I think the simple version is that we are supposed to learn from the effects/consequences of evil actions, and not repeat the actions that lead to those consequences. I know that conventional Christianity has taught -- for 15 centuries -- that we have only lifetime to worry about, but this makes no sense to me, because we cannot perfect ourselves (even with God's help) in just one, short lifetime. And since billions of people lived and died before Christ Jesus was ever born, and many more have never even heard of Jesus, the idea that a person even needs to know Jesus (specifically) -- in order to be "saved" -- is pretty well absurd.
What a person must learn, it seems to me, is that
"what goes around, comes around," that
"as we sow, so shall we reap." And this comes squarely down to
personal Responsibility. If we think, speak and act with selfish and negative intentions -- to harm others or to take advantage of people -- then this is what we may expect in our future. Not that
some wrathful, punishing "god"-being is going to make us
suffer for our foolishness, but rather, that the
Loving, all-considering Universe (administered by a Loving Being) already
accommodates, or
allows for, our error -- and that we are thus given the opportunity to learn how to correct our wrong thoughts, wrong speech and wrong actions.
For many thousands of lifetimes it is understandable, natural and unavoidable that we behave utterly selfishly, and much
negative karma will be accumulated. In these lifetimes, we do realize,
here & there, that we can do
better, and thus we learn much (about)
GOOD, and about
GOD. But we "backslide," as Christians say. Not that we backslide
Spiritually, or in terms of our Soul Consciousness, or Soul progress. It's just that we are not yet ready to
embrace the Royal Road with the depth and fullness of our being. In fact, if we try, or if we were pushed to do that ... we would almost certainly fail. Progress, especially
Spiritual progress, comes gradually -- not by leaps and bounds.
Yet as we reach increasing Spiritual maturity, I think we do become more accustomed to
following the Spiritual Laws which govern the entire Cosmos. We learn that there is no one to
blame but ourselves -- both individually and collectively -- when
things go wrong. This is karma. It's easy to want to
scapegoat someone else, or something else. But what
goes around,
comes around. And no one, is punishing
anyone.
So, imho, what you've said about the necessity of
exhausting evil, or evil tendencies, bears a grain of truth -- but this does
not mean that we have an excuse, a
free license, to sin and err ... simply because God forgives us. It does not mean that there is NO consequence for our (wrong) actions. It just means that the natural method of progress is to sometimes take three steps forward, and one backward ... yet at others we may take two steps forward, and THREE backward!
It means that EVIL will test and tempt us,
not just until we have seen God's Light, and experienced God's Love --
once -- but rather, evil will "dog our steps" every
step of the way. Our strengthening Spiritual character (or "true self") learns -- or rather, teaches
us -- to walk "in the Light" the majority of the time, but our
human (imperfect) nature also tempts us ... or allows temptation into our human heart & mind ... and this is the proverbial "chink in the armor" (of the Lord). This is not a
bad thing,
per se, however, because until we are "ROCK SOLID" -- not just in
Faith -- but also in terms of a PERFECTED SPIRITUAL BEING,
the Word made flesh (see
Ephesians 4:13) ... until this time, we NEED this testing and tempting. We actually
could not reach our goal, without these kind of opportunities.
Okay, I feel silly now. I hadn't read this part of your post when I typed the above ...
paragraphs. I think you've summed up what I had to say quite beautifully, and briefly.
