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Extremities
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Extremities |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois 
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"In order to realize the good in the world, you must know how evil the world can be." Is this true? It seems true being that you can't have on extreme without the other like you wouldn't have light without darkness, etc. The thing is though, darkness may consume the heart of the observer. What then happens if the soul cannot see the light then? Did they actually come to a comprehension what is truly good? Please comment and give me your thoughts. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Don't know if this helps any, but these are thoughts I've had: The misery of "evil" can certainly, with grace, be turned around to foster an appreciation for good, and be turned into an incentive to repent and refrain from pursuing evil desires. But an inveterate love of darkness, and that despairing resignation that characterizes evil, only hinders a person "seeing the light". Does that make sense? Another way to put it, is that there is a grace offered by which evil may be experienced, but not totally embraced, and that grace can lead one to God's goodness. But evil, by itself, will only lead to despair. Existentially, and spiritually, I've not been able to see it any other way. Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Knowing helps us know the difference so we can make a better judgement. On the other hand the more evil becomes frequent and common, however, and we must acknowledge it that way, it may have the opposite effect in many. The more we know about it casually and commonly through frequency of it, the more often we accept it more and more, because people's weaknesses are more exposed to it and more people give in to it through bad choices because they can seldom maintain or keep faithful to better ones very well when the worse ones have such a mass-influence in society and when the Law doesn't help better by doing its duties more efficiently. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
"You have been in Hell: though if you don't go back you may call it Purgatory." ... "But I don't understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?" "It depends on the way you're using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand." (Here he smiled at me). "Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning." I suppose he saw that I looked puzzled, for presently he spoke again. "Son," he said, "ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless, he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly." "Is not that very hard, Sir?" "I mean, that is the real sense of what they will say. In the actual language of the Lost, the words will be different, no doubt. One will say he has always served his country right or wrong; and another that he has sacrificed everything to his Art; and some that they've never been taken in, and some that, thank God, they've always looked after Number One, and nearly all, that, at least they've been true to themselves." (Excerpt from 'The Great Divorce' CS Lewis) |
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