Evil Surmisings

“He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings.”

Ineffable.  Indescribably stupid.  Beyond maddening.  I’m talking about ideas that have no basis in reality yet are dogmatically believed by the speaker.  Demonstrably wrong thoughts that enjoy total, breathtaking affirmation.  That’s when you know something is going on outside the realm of reason, a spirit, a spell, a curse, twisted logic so tangled that it would stump a pomposity of psychiatrists.  Now we’re roaming around in the ballpark of evil surmisings.

Blame it on maturity, ripening, the passage of time, whatever, but off-the-cuff remarks start to mean something later in life.  For example, it’s a vague memory, but a friend of my father used to greet him with, “Hey, Vic!  What do you know for sure?”  The addition of those two little words, “for sure,” immediately limited all possible responses.  My dad knew lots of things, but he wasn’t necessarily willing to say that he knew them for sure.  He usually answered, “Not much!” Yet, for most of us, a giddy, unrestrained willingness to blab and gab whatever we think exists, even if we don’t know it for sure.  Paul had a term for it.  He called it “evil surmisings.”

When you suppose something is true without any confirming evidence, you are surmising.  It might be because you have a predisposed mindset toward the subject in question.  If you already think that a person is a bad actor, then it’s a small step to suspect that he or she is guilty of wrongdoing.  In fact, surmisers can be so convinced of their surmising that should any evidence come to light pointing to innocence, they are more likely to discount the evidence than to doubt their surmising.  Likewise, if they believe that a person is good, they may wave off any condemning evidence as lies or hearsay.  An owned misconception defies the strongest of attempts to disprove it.  And therein lies the evil in surmising.  When you believe something bad about someone good, you turn justice on its head.  Truth suffers when evil hearts reign.

Evil surmising discriminates for indefensible reasons. The process is perverted, but simple.  Here’s how it works. The purpose of compiling evidence is to lead to a conclusion, right?  So, if we surmise the conclusion of the matter, then the evidence is unnecessary.  Take the area of racial discrimination.  A white racist believes that a black man charged with theft is guilty because he is black.  A black racist believes that a white man is guilty of racial prejudice because he is white.  According to that thinking, aA Mexican man is lazy because he is Mexican; a German man is power hungry because he is German; a Chinese man is dishonest because he is Chinese.  None of these views is factually true, but evil surmising considers them true anyway.  Thus, we see the formation of prejudice at its core.  Evil surmising, in fact, revels in prejudice.

How does evil surmising fare against the concept of love?  Not good.  To engage in evil surmising eviscerates the essence of love.  The two cannot coexist.  A person cannot surmise evil and still exercise the attribute of love.  This is abundantly clear from Paul’s writing in his first epistle to the church in Corinth, one of the greatest expositions on love in any language.  “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  Let’s flesh this out.

Pardon the over-the-top negativity of this paragraph, but it has to be said.  Evil surmising is intolerant, visceral, impulsive and cruel.  Evil surmising reveals an openly rude, even vulgar attitude.  Evil surmising refuses to understand the agony or pain of the other person because it is focused—even obsessed—only in its personal, internal feelings.  It gets insanely furious at the smallest hint of resistance or disagreement with its mindset.  Evil surmising considers no other motive for the other person’s action than vile, disgusting behavior.  Evil surmising resists truth, rejoices in destructive and deadly outcomes, and believes the worst. 

I doubt that one can escape evil surmising incrementally, one logical step at a time.  It must be bludgeoned to death by love.  Strange way to put it, I know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.  If three positive emotions live—faith, hope, and love—then the greatest of these must flex its muscles. 

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 

1 John 4:7-11.