Good and Evil  I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0GL_4cAkhI&t=637s

From the deepest history of man there has been this dialectic between good and evil, which does not exist in other living beings because they are not intelligent, and therefore do not have freedom, but act under the blind impulse of instinct. Here I invite my readers to reflect on this reality because it also profoundly influences current events. I am not going to quote sources, because so many have been written on this subject, it is the Leitmotiv in the cinema, in literary works. Nobody denies the duality of good and evil moral. I am not referring here to physical evil, like a tsunami or a devastating earthquake.

What is evil?  Instead of going to abstract definitions, let’s go down to the terrain of concrete cases, where evil defines itself with irrefutable evidence:

It is evil to steal, to lie, to kill without a proportionate motive (self-defense or in a just war), to corrupt, to be unfaithful to one’s spouse, to denigrate another person without a motive, to mistreat one’s parents, etc. All civilizations at all times have been very clear about these evils, expressed in their religious beliefs, and later in their laws. And whenever these principles have been transgressed, disaster has struck, both on a personal and social level.

What is good? Good is manifested in respect for the dignity of man, in having children and educating them, in working to support oneself and to acquire in property the things necessary for life, in respecting and even loving one’s relatives and friends, not thinking or speaking ill of them, helping the needy, defending and spreading the truth, even in relation to one’s own upright convictions, etc.

Why is it difficult to do good?

Since man is free, why does not he follow always the good, as living beings follow their instincts or natural laws? If he has an independent moral conscience, why does not he follow his dictates that always demand the good in concrete situations of human life? We are touching here upon a problem that presents itself as a mystery, since the answer to this question is only possible if we concede that in man there is a certain “construction defect” that inclines him to evil, against all logic and against his own conscience oriented toward the good.

This inclination to evil is equally known to all civilizations and cultures before Christianity and is manifested above all in their beliefs and superstitions. One should distinguish animistic or merely sapiential religions from religions that have only one God as their starting point -like Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In the Judaeo-Christian revelation we find the explanation of the “defect of construction” of man, due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve to God. Thus, in human nature an injury had occurred, which can only be overcome by baptism, faith and love of God: we are before original sin.

The deepest essential malice of original sin is the evil intention that there has been in Adam and Eve to want to be like God. It is the offense of pride, which in man’s life ultimately manifests itself as the deep love of self, which comes to dare to challenge God, seeking to be the king of all and above all. Nietzsche has proclaimed the death of God, but then he died and God continues to live.

The Greatness of the Christian Westworld

This information has enabled Jews and Christians, from the 20th century BC, to undertake the fight against the evil divinization of man, creating a civilization that has largely succeeded in freeing itself from the slavery of moral evils, thanks above all to the work of the Church founded by Christ. Let us go again to the casuistry to see it better:

Since the first century, for the first time in history, the infinite dignity of the individual man is widely recognized, created in the likeness of God, with inalienable rights to live, to develop and to be perpetuated in his children and to be respected by the authority of the state. This principle is something totally new in comparison to any other doctrine or civilization of that time, and thanks to it the West has created over the centuries a civilization that has allowed an unprecedented development of science and technology, becoming in the last two centuries the example to be imitated by the rest of the world.

Man was able to radically overcome the “construction defect” in his nature, through a personal relationship with God as Father. In this way he manages to break the chains of passions and inclinations contrary to the Decalogue, conquering a moral freedom that allows him to do good and avoid evil. This in turn has allowed the consolidation of the monogamous family and the optimal education of the children for a happy and fruitful life in every way.

But even so, the West was not spared wars, famines and hunger crises. But these facts have served at least to seek positive solutions in all fields, thanks to freedom of thought and development of science and technology. But, on the other hand, the West has enjoyed many times of peace, with monarchic governments that gradually submitted themselves to principles limiting their political powers. During the whole Middle Ages there has been a great cultural flowering, without which the Modern Age would not have been possible.

The Moral Breakdown of the West

In the 16th century some philosophers distanced themselves from the teachings of the Christian faith, redefining God and the world in a subjective way. This process is initiated by Descartes, putting the thinking subject in the first place, against the common sense that started from being and God, as its cause, and the wisdom rooted in the Greek classics of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. This change has been called, on a descending scale, subjectivism, modernism, enlightenment, enlightenment, anthropocentrism, rationalism and materialism. It is a conceptual sequence that ends up in the radical denial of God, and consequently in the forceful denial of the spiritual dignity of man. This Copernican turn opened the doors to the materialistic ideology, producing a balance of at least 180 million deaths, without counting the First World War.

But before that, about 180 years ago, the industrial revolution had started, motivated by the steam engine, the explosion engine, electricity, and by telephony and electromagnetic waves. Since 1980, this process has passed to the computer and electronic revolution, deeply changing the lifestyle of man, with the ability to know the whole world in a way that was unthinkable before, also thanks to the popularization of intercontinental flights.

Current perception of good and evil

Throughout this great global movement, the school-education of las century has neglected to give formation in the traditional teachings, thus losing their conception of themselves and their spiritual dignity. This has manifested itself eruptively, in Europe and the USA, in the sexual revolution of the sixties of the last century and in the wide factual acceptance of materialism, philosophically elaborated by the German rationalists of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach and Engels, who laid the foundations of Karl Marx’s communist ideology.

Thus, an important part of men in 2020 cease to be Christians, becoming easy grazers of their own passions and feelings, spurred on by the continuous claims of the world of images that constantly challenge consumption or behaviors oriented towards a growing hedonism.

In spite of all this, there are many good-hearted people among these very people, who are very willing to take seriously an alternative of Christian life. The problem is in who and how this invitation is approached.

The Impact of Good and Evil on All Orders

The conception of good and evil remains very clear, but so many people no longer have the moral strength to overcome temptations to and do good. For example, the duality good and evil is already perceived in childhood. If parents are not believers, this duality is easily deformed, and the child falls in his first experiences of moral type, such as lie, laziness, impurities of puberty, lack of control of sexual attraction, and so on. Then, when this person gets married, the drama of infidelity, the avoidance of children, corruption -both in public functions and in business and labor functions, etc., emerges so many times.

On the other hand, the effective effort to do good immediately produces the fruits of the opposite sign: in the midst of the efforts required to grow, learn, etc., there appears the inner balance and happiness, which is an absolutely necessary condition for the good functioning of democracy and the institutions of the state.