The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I do not believe evil men are led by God. I believe there are plots of evil. We live in a sinful world, and there are a lot of things that happen as a result of sin.
There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.
'Evil' is quite a blanket term. People aren't the demonic characters we would like them to be sometimes.
Evil, and evil spirits, devils and devil possession, are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or, against God, if you will.
You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence - that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree.
For something to be completely evil is to be nothing. Satan has good attributes - intelligence, for instance - but they are corrupted. I cannot reconcile myself emotionally to alternative understandings of evil.
If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.