Evil Exists

"He had a smile on his face but there was no emotion in his eyes."

It has been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. In light of that, the above quote, from a Virginia Tech student referring to the killer, makes perfect sense.

As of last year, I have become a college student. Of course there is universal heartbreak at this tragedy but I feel a special comradery as a fellow college student.I do not however feel any extra pain than you do. That's what makes us all human. It is part of what defines our soul.

I do not believe the killer had a soul. Or, if he did have one, it was temporarily shut down. I do not believe it is possible to have a soul and do the things he did.

Augustine, one of the most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as "a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body".

There was certainly nothing special or reasonable about the killer's actions.

The Catholic Church defines the soul as "the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: 'soul' signifies the spiritual principle in man."

The Bahá'í Faith affirm that "the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel.

Bahá'u'lláh(the Muhammad or Jesus of the Bahai faith) explained:

"Know thou that the soul of man is exalted above, and is independent of all infirmities of body or mind. That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between his soul and his body."

The sickness that came between the killer's body and soul was the sickness of evil. I know that word "evil" is not politically correct today. We hesitate to call someone evil. We look to other sources as to who made someone the way they were. We look at his upbringing, how people treated him, etc. But whatever your rationale or belief system, you cannot deny that what happened at Virginia Tech was an act of evil. And I argue that this act of evil was done by a man who did not have a soul.

Evil is sometimes describe as the absence of good. When there is no presence of good, the void that remains is evil.

Evil exists in this world. Maybe it exists because there is not enough good. The Hindu faith describes our souls as a combination of "truth, consciousness, and bliss". The best of all our religions aspire to do good within the innermost parts of us. The definitions of soul across all faiths are universally positive. Today our souls are activated by our common compassion for Virginia Tech. Whether you feel outrage or sadness, compassion or anger, know that what you feel is the sign of the good that is within you.