To build paradise in this world, among all its people, the evil that dwells deep in the hearts of men must first be completely banished. People are endowed with an intuitive abhorrence of evil and they instinctively avoid as it as far as they can. We created ethics and morals to assist us in guarding against it. Education, for example, stresses knowledge of the good, while religion demands the pursuit of good and condemns evil Parents warn their children and teachers admonish their pupils to beware the evil that confronts everyone, constantly. Husbands and wives caution each other against it, and the law threatens evildoers with punishment. But still, no matter what efforts we make, there are many more hearts filed with evil than good.

There are kinds and degrees of evil: deliberate evil, unconscious evil, and evil resulting from ignorance. Most ominous is the evil committed in the belief that it is good. The first type is the most clear-cut, but the second is the most common. The third is the outpouring of the savage, abnormal or completely immature personality. The greatest of all, however, and the kind whose influence is strongest and most venomous, is evil committed openly and sincerely in the mistaken belief that it is good. If one judged by the standard of good, a look at the sweep of civilization would be enough to condemn our world as evil. The historical record since ancient times is filed with instances of the good persecuted by the wicked, but cases of evil tortured by good are few and far between Evil persons seem always to have had many supporters while good people have had few. The wicked evade the law openly and with impunity, while the good often cringe in silence.

It is a historical truism that the good are weak, oppressed by the wicked, who are strong. It is for that reason that democracy evolved in the West – as a concept and a system to check evil in society. In Japan, for hundreds of years feudalistic thinking justified the exploitation of the weak by the strong. It was only by the defeat of World War IL and foreign occupation that Japan was finally punished and transformed into a democratic nation. Our postwar democratization was not the natural outcome of an evolutionary process, but rather the product of an accident in history, a rare case when good conquered evil. To many, however, including myself, it is clear that democracy is not yet firmly rooted and that it still must combat vestiges of the old patterns of domination in Japanese society.

What is the relationship between evil and civilization? To answer this question, it is necessary first to recognize that civilization owes its beginning to the conflict between good and evil. As history has shown since the ages of primitive man, the strong have harassed the weak, deprived them of their freedom, wantonly committed murder, plundered and tortured, forcing the powerless to devise defenses of all descriptions. The weak have made weapons, built fences and walls, provided for enemy attacks and developed facilities to move around quickly. Individually and collectively they have contrived all the defenses they possibly could and in so doing, they unwittingly made immense contributions to the progress of civilization. As the human intellect grew and knowledge increased, methods of writing. were devised and contracts between groups came into being. International treaties represent the highest form of contract so far. To defend against and bring evil under control, rules, regulations and punishments were established among people living communally, developing into the laws and law enforcement agencies of today. These instruments, however, have never been adequate to eradicate evil conduct. The expanding human intellect, while holding great potential for good, at the same time has made it easier for those motivated by evil to invent cleverer and more insidious weapons. Thus, the conflict between prevailing evil and good has continued from pre-historic ages right up to the present. The struggle was not without huge, unavoidable sacrifices, but it had incomparable effects on the advance of the human mind and civilization’s progress.

It is to relieve the sufferings of the good that great religious leaders have appeared from time to time. Many of them condemn all mundane desires and preach doctrines based on resignation, exhorting people to unquestioning obedience, but at the same time they prophesy the coming of a heaven on earth in order to offer hope for the future. They have warned man that he must reap the fruit of what he sows. They have given their lives to persuading the wicked to repent. Most of these men had to endure terrible hardships and persecution, giving rise to deeply moving stories of their lives and deeds. They achieved much, but they were never able to halt the underlying current of the world. History has also witnessed efforts by non—religious leaders, including scholars and politicians, seeking to ward off through materialistic means the disasters wrought by evil. As a result science has made great progress and civilization has reached glorious levels of achievement. However, as evil forces continue to utilize scientific advances, many negative developments have emerged.

War is one of the best examples of the evil use of knowledge, Natural science is responsible for more sophisticated tools for destruction, and finally, the atomic bomb, The bomb is the crystallization of a horror that human beings had never dreamed of. The discovery of atomic fission and the bomb were at first welcomed as a force so terrible to surely bring war to a permanent end, Any relief was short-lived, however, for the danger then arose that evil forces would take advantage of the invention. Now fear and apprehension have grown greater. But the time is approaching when it will become impossible to provoke war. Ironically, while evil is originally responsible, we are beginning to see that the same evil is also going to bring an end to war. We can begin to see that both good and evil have existed under the providence of God.

Those who believe in the spirit as well as believers in the material, with the exception of deeply evil persons, long for perfect peace and happiness. Can peace and happiness ever become a reality? If so, when?. With a future that looks as hopeless as it does today, fears and apprehensions are steadily rising. Many thinking people have been driven to skepticism, cynicism, or nihilism. Some seek salvation in religion, while others reach out for answers in philosophy. Most trust only in science for the solution to their problems, but uncertain whether science will provide the answer, they have come to a dead end. Yet humanity still suffers from the three greatest of afflictions: disease, poverty and war. Through divine revelation I have learned the true cause of suffering, and I wish to explain it in terms of evil as it functions in the whole of Gods plan, and to offer a way to overcome it today, in this stage of civilization.

First, if evil is the source of man’s unhappiness, why did God create it? Neither religion nor philosophy, much less natural science, has really probed this question. It has been abandoned as a hopeless puzzle. Still, as long as the question remains unsolved, true human. Civilization remains beyond our grasp, Hidden in the depths of history until now is the truth of the meaning of evil in the world and its necessary function in civilization. Of all evils, the most dreadful have been those that threaten life itself: war and disease. Let us consider war first, It is the most disastrous, for it means huge loss of lives. To escape from the sufferings .of war, however, men have poured enormous energy into strengthening themselves to defend, or to defeat. Paradoxically, these efforts contributed much to the development of civilization. Without wars there would have been much slower progress, or none at all.

Like strands of thread twisted together, war and peace are closely bound in each step forward, Interestingly enough, the same truth is at work in society and in human affairs. The conflicts between good and evil in all areas of life are the steps of progress, and as such, have given evil an, important role to play up to our time. The time of evil, however, is limited by the will of God, the Supreme Being who presides over all. The end of the world, the last judgment in the teaching of Jesus, will mean the end of evil. The age that has been so long awaited will mark the final victory of good and the beginning of heaven on earth. It will be a world with no sickness, poverty or war, where truth, goodness and beauty prevail. Paradise has many appellations, but they all mean the same heaven on earth.

There are certain spiritual and physical preparations that must be completed before transformation into this new world of goodness and true happiness can take place. Spiritual progress can take place instantaneously, while material progress is labored, requiring a long time. Thus, God ordained material progress to reach maturity before spiritual growth. To push material civilization ahead, man was made to disregard Godts existence and as a result, human, consciousness has been focused on the material. That, of course, accounts for atheism. It functioned as an intellectual vehicle for evil, which, gradually overwhelming good, caused endless strife for the miserable lot of man, People have desperately tried to counteract evil and escape from their sufferings, and in so doing, they have pushed civilization ahead.

Evil had a fundamental role in the development of civilization, but the time has come to expel it. We are about to see the great change when good will conquer evil. This is not the fancy of my personal hopes or logic, but it is God’s plan for the world and for mankind, whether it is believed or not. The time has come for Paradise on Earth. Our civilization, until now a pawn of evil, will soon pass into the hand of good.