Good and Evil

Weighing Good Against Evil

"We're not supposed to see the things we do as adding up into piles of good and evil we can subtract from each according to some kind of calculus to tell us how, on balance, we're going. Experience is not convertible. Cruelty cannot be cancelled by equal and opposite quantities of being nice. The weight of sorrow is not lightened by happiness elsewhere. The bad stuff cannot be averaged. It can only be confessed" -- Francis Spufford, Unapologetic

It wasn't enough to kill God

"It wasn't enough to kill God when He showed up in Jesus, now we blame Him when we act like tools." -- Bo Gibson Bonner, Facebook Post, April 24th, 2016

Lesser of Two Evils

Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, "So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging."

But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)

By no means! For then how could God judge the world?

But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved!

What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin,

as it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one;

there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one."

"Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of vipers is under their lips."

"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."

"Their feet are swift to shed blood;

ruin and misery are in their paths,

and the way of peace they have not known."

"There is no fear of God before their eyes." -- Romans 3:4-18

"I feel a strong desire to tell you–and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me–which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs–pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them." -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity