Hope and Evil
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Everett Piper Everett Piper's Blog
- Updated Jan 16, 2011
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.