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TechnoratiThe mystery of evil
The crimes of Josef Fritzl cannot be explained within our normal secularist assumptions about the world.
Great evil, like great goodness, is a mystery. Both beggar the imagination and exhaust our explanations, leaving us simply in awe of what a human being can do.
An ageing mother who nurses her chronically ill and helpless daughter at home for 20 years displays a heroic goodness that outstrips that of the soldier who, in the heat of battle, rescues a stricken comrade under fire. We can understand the soldier and imagine doing the same, but could we commit ourselves, indefinitely to the monotonous and often thankless tasks of bodily care and emotional encouragement that such nursing requires? Could we persevere, day after day, year after year? Such self-sacrifice is surely beyond the call of love as well as duty.
Even more so the act of the Polish priest, Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to take the place of another prisoner selected among others to be shut in the starvation bunker at Auschwitz in payment for an escape attempt. To freely embrace such a terrible death for the sake of another -- really, for the sake of all the others, since he wanted to minister to them in that hell -- belongs at the dizzying heights of goodness, or an extreme of madness. The Catholic Church has decided it is the former and canonised Kolbe. Who dares to think they could follow his example?
And yet, one can more easily imagine being that mother, that soldier, even that priest, than being Josef Fritzl, the Austrian father who locked up his daughter underground for 24 years, made her his sex slave and did what he liked with the children who were born. Why? How could he? Could we? Never! Even in a world grown accustomed to stories of perversion, the story of the Fritzl family has caused universal shock and revulsion.
It takes us nearer to what Joseph Conrad called the “heart of darkness” than we have been for a long time. There have been stories of heart-stopping inhumanity, stories of sickening depravity in recent years, but nothing to beat this one. Marc Dutroux, the Belgian sex offender, imprisoned, raped and traded several young girls, causing the deaths of at least two, but at least they were not his own daughters. Armin Miewes, the Rottenburg cannibal, killed and ate another man, but at least the victim was an adult who “volunteered” for the experiment. Then there was that other Austrian teenager, Natascha Kampusch, held captive in a basement as a sex slave for eight years, but even in her case the circumstances and results were not nearly so extreme.
Perhaps the closest approximation to Fritzl’s crime are those cases, which occur regularly in every country, of children physically and even sexually abused, sometimes for many years, by their parents (often a live-in boyfriend), relatives or other supposed caregiver. Often these children go to their deaths having known nothing but rejection, fear and pain. However, the degree of calculation behind Fritzl’s cruel oppression of his daughter, its duration and extension to children born to a life of unimaginable confinement -- these and other features put the case in a class of its own.
At the same time we have to admit that it is not a totally isolated case of monstrous wickedness. It is less than 70 years since the Nazi doctors performed their horrendous live experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Only a century or two before that “civilised” slave traders and plantation owners were treating African captives with unbelievable cruelty. Going back through the centuries one confronts a long tradition of torture as a political tool -- one that is still, scandalously, with us today. Man’s capacity for hardness of heart seems fathomless.
Of course, one must try to understand the Fritzl case if for no other reason than preventing another, and suggestions have not been lacking. Austria’s Nazi past is supposed to have left its mark on him; Natascha Kampusch herself has suggested as much. One commentator has insinuated that there is something inherently suspect about any “respectable family man” since this was the posture Josef Fritzl adopted. Fritzl’s lawyer says he is insane.
British columnist Dominic Lawson pours cold water on the whole idea of explaining the man’s behaviour, saying it is “simply inexplicable”. And it is -- if we confine ourselves to merely human explanations. History, culture, psychiatry, even that fundamental reason-for-everything, evolution, fail to answer the question why a father would do what Josef Fritzl has done to his daughter. (What, by the way, would be the evolutionary advantage here?) But agnosticism is too easy.
No, the Fritzl case demands that we try to penetrate the mystery of evil, and that leads where 21st century secularists do not wish to go: to the non-human wellsprings, the supernatural force that itself can hold a man (or woman) captive once they surrender to it. I mean, of course, the Devil, the fallen angel who wishes to avenge himself against God by dragging his human creatures one by one into hell.
