Evil

Jung saw good and evil as judgement based on experience, a subjective response so that what appeared evil at one stage of development might in fact appear good at a higher stage. Finally, however, the individual has to deal with evil as the necessary opposition to good as shadow is to light. On the contrary, rather than seeing good and evil as equally balanced, religion sees evil as ultimately subordinate to good and while evil has always to be guarded against in this life it will ultimately be conquered. Some authorities would say evil to be derivative, that it exists only as a distortion of the good. It is the result of the free choice of a created will setting itself in opposition to God, a renunciation of good; and therefore of no independent reality without good. Theologically, evil thus commenced with the fall of man, when man set himself up as autonomous with respect to God and sought fulfilment in himself rather than in the creative and selfless love of the creator. Rather than disorder or disruption, although this may be the result, evil is then the attempt to be self-sufficient. For Kierkegaard, purity of heart is to will one thing, and that is good; he demonstrates that the good is always single, unity, and that evil is therefore fragmented, "legion", duality.