Is Every Man Capable of Ultimate Evil?

Thr3e, by Ted Dekker

Thr3e was my first excursion into the mind of Ted Dekker. This book takes a look at evil in the heart of man. Is every man capable of ultimate evil? And is that evil already there, living within us, or does it come from some outside source? Left to ourselves, would we do only good?

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. We can all identify things we’ve said that are ultimately evil. Things that hurt others, because we intended to cause hurt. This is evil, is it not? And does it not come from within first, where it was conceived in the heart and mind?

Noah Webster’s Dictionary of the American Language, published in 1828, (www.FACE.net) defines evil as the causing of an injury. Hm. I always thought of evil as something demonic. Something NOT close to my heart. This definition brings it a little closer to home. Try reading the book of Genesis with this definition in mind…

If you pay attention to the messages being delivered in our current day media, and in our schools, perhaps even in some of our churches, you will hear that ‘we are basically good.’ We also often hear that we are merely a ‘product of our society.’ I’ll just step out on a limb here and say that this sounds suspiciously like it is giving us permission to blame others for how we turned out. Its underlying belief says that we are good. All we need is a good environment. Good circumstance. Do I really want to teach my children that it’s ok to ‘go off’ when things go badly for them? This is the ultimate conclusion from such teaching. It is, truly, blaming the devil, because he made me do it.

If, on the other hand, my heart is filled with evil and must be governed by an unshifting principle that defines right and wrong, then I must answer for my actions. And I must consider to whom I must answer. How is it that we seem to often instinctively know the difference between good and evil? And if I find evil within me, what do I do with it? Dekker does a good job of looking at these questions from thr3e distinct angles, ‘the good, the evil, and the person caught in between.’ He does this through the life of a young man who is being stalked by a killer. Shiver.

Catch the movie, too. It’s nearly scene-for-scene with the book.