:

林中的狮子必害死尊大的人, 野地的豺狼必灭绝他们, 豹子要在城外窥伺他们, 凡出城的必被撕碎; 因为他们的罪过极多, 背道的事也加增了. (耶利米书 5:5-6)

阿摩司书:

以东拿剑追赶兄弟, 毁尽怜悯, 他的怒气不断撕裂, 他永怀忿怒. (阿摩司书 1:11)

Evil is the inversion of what is good. It is basically to receive life from the Lord, as all created beings do, yet to turn it primarily towards oneself, making our self the only focus. In the process of doing this, we engender fear, hatred and the love of dominating others. The state of hell is based on evil and its various manifestations.

But if the Lord is good and perfect, how did He let evil come to exist? Why does He let it continue to exist? The answer to these questions actually has to do with what the Lord is, in essence, and what His goals are.

The essence of the Lord - what He's made of; what he actually is - is love. It's perfect love, boundless and pure and complete. Love, of course, innately desires an object. We can't just love in a vacuum; we want to love someone or something, and in loving them we want to be close to them and conjoined with them. To fulfill Himself, then, the Lord created the universe and ultimately us so that he could have something outside Himself to love.

The Lord's goal for us, then, is to accept His love and to be conjoined with him. For that relationship to work, though, there are two essential elements. First, we have to have a choice; if we didn't have a choice it would be compulsion, not love, and would be no more meaningful than the instinctive love a dog has for its master. Second, we have to remain separate from the Lord; if we became part of Him, he would be loving Himself.

The first of those elements creates the potential for evil to exist. To give us a choice, the Lord created us with the ability to refocus His love and turn it on ourselves - to use the power and life He freely gives us to love and worship ourselves instead of loving and worshipping Him. That is pretty much the definition of evil, and the Writings tell us that it is the state we are all in from birth and the state we would all return to instantly if it were not for the loving influence of the Lord.

Many find that idea upsetting. Why would the Lord let us be born into evil? Shouldn't we be essentially neutral if we are to have a choice? And surely we can't be saying that babies are evil!

In a way, though, the fact that we're born into evil is the Lord's way of balancing things out. He is pouring love on us constantly, leading us toward good in countless ways; if we were not innately evil we would be overwhelmed by His love and would lose our ability to choose. As for babies, the Writings do say that babies and young children have a degree of natural goodness, which shows as a love for their parents and kindness toward other children. As they get older and begin to be more rational, the Lord draws this into their interiors so He can continue to affect them as they grow. They are also innocent, lacking the ability to choose either good or evil.

But for all their innocence and sweetness and the powerful love they inspire in us, children are, if you think about it, deeply self-centered. And that self-centered state often persists through adolescence into adulthood, when real choices begin.

This means that we all enter adulthood with some degree of self-love, love of wealth, love of dominating others, love of being in charge, pride in our intelligence and a sense of entitlement. It might not be dominant, but it's there. What do we do?

Well, remember that the Lord is pouring love on us constantly; our problem is that we are full of evils and there's no place for that love to attach itself. What we need to do, then, is start attacking those evils. If we can uproot them, the Lord will fill the space with love.

And that, the Writings tell us, is the work of our lifetimes. We are called on to learn what is good and use that knowledge to shun evils - to push them aside so the Lord can replace them with desires for good. Do it long enough and diligently enough and the Lord will set the evils aside permanently and fill us with love – the state of angels. We will then go to a society in heaven to be with people whose loves are similar to ours.

There are a few points worth making about this process:

- It is slow. Our loves are our life, so if the Lord simply took all our evils away at once it would kill us. It's a process.

- We have to know evil to fight it. The Lord has given us the capacity to know what is right even while we desire what is wrong; we can use that power to examine ourselves and identify our evils so we can combat them.

- Temptation is key. The only way to really uproot an evil love is to fight it, and the battle can only come when that evil desire is active, eating at us, calling to us, trying to drag us away. This is not to say we should seek temptation – the Lord will provide it at the right time – but we can recognize it as an opportunity to grow spiritually.

- We can't make ourselves good. Only the Lord can do that; our part is to try not to be bad and ask for His help.

- We're not necessarily responsible for evil thoughts. Just as the Lord is constantly leading us toward goodness and light, the hells also want us to join their ranks in evil and darkness. One way they do this is by bombarding our minds with evil thoughts. But our thoughts are not our life; our loves are. If we let evil thoughts go on by us and don't make them part of what we intend to do, we're not responsible for them.

- We're not necessarily reponsible for evil intentions or actions. Some people are raised without any knowledge of right and wrong, and have no idea that things they desire are evil. Those evils don't become a permanent part of them unless they embrace them while knowing they are wrong.

And if we fail, then what? Well, that's a mirror image of the "going-to-heaven" process – if we choose to embrace evils and knowingly make them our own, we will ultimately go to hell to be with others who have similar evil loves.

But here's an interesting point: The Writings say that the Lord never really takes our evils away, even if we become angels in heaven. He pushes them aside and negates their power, but he doesn't remove them. Why?

The answer lies in the second of the two elements we mentioned earlier, that we have to stay separate from the Lord in order to be loved by Him. If the Lord actually removed our evils and made us fully pure and good, He would also remove the element that makes us separate, the part of ourselves that is not part of the Lord. The Lord can't be evil, so the evil in us will always be outside Him. This maintains our identity even in the most exalted angelic state we could reach.