It is easy to assume that the problems and evils of the world are the result of a few bad eggs “out there” who keep gumming things up for the rest of us. Most of us are “good people” who don’t “hurt anybody.” There are those people though. They are the ones who ruin things for all of us. If we can just weed them out everything would be right with the world.
You see it now with the shooting in Newtown. He was mentally ill. We need to be able to identify these people before they do these things. Because to do this kind of evil you must have some kind of unique sicko gene, or haywire brain circuit.
It’s not that simple. And it certainly isn’t as simple of just passing a few gun laws. Our fundamental problem isn’t just psychological, nor is it legislative. Our problems are spiritual, and our problems are universal – they affect all humans.
Aleksandr Sonzhenitsyn articulates this powerfully in the Gulag Archipelago, “If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Emphasis added)
Paul argues this in Romans 3:10-12, “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
There are no good people. You’re not; I’m not. We’re sinners. Evil isn’t out there somewhere, it is inside of me. That’s why the solution to all societal and personal ills is always repentance (and faith in the one who actually is good, who actually does right wrongs).
