In the US, the shocking news of Charles Manson’s death marked the end of a disturbing chapter in history.
In the 1960s, the state of California was home to a deplorable cult centred around Manson, who had become synonymous with criminal madness. The cult became notorious in the summer of 1969 when several of its members, influenced by Manson, brutally murdered nine people. Among the victims was Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was travelling in Europe at the time.
In his autobiography, Polanski admitted that his wife’s murder changed his personality, transforming him from someone who “sailed a boundless, untroubled sea of expectations and optimism” into someone with an “ingrained pessimism” and “eternal dissatisfaction with life.” However, the full extent of this change only became apparent a few years later when Polanski was accused of sexually abusing a minor in Jack Nicholson’s home while Nicholson was on holiday. Fearing that the American judge before whom he had pleaded guilty in exchange for parole would change his mind, Polanski fled the US for Europe. Since then, Polanski has been accused by three other women who claim they were abused by the filmmaker when they were teenagers. From the first accusation until November 2017, when the Swiss state declared that the first charge had expired, Polanski remained a fugitive. He is an acclaimed and Oscar-winning director, having won an Oscar for The Pianist (2002), but he is still a fugitive.
The Manson-Tate-Polanski connection remains emblematic of the complexity of violence for at least two reasons. Firstly, although the perpetrators of the crime and its moral author were known, no single cause was identified. In fact, despite many criminals offering explanations for their actions that may even seem somewhat reasonable, crime does not imply a set of justifications. Otherwise, that set of justifications would legitimise murder. However, nothing a person does can justify another person’s intention to kill them. The same principle applies to violence as a phenomenon on a larger scale.
How violence came about
Although it has been recounted and described, the origin of violence remains a mystery, even within the Christian meta-narrative. And, as previously discussed, it cannot be explained. Christians believe that violence has its roots in the supernatural world, spreading to the natural world from there. According to the Bible, Lucifer’s revolt against divine authority was the first act of rebellion against Good, becoming the source of all that is opposed to it, that is, Evil in all its forms, including violence. Christian scriptures speak of a veritable “war in heaven” that took place at the beginning of time relevant to mankind (and that will be repeated, mirrored, at the end of time as we know it today). The stakes in this clash were high: the forced imposition of a new system of government based on principles different to those established by God in eternity. More specifically, Lucifer—who, we are told, without reason or explanation, became prideful in his heart[1]—began to poison himself with doubts about his importance, and desired to usurp the only position in heaven higher than his own: God’s.
Therefore, for Christians, the first known act of violence is “psychological” violence, if we can call it that, whereby the angel Lucifer incited a third of the angels in heaven against their Creator by instilling in them dissatisfaction with the divine order. The contrast between Lucifer’s intentions and the setting of divine perfection in which they arise makes it impossible to identify an inherent cause. However, by describing the beginning of violence as a mystery that defies reason, the Bible reaffirms its absurdity.
Moreover, when describing the creation of our world, Scripture offers an entirely different picture to that typical of pagan myths about the origin of the world. While the latter is more akin to the secular view, attributing the emergence of life to violent forces (a battle between gods in pagan cosmogonies, or natural selection and survival of the fittest in evolutionism), the biblical Genesis speaks of creation as the result of love. Following this dynamic act of love, life manifested itself from the very beginning in a multitude of harmonised forms, in which interdependence is based on giving and reciprocity rather than rivalry and conflict. Therefore, after the act of creation, God was able to rest and look at the result of His love, declaring with satisfaction that all things were not only good, but “very good” (Genesis 1:31). As Timothy Keller notes, the Hebrew term for this harmonious interdependence between all components of creation is “shalom,” which translates as “peace.” The Presbyterian pastor notes that Hebrew “peace” is positive, marking the absence of conflict or hostility, emphasising “absolute wholeness—a full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life.”[2]
Interestingly, the same lack of justification and absurdity can be seen at the root of today’s violence. It is almost as if violence has an inherent DNA of absurdity. However, rather than being inherited, perhaps it is more accurate to say that violence is transmitted or contagious.
Why does it perpetuate?
From an evolutionary point of view, violence is a fundamental human characteristic: we need violence to survive; it is ingrained in the human condition.
However, anthropologists are divided in their opinions. According to the meta-analysis of anthropologists Ingo Schroeder and Bettina Schmidt, there are currently three main anthropological interpretations of the causes of violence. One approach considers measurable material causes, such as resource inequality. A second perspective highlights the human capacity to construct symbols and attribute cultural significance to conflict. In other words, it involves inventing a narrative that propels people into war. The third anthropological approach to violence is experiential, viewing violence as a subjective, individual manifestation that does not necessarily require the framework of intergroup conflict or a general state of antagonism. This approach personalises the causes at the level of the individual’s uniqueness.