The remedy against this force is the grace of God, which is stronger than the force of evil but cannot save a person if he does not freely surrender to it. At some point in his life of abuse Josef Fritzl had the freedom to continue or to stop what he knew was gravely wrong. Indeed, at any point he could have stopped, but the longer he persisted the harder it became to call a halt. It was not just his own weakness leading him on but the demon that had taken up residence where his conscience should have been.
The Devil -- or an impenetrable yet ever-threatening mystery. Like it or not, those are the alternatives. A supernatural explanation for evil, or no explanation. Cry “Rubbish!” at the idea of God, grace, the Devil and his power and we are left with no explanation. No explanation -- or inadequate explanations -- means no prevention. It means more of the same, and worse. As long as religion remains excluded from our social calculations it will be easier for evil to flourish and more difficult to achieve the good we want. Who can look at the state of our Western societies and maintain that they are winning the war against sexual abuse and all forms of exploitation?
One final word about Josef Fritzl. Even here, the powers of evil do not have the last word. It would have been logical for someone who only cared about saving face -- the phoney “respectable family man” -- or someone totally self-obsessed to have ended the whole dreadful saga by killing himself, his daughter and the three children with her in that underground tomb. Instead, he finally set them free. Even then, it seems, he made up some story to disguise his crime and now he hopes to pass as insane, but the fact remains that he did one right thing at the end. No-one is beyond redemption, but it takes more than natural faith to believe it in his case.
Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.
The normal way the devil works is not possession but by temptation. Fritzl was tempted and gave in to a monstrous temptation for 24 years. Carolyn is right in pointing to the devil simply because such actions come about by something more than a flawed nature. This was not a ‘weakness” in the man. It was a powerful temptation that in every way seems diabolical in origin.
At last I’ve caught up with this brilliant article. Thank you, Mercator.Net
Sue, is that a question - or a rhetorical statement? :D
It’s not just about religion - although that’s been the most overt - and dogmatic - type of belief. I’m talking about more basic beliefs: what people are, how we view others and ourselves. This pretty much dictates the way we behave towards them.
We know what has happened in the past. Millions have been slaughtered in the name of one god or another. But what I believe about even the smallest things affects what I do now.
And probably what I’ll do tomorrow.
Those who, in the name of belonging, etc, buy into organized belief systems pay a very heavy price for their comfort, regardless of whether it’s religious, political or tribal.
Meanwhile, how many millions of human beings were slaughtered in the “religious” wars that almost ruined Europe during the Reformation/Counter Reformation period.
Funny how the discussion on Fritzl’s actions turns to beliefs.
Ultimately, that’s how you *get* someone like Fritzl: very strange, very scary (for him, and consequently for others) and very warped beliefs. Thoughts that, with repetition in the mind, become a substitute for sanity.
What kind of person would believe it would be ok to rape and imprison his daughter? (Answer: Fritzl).
What did he believe about her (or the children she had by him) that would in any way make his course of action seem appropriate?
Answer: Misogyny, at least. The Austrian culture is...embued with it. Remarkable individuals there don’t buy into it, but men of Fritzl’s era would have been hard-put not to. And, you know, once you start viewing *anyone* as less that people...and treat them that way long enough...that’s what they often start to manifest.
Fritzl, in his madness/evil/hybrid of both, took that cultural vanguard and carried it...too far? Or to it’s penultimate logical conclusion?
Maybe soon, Austrians of both genders will help see to it that this kind of bestial nonsense doesn’t go unnoticed, unreported, and un-requited.
In the Gospel (Luke 12:54-59) Jesus points out how human beings read well the earthly signs ... predicting the weather patterns BUT how unfortunately we (human beings) fail to judge for ourselves what is right. What causes this failure? The same Gospel quotation says (Lk 12:58) that “As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle with him, lest he drag you off to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.”
Every human being as he or she lives (goes with the adversary) needs to examine his or her adversary (demons, sins and faults), fight that adversary to avoid the prison of hell (a state of being without God).
