The world is more like a poem than a syllogism.
··· Tags pointing to: evil ···
Myth-making
We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic ‘progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Evil Is Always Small
I think evil is always small, and that good is infinite. Evil closes itself to God and thus becomes even smaller; Good opens itself to God and thus becomes infinite. Evil cannot become so large as to fill even the universe. God became so small that He could fill Hell and then burst it asunder because it could not contain Him. Every good deed will have eternal remembrance, but even the largest deeds of the evil will be forgotten.
Do I Seek Relief of My Suffering or My Sin?
The way the world works is that the coin of the realm is relief of suffering: if someone does something that prevents me from suffering, even as minor as letting me in their lane of traffic, I am grateful. I feel the love. But if relief of suffering is the only thing I see as of value, then how can I truly celebrate Christ’s love, He who relieves our sins and not our sufferings? Until I truly see sin, and not suffering, as the supreme evil, can I be truly grateful to Christ?
By Some Other Means Than Forgiveness
As long as you can deal with evil by some other means than forgiveness, you will never experience the real meaning of evil and sin.
The desire that something be true, rather than the desire for truth itself, may well be the root of all evil. It is certainly the origin of all ideology, and ideology was the source of much of the evil in the past century.
It is better to suffer evil than to do it.
The Question of Why Evil Exists
The question of why evil exists is the same as why there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation at all. We must take it for granted that it could not be otherwise: that creation must be imperfect and gradual. The real question we ought to ask is this: Is such imperfection the final truth; is evil absolute and ultimate? The river has its boundaries, its banks, but is a river all banks? Or are the banks the only important aspect of the river? Do not these obstructions themselves give the water an onward motion? The towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning? Does it not at the same time draw the boat forward?
A Fight Between Two Wolves
A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, “In every life there is a terrible fight—a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.”
A child asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”
The elder looked him in the eye. “The one you feed.”
Every Human Heart
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.
It is said that there are three sources of evil, “the world, the flesh, and the Devil”; but the world and the flesh would be innocent were it not for the Devil.
(This does not abrogate your personal responsibility.) <link>