Good and Evil

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged on April 9, 1945, at the age of 39, for conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Hitler committed suicide on April 30 and seven days later, Germany surrendered.

Bonhoeffer, one of the brightest pastoral theologians of 20th century Germany, was a committed pacifist. But he reasoned: "If I see a madman driving a car into a crowd of innocent bystanders, then I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver."

In so many ways, the kind of moral clarity demonstrated by Bonhoeffer has been driven from our post-modern culture. It takes horrendous acts, like 9/11, or the Boston Marathon bombings, to remind us that there really is such a thing as good and evil.

Isaiah says: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter" (Isa. 5: 20).

Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you would be hard-pressed to find the word "evil" in the New York Times or on ABC World News Tonight. But there was a marked increase in the use of this word following those tragedies. There seemed to be no other way to discuss such horrific devastation that was intentionally inflicted on innocents.

Yet our post-modern worldview seems intent on finding meaning in relativism. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." "You can't really judge someone else without understanding their motivation." "They must have been abused as a child." We cannot comprehend that something might be evil, even if there are also causal factors.

And so, there seems to be a rush to find a motivation that would explain how someone could justify such abhorrent behavior. "Maybe they are part of an oppressed group."

But in order to be a moral people, we must accept the reality of good and evil. This only happens if we believe in an ultimate source of what is good: God Himself. Without understanding that there is a God and that He is Good, we will continue to devolve into moral relativism. In that world, we will stop using the word "evil." But at what cost?

"For, 'Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.'" (1 Pet. 3: 10-12).