“Investigators now think that Lubitz, 27, deliberately flew an Airbus A320 with 150 people on board into a remote corner of the French Alps on Tuesday, provoking a search for answers that is increasingly centering on his health, and his mental health in particular.”
—Denver Post, Sunday March 29, 2015

The problem of evil these days is no one wants to call it evil. I didn’t know Andreas Lubitz, I’ve no idea what kind of a life he had growing up, what his dreams were, or what motivated him. Looking back on his life the way investigators do produce behavior and evidence of probably delusional and, yes, even evil intentions. And because no one in this guy’s life put the pieces together the media at large wants us to think of this man as a victim rather than a perpetrator of evil. I don’t buy it.

A co-pilot kills 150 people by locking the pilot out of the cockpit and then flying the plane into a mountain. If that isn’t an act of evil, what is? His act wasn’t committed by a victim of a society that didn’t recognize his troubled mental health issues and didn’t get him into a program of some kind. Nope, it was committed by someone who himself was evil. That may sound harsh I know, but what else do you call someone who commits an act of evil?

If I were a betting man I’d bet most of you think this characterization goes too far. This pilot wasn’t a trained terrorist, to our knowledge he didn’t worship Satan or kill puppies or sacrifice cats in the woods at night. This is a guy with hopes and dreams who probably just snapped, right? Possibly, but what happens when most people “snap”? They don’t snap in a direction of committing an act that kills 150 innocent lives.

“There are two types of evil in this life, Officer Sarchie. Secondary evil, the evil that men do. And Primary evil, which is something else entirely.”
—Father Joe Mendoza, Deliver Us from Evil

A person doesn’t have to be sold out to the Evil One to commit an act of great evil, though it helps. As the investigation into the life of Andreas Lubitz continues they may conclude that he acted alone and as a result from a mental breakdown. Yet again I put it to you that most people’s breakdowns do not result in 150 dead. Something else was at work in this man’s life.

It may have been personal evil, a delusion of grandeur if you will (the same sin as Lucifer that caused the great rebellion in heaven), but evil nonetheless. Or it could be that he did have help in committing this act, help of a spiritual kind. There are evil spirits in this world that attempt to drive humanity into destructive, malevolent behavior. I’m not saying this is what happened in this case, only that it is a possibility. Either way no one should not shrink from characterizing this act, or the one who committed the act, as evil.

Why am I going on about this so emphatically? Because when we don’t recognize evil for what it is evil can grow. When we turn our attention away from evil, it is free to do what it wills. When we make excuses for those who commit evil we are in reality excusing it. This world has enough wickedness in it already, and its time we started seeing it and working against it.