Good and Evil
Part 1, The Dilemma
One of the hardest things to rationalize, especially for those who are only marginally acquainted with God, is the very real presence of evil in our World. Evil reared its ugly head even from the beginning when a jealous, angry Cain murdered his brother Abel. In every generation, evil and wickedness have been perpetrated by potentates, by dictators, by lawless marauders, and even by so-called religious organizations and churches. The English historian and Parliament member, John Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton)[1] was spot on when he said,
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”[2]
He also said, “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”[3]
The very real presence and inescapable tendency for evil causes many people to doubt or even deny the existence of an all-powerful, loving Creator God. The question that always comes, usually during times of pain, duress, or grief is, “If there IS a God, why would He allow wickedness and evil?”, or “If God is all powerful, why did he let this injustice occur?”, or “If God loves me, why did he let me get this disease?” The question can take ten-thousand forms but the common denominator is always, “Why evil?”, and God almost always bears the brunt of humanity’s anger and accusations.
In the course of recent human history some have thought of evil as a disease, that could be cured by education, good jobs, good pay, and civil rights. In other words, people were just being wicked because they were disenfranchised, or discriminated against, or hungry, or oppressed. Then, when the liberal experiments fail (and they always will, because they treat symptoms and not the disease), the opposing side simply says, “Lock evil away!”, but this tack ultimately fails as well. There can never be enough prisons!
Although liberals still search for a “cure” and conservatives build more prisons, the remedy for evil is not political reform, social reform, or even religion. Ironically, despotic “religion” has perpetrated as much evil as any Nero, Kahn, Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mao. Neither is the remedy found in more and tougher laws because you can’t legislate a moral conscience. All of these proposed solutions treat only the symptoms, and never effectively!
The efficacious antibiotic for the plague of evil that has infected every human soul is a Divinely empowered spiritual rebirth, the changing of man’s very nature. And that’s what we’ll talk about next week. So, stay tuned! There is a Great Light at the end of what seems to be a very dark tunnel.
God bless and consider!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton