Can humanity invent evil?

Man is too closely connected with his senses to be the inventor of evil. He is tempted to evil. Hence human sin is never identical with demonic sin. Demonic sin—understood first of all purely in a phenomenological sense—has no sensual element; it is pure defiance, pure arrogance, purely intellectual and spiritual sin. Human sin always contains an element of frailty, of the non-spiritual, of the sense element. In the story of the Fall this is marvellously described in the combination of the desire to be “like God”, with the attraction of the fruit which was lovely to the sight. The sin of man is, it is true, arrogance, defiance, the presumption of alienation from God; but it is also at the same time a deception of the senses, the power of being tempted, weakness. Man is not sufficiently astute to have invented evil. Thus it has to be “suggested” to him. But the more genius a man has, the closer his sin approaches the demonic.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 108

<idle musing>
Wow! Did you catch that last sentence? "the more genius a man has, the closer his sin approaches the demonic." That's quite the statement—and makes me want to strike back against him. But, maybe that very impulse reveals the truth of it?

Maybe the more we think we have things figured out, the more we think we don't need a god? And what could be more demonic than that? Something to consider, anyway.
</idle musing>