Evil in the Eye of the Beholder
/One of the disadvantages of internet is how evil, atrocious and violent actions reach our eyes in a second,
through our fingertips.
Who can avoid thinking about evil, trying to understand its dynamics or planning what can be done about it?
Here are some viewpoints from a Christian beholder.
The first picture above shows how even superhuman powers can drift to catastophe, from the splendor of truth and the warmth of love
to the frozen and dark prison of hatred and destruction.
Lucifer (the Bearer of Light) becomes Satan.
The second picture shows how a person, or a body politic, or a religious organization can stand for values and drift through temptation and then immoral choice to a destructive prison void of value.
The move from left image to right is unfortunately an easy one in life, but the move from right image to left is tough
To return to goodness requires both contrition and hope.
Contrition and hope are in short supply in the deadly pit where pride reigns supreme.
And so we see how I, or we, use our power for positive communal influence, then get subtly tempted to use this same power for personal interests, and then begin to toss out values while power and ambition grow.
As power and ambition grow, actions move from being influential to violent then to cruel and merciless.
Finally we are actors devoid of conscience and reason, and the very acts of cruelty become proofs of commitment to the cause and even a badge of honor.
Sliding on this deadly slope we move from being defenders of all that is good and true, noble and just
to desecration of all that is good and true, noble and just.
In the fight against evil, we become evil.
While a Christian must be as forceful as Jesus against evil, there is a Christian protection against sliding into to the pit of hell while doing so.
The more Righteous someone might feel in combatting evil, the less likely they will see that the same evil will want to enter into their intentions, so that in the quest for good they lose their own soul.
The Christian protection against this danger is simply stated but hard practice
It is to hate the sin but not the sinner,
to imitate Jesus’s method against evil which is to combat it only with good,
to make the words of St Paul true in combat: don't get infected and sick with the evil, conquer it with good.
This approach does not minimalize evil, does not mean the doers of evil should not be opposed and punished.
It means that personified value, and not personified valuelessness, is the only way to defeat evil without becoming it.
In secular standards this idea takes its place in such ways as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ,which then obliges conduct made explicit in the Geneva Convention.
In Christian language we hate the sin bt still see in the sinner a person - morally deranged and deformed- but a person that still might be within God's reach, even if behind bars.
For each of us, in whatver corner of the world we find ourselves, these teachings have value and merit.
There is a practical application
Which of the four stages
Enlightened, tempted, wrong, or total sellout
Best reflects how I deal with people and problems I am facing today?
If the answer is not flattering there is strong medicine to take
Humility, contrition, hope, and right action while seeing the sinner as a person and the sin as detestable.
On another note
Gunfire here has give way to rain for now.
We would rather be soggy and cold than take a stray bullet
But we also see numbers of people getting out of the targeted areas and avoiding becoming human shields of the gangs.
These are small but good gains.