Look at the life of Josef Fritzl and you will know how the adversally is very dangerous
The fight against our demons, sins and faults can be won with Jesus Christ our Redeemer who Prayed, died and intercedes for us before His Father in Heaven
More than understanding why and how Josef Fritz came to play out this latest instalment of the “banality of evil”, let’s spare a thought for the victims of her crimes, the daughter/mother who may never know peace and those hapless scions of the Fritzl’s perfidy, who for no fault of theirs, have been scarred for life. Whether Fritzl should burn in hell or vegetate for eternity in an insane asylum should take second place to committed efforts from the rank and file of society to de-stigmatise the victims of cultural bias.
Petra said that “evil is a mystery, and totally inexplainable to secular minds.” Others have echoed this idea. If a “secular mind” is a mind analyzing the problem without reference to religious belief, I don’t think evil is an inexplicable mystery. My non-religious belief is that evil doesn’t exist as a substance, or as a purely evil non-substantial being (e.g., Satan). Rather, evil is egregious wrong. It might refer to acts (Fritzl’s acts were evil), to persons who commit such acts (Fritzl was evil), to groups of persons (the Nazis were evil), or to belief systems (Nazism is evil). At the base of all of these is the egregiously wrong act. To my “secular” mind, evil occurs when someone seriously deviates from morally good behavior. I have no difficulty explaining this and don’t consider evil more mysterious that good. Now, Fritzl had an intense desire for a sexual relationship with his daughter in which he would be in complete control, and had ability and opportunity to carry out a scheme to allow just that. The evil – the egregiously wrong acts – occurred because Fritzl lacked moral convictions sufficient to block or control his unacceptable desires. That may have been because of brain damage, or because the moral training he received early on was grossly deficient – something that disabled moral understanding or ability to conform to moral rules. Kant would have said you or I finding what he did outrageous doesn’t prove we’re morally superior to Fritzl. What would prove that would be dismissing the scheme as morally objectionable and refusing to act upon it despite having similar desires and abilities. Unless it can be persuasively determined that Fritzl had a defect in his brain that disabled his conscience, as it were, he certainly should be treated as a criminal. And someone with such a disabled conscience shouldn’t be in the free world in any event.
The English title of Fr Gabriele Amorth’s book is, “An Exorcist tells His Story”. Well worth reading.
I read an excellent short pamphlet on Satan, exorcism etc recently, by another priest: Fr Jeremy Davies. He says there are five determinants in the formation and development of character: divine grace, free will, genetic inheritance, environment - and demonic influence. Most moderns only accept two of these components. But as Ms Moynihan says, they cannot explain behaviour like Fritzl’s - or, indeed, the behaviour of another Austrian, a poor peasant farmer called Franz Jagerstatter, who simply refused to serve in Hitler’s army, knowing that such a refusal would result in the death penalty. One man responds to divine grace; another deliberately rejects it: the mystery of free will.
I am baffled by the assumptions and theories of some commentators.
Do we really have to blame GOD for the suffering and anguish of Fritzls wife, children and grandchildren?
I think some times people are examples to the rest of mankind. God had to send out a mesage and he has gotten the whole world talking. We are all in this world for a purpose.
Even Jesus Christ, the son of God was crucified like a villain.
But God did not forget him, he resurrected just like God promised. Well, the Fritzl family needs our prayers but rest assured that by the power of God who is all knowing and wise they will resurrect just like JESUS did.
Thank you very much for the article. Yes, it is true, evil is a mystery, and totally inexplainable to secular minds. At the same time, I would be cautious not to blame everything on the devil directly, especially to say that Fritzl was/is possessed (though as far as I can understand, Ms. Moynihan does not do that). Though he most probably had a hand in it, a Christian also knows of course about our fallen nature, which is prone to all kinds of evil anyway.
As to the theodicy question, about how God could have let this happen: Well, as a Christian I don’t really understand the question. God had let this happen with HIMSELF on the Cross! It’s not like he wouldn’t know what suffering means…
Of course, suffering is a mystery. And from the book of Job it is also clear that we are not meant to know ultimately what reasoning is behind it. But from God’s Revelation in Christ we can at least understand that God is not aloof and cold, or even cruel, but that He is right there in our sufferings… And I think that is the most important thing for a suffering person: that God is right there with him/her.