In psychology, however, the conventional approach is much more integrative. The current psychological perspective posits that violence cannot be attributed to a single cause, but rather to a spectrum of triggering factors acting according to the social ecology model. In other words, violence is based on a combination of circumstances relating to the biology of the violent individual (e.g. brain damage or mental illness), their upbringing, their education, and the social influences they encounter.
Interestingly, violence begets violence, even in victims or those who merely witness aggression without being affected by it. This is why I said that the Manson-Tate-Polanski case has another emblematic characteristic. It shows that the roles of victim and aggressor are not always fixed as we might expect. Often, the victim, or the person who suffers, as in Polanski’s case, becomes an aggressor themselves. However, it is also possible for a mere witness to become a victim. Comedian Patton Oswalt’s first wife, who was a true crime author, died in her sleep in 2016 due to an accidental overdose of multiple prescription drugs. In an interview with NPR, Oswalt confessed that his wife had been so affected by investigating a crime and scarred by interviewing surviving victims that she had not slept for three days before her death. “She really carried it directly on herself—that I want to give these people something like an answer. Even though she didn’t believe in closure, she did understand that the physical act of knowing that a cell door was slamming on this guy would be really, really helpful to these people.” Oswalt concluded that his wife had “a lethal level of empathy in her,” which, while not the actual cause of her death, “certainly held the door open for the other causes.”[3]
Although it does not contradict scientific observations, by supporting a narrative that encompasses them, Christianity nevertheless offers a radically different explanation for the perpetuation of violence. More specifically, while not denying the existence of a predisposition to violence, Christianity maintains that this determinism can be completely reversed through the restoration of the divine image in humans, which is the ultimate goal of salvation. Therefore, the perpetuation of violence is a failure of humanity; a refusal to allow itself to be remoulded by divine influence, which inspires altruistic love for one’s fellow humans. While Christianity does not deny the existence of violence born of the need to ensure survival or access to resources, it offers a different solution to this problem and leaves humans free to choose whether to accept it. On a psychological level, Christianity can override circumstances, prompting people from disadvantaged backgrounds to act against the odds and relate to an invisible context built on principles and values inspired by self-sacrificing love modelled on God’s love.
How can violence exist in the presence of a God of love and peace?
Christianity proposes and promotes a world with values that are almost completely different to those of today’s world. This creates the paradox of violence existing in the presence of a loving God whose love is so supernatural that He was willing to sacrifice Himself for the good of mankind. If God is love, how can He tolerate violence? If He is all-powerful, why doesn’t He put a stop to it? In the volume God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views, editor Chad Meister posed these questions to renowned American theologians, whose answers pierce through centuries of religious turmoil.[4]
Professor and researcher Phillip Cary presents the traditional response that God not only allows violence, but also the manifestation of Evil itself, because He wishes to extract supreme Good from this Evil. This perspective views the history of Earth as a struggle between two mirroring beneficial moments: the beginning and the end of this world. Then, Professor William Lane Craig responds. He updates the perspective of medieval theologian Luis de Molina, who argued that, in His omniscience, out of all possible worlds and of all possible sets of circumstances, God chose to bring into existence the world that brings maximum benefits to created beings, under conditions of maximum freedom. This is what is meant by free will. The importance of human freedom also features in the theodicy proposed by theologian Thomas Oord, who believes that God’s love cannot unilaterally prevent evil because it respects human freedom.
William Hasker suggests splitting the answer in two because he believes there is a fundamental difference between the motivations for evil in nature and moral evil, which arises from human choices. The theologian argues that God allows evil in both instances, sometimes to extract good and sometimes to avoid further evil. He believes that tolerating evil is always justified, either by the inevitable attributes of the world in which it manifests itself or by reasons that we do not know, but which should not be allowed to undermine our faith. On the contrary, they should inspire trust in the God who took the risk of allowing evil when He created the world, because the outcome of His creation was worthwhile. Finally, Professor Stephen Wykstra argues that we should not expect to understand much about God’s purposes and actions in the world, and that our inability to understand God is not a logical argument for concluding that an omnipotent and good God does not exist. Rather, it is an invitation to trust God in new ways.
Thus, the common denominator of the five theological perspectives presented in Meister’s collection seems to be the inevitability of evil and, by extension, violence. However, the finality of trusting in God despite the inevitability of evil is all the more precious: the privilege of seeing things come to fruition that were previously only imagined. This is a world from which violence has been excised, and which can never again become a breeding ground for it, precisely because it was chosen by free beings even before it became a tangible reality. Love achieves everything that is a priority in the spirit of altruism and thus proves its superiority over any other form of (self-) government, becoming immune to attack.
Only in such a world does Evil become obsolete and is eradicated forever, along with all its manifestations that have embittered our existence, including violence.
