Today in class we had a discussion about good and evil. Towards the end of the class the professor left the room and told us to discuss amongst ourselves and answer the question, "what is the definition of evil?" When he returned he asked us what we had come up with and we said, "evil is the absence of good, like darkness is the absence of light or cold the absence of heat." Then he replied that this was not necessarily correct, but that a better definition of evil could be found as Augustine quoted, "evil is the deprivation of what is good." I found this to be a better explanation of evil. If you can remember in Genesis God created everything and called it good. Then why does evil exist? Well, just think, if there were no law then the law could not be broken, but with the law comes the possibility for the law to be broken. With truth comes the possibility to lie and with good comes the possibility for evil. Human beings are a special part of God's creation in that we do have the freedom to choose to consciously bring glory to God. If we did not have this choice (if Adam and Eve were created without freedom of choice to disobey God) then we would be no different than the great mountains or the splendor of the sunrise and sunset. These things have not choice whether they will glorify God, but we do. God did not create evil but man has the potential to deprave the good and use it for evil purposes; to twist what is good and make it evil. As we all know what is good can easily be abused and turned into an evil. What is good can become depraved and used for evil purposes, such as alcohol and sex to name just a few.
We also talked about how a person determines what is good. The professor gave a great example and pretended like he had an apple in each hand. In one hand was a fresh, crisp green apple ready to be eaten. In the other hand he had a slightly rotten apple with a brown spot that suggested that a worm had crawled inside. Then he told us that we would automatically determine that the fresh green apple would be the good one. He then suggested that he did not think so, and that he had come to like the taste of the rotten apple; he had acquired a taste for the rotten apple over the fresh one. He now actually preferred the rotten one over the fresh one and called it good. What I say is good can be different than what you say is good, there is no standard. The point of the example is to say that without a standard to measure what is good then what is good can never be determined. Without a standard, what is good or right would always be moving around and one could never achieve moving towards it. It would be like a train trying to get to a particular station or point and never arriving because the station continues to move around. You have to have a standard by which you measure something, and our standard is determined by God himself. Whatever God declares as good is good. This is how we identify what is good and what is not. He is the judge of such things. Remember, everything that God created is good and intended to bring him glory. We should be in the business of coming alongside Christ in restoring what has been twisted for evil purposes and abuse, leading people to him so he can renew their minds. Let us also be careful not to call something that God has declared good an evil. I know there are plenty of things that Christians declare to be evil and reject completely because of the way it has been abused and twisted for evil purposes.
very enlightening
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