The Evil Inside Us

The Evil Inside Us

In the 1960’s, Dr. Stanley Milgram at Yale University, began a series of experiments on men of various ages and backgrounds to measure how easily these men would follow the direction of an authority figure—even if it conflicted with their conscience.

The study participants were told that they were assisting in another experiment, where they had to deliver electric shocks to a “learner”. Unbeknownst to the study participants, the “learner” was an actor and the other study a sham. The shocks were delivered when the learner made a mistake and began at low voltage but increased to very high levels of electricity—up to 450 volts—which, had they been real, would have proved fatal to the “learner”.

The study results may be shocking:

65% of study participants delivered the (would be) fatal 450 volt shock to the learner.

ALL administered shocks of at least 300 volts.

While most subjects manifested signs of stress and tension as the shock intensity increased, 14 of the 40 subjects laughed or smiled.

Milgram later wrote:

“I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person SIMPLY BECAUSE HE WAS ORDERED TO by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, AUTHORITY WON more often than not.”

“The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions INCOMPATIBLE with FUNDAMENTAL standards of morality, relatively FEW people have the RESOURCES needed to resist authority.”

Recently on a social media comment, a man whose grandfather had survived KZ Dachau recalled this story about his grandfather:

“My maternal grandfather survived two years in KZ Dachau. He didn't speak much about it. He was a very severe and outwardly angry man. One day he took me deer hunting and he started to talk about his experiences. I was maybe 13 at the time. He was talking about the Kapos, the camp's prisoner/overseers. I could not believe it and remember asking him how any prisoner could turn on their own just for some extra bread rations. He grabbed me quite roughly and poked his finger into my chest and said "Listen here boy! The very same people who did this are the very same people who live next door to you and greet you with a kind smile every day. Always remember that we turn on each other. Evil is inside you too."

One of the most mysterious problems in the universe is the subject of how evil entered into the universe. If we look at the Bible, we read that sin somehow began in the perfectly created heart of an angel and found its way to perfectly created humans.

According to the Bible’s account, even perfection is not the antidote to evil.

Somehow, intrinsic to being free moral agents is the possibility for evil that is so deep and terrible that we would think nothing of hurting each other, given the right conditions.

But, I am so grateful that we aren’t left in a hopeless state. Even this terrible evil can forever be wiped out of the universe by a force that is even more powerful. (Nahum 1:9)

Love.

When we understand the depth of the love of Jesus to forever become human and die for us, it is the only thing that will cause us to suffer rather than inflict pain, despite the inclination to obey authority, or the fear of pain or loss of life. It is a power that will give the courage that humanity needs and the only power that will wipe out the possibility of evil, forever.

We are going into very difficult times where we will all be tested. We will be asked to make difficult decisions that go against conscience and perhaps even to turn against friends and family. We are all at risk of the evil within becoming manifest to the world.

May Milgram’s experiment keep us humble, and by God’s grace, may we be exceptions to the rule:

May we experience that most powerful force in the universe, may it wipe out the evil within and may we become a force with God for good, no matter the consequence.