Everett Piper Christian Blog and Commentary

Act now to share the love of Christ in the Middle East

Hope and Evil


If you found your blood running cold, if you felt helpless as you watched the reports of last weeks Arizona shootings - If you found yourself lost in despair - If you were terrified at the evil in the eyes of Jared Loughner there is hope…. Indeed, and ironically, more hope than if you felt none of this.

 

You see, if you spirit leads you to admit that an absolute wrong is in fact real and has been committed by Mr. Loughner don't you also have to agree that there must be an absolute right?  If objective badness exists doesn't there also have to be objective good against which, and in juxtaposition, we compare that bad act?

 

C.S. Lewis told us that there must be a measuring rod outside of those things being measured or we can do no measuring.  The measuring rod of evil can only be the reality of an unchanging and immutable standard of good.  Without a Logos, the Tao, a Word and a Way beyond you and me: Beyond opinion, politics and power - how would we know or recognize those things we call wrong, unfair, bad or evil?  Wouldn't the very discussion of rightness and wrongness be meaningless?  Wouldn't we be lost and hopeless if we didn't recognize evil and recoil in its face?

 

The image of Lady Justice tells us that judgment must presuppose objectivity.  The scale must be something beyond that which is being weighed.  It must be honest and true. It is beyond the wishes and whims of those who come to it for valuation. 

 

If you feel dread in the face of evil - If it scares you - be thankful!  For God in his graciousness may not have yet given us over totally to a reprobate mind and hard heart.