The question is not that God has allowed this and other evil to happen. God does not do the wrong. In this case, Josef Fritzl did.
As Gonzalo Vera notes: God repsected Fritzl’s liberty. God’s “weak” spot if there is such a thing is that, just as a parent would want to see his child grow in wisdom and come into his own, so has God given us the freedom to do so - that by our own volition, by our own studied responses, we may choose rightly, always for the good.
The question is: what do we do to ensure we “hear” His promptings and use this freedom rightly?
There must have been many occasions through the years that could have brought this particular evil to light - whether that be from Fritzl himself, or the unexplained electrical bill or comings and goings or unusual food bill or trash out…
If we were to humanize God, he must have been in sheer frustration. But all is not lost, thank God. As Carolyn Moynihan concludes: “Even here, the powers of evil do not have the last word”.
Aside from the Devil, who could have been part of this, there is this other force that can explain both the evil of Fritzl and the existence of a God who has allowed it: human freedom.
God created human beings to have freedom-- a God-like capacity to choose and to direct themselves. Fritzl chose what he did, and continued to choose. God loves us too much, allowing us to be consistent with our divine capacity to be free. That explains the compatibility of a loving God and the eternity of hell. Hell is “self-exclusion” from communion with God. A free choice of self over God.
Free choice, in the end, also explains why he set the children free. Simply, he chose to.
For agnostics and secularists, I’d recommend C.S. Lewis’s Problem of Pain. He answers the question: How is a good and omnipotent God compatible with the existence of evil? Lewis’ compact, beautiful reply is worth every page.
I am sure we are following the Fritzl case. Is anyone still of the opinion that he is sane, and that he had exercised his freewill to have acted so heinously?
(Beginning of quote:) “I was happy about the kids. It was nice for me to also have a real family in the cellar, with a wife and a couple of children.”
He described the dungeon - 55m square - with no fresh air or natural light - as a typical household.
“I watched action films with them (the children) on the VCR while Elisabeth cooked our favourite dishes,” he said.
“Then we all sat down at the kitchen table and ate together.”
Fritzl said they celebrated Christmas and birthdays underground when he would sneak in Christmas trees, cakes and presents into the dungeon.” (End of quote)
Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to consider this man sane, just because we want to latch on to a theological thesis spun out of the need to fob off the doctrine that God gave everyone freewill. I accept that psychological determinism has been slightly damaged by its recourse to ‘experience’ as the determinant of behaviour (and reason, to a lesser degree), but then I still think it is far more reasonable than the porous imperative that is freewill. During a session of philosophical discussion, I had suggested the term ‘psychic determinism’ – this is something deeper, stronger, more Jungian than psychological determinism.
Charles Manning’s comment that this only adds to the sum of human experience in the way of reminding us that there, truly, is nothing new under the sun, is right. Most societies have been on the lookout for this kind of behaviour for a long time and I am afraid yet another human may do exact thing or worse.
Now that it is cringingly topical, a TV programme just this morning broadcast an English father who had six children with his daughter.
These are indeed embarrassing times for saner loving fathers everywhere.
All the comments here are good but not all of them correct since some of them don’t fit in with others. Anyway, look at yourselves! This is the right way to react… It’s good that you did not condemn the person. I mean, we can never judge a person even if he’s Josef Fritzl. Judas Iscariot did something worse but the Church doesn’t say that he’s in hell. In fact, the Church doesn’t condemn anybody and proclaim them to be in hell. However, the Church teaches us to condemn the act and not the person, insane or not. Why God permitted it, we don’t know and we might never know but it is good to believe that God permits evil to make room for greater good… like sufferings for us to have something to offer to God, the fall of Adam and eve bringing suffering and pain, which Jesus used to redeem mankind. We could even credit Judas a little for that… or not. I don’t know. That’s why it’s a mystery and we can only know it through revelation or at the end of the world…
:D
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