“they shall never perish”
Note – This lesson should be taught along with Link to Liturgy Lesson – What is Good?
What is evil? Evil is “the privation of a good that should be present. It is the lack of good that essentially belongs to a nature; the absence of a good that is natural and due to a being. Evil is therefore the absence of what ought to be there.
Is evil equal to good? No. Evil presupposes good, in other words you can have good without evil, but to have evil you must first have good. In heaven there will only be good because evil does not exist. In the beginning there was only good. We see two falls in scripture. Lucifier and the fallen angels deprived themselves of good[i]. Thus, evil entered in, and then Adam and Eve deprived themselves of good by eating of the fruit thus evil entered into humanity. God only creates good, but He does not force us to choose the good. He allows us to deprive our self of good and thus evil exists. There have been heresies, false teachings, which have believed that there is a “good God” and an “evil god” who are equal in power and fighting for our soul. This is not true. God is all good, all mighty, and all powerful. God created Satan to be good; he [Satan] has chosen to deprive himself of the creator.
Why do we call things “bad” and not “evil”? Bad is a synonym for evil. Bad means “not good” or as said earlier, a privation of good. A car has a standard or a correct way to run. When the car is missing a part or not running correctly we say that it is a “bad” car. If we go to a concert and the music is not in the right key or the beat is off, we say that it was a “bad” concert. In sports if the players do not do what they are supposed to do and there is a turnover or interception, we say that it was a “bad” play. When we say “bad” we mean that the car, the music, the play is lacking the goodness. We get use to saying things are “bad” that the word “bad” becomes commonplace and we forget what it means. Bad is evil, it is a deprivation of good and deprives our self and others of good cannot be tolerated. When a play is bad, a team can lose the game, when our actions are bad (evil) we can lose salvation.
MOVIE – Remember the Titans
In the regional championship game the referees were intentionally making bad calls. They were depriving the good of the game and affecting it to where one team would lose the game unfairly. When something is so blatantly bad it is hard to not to see it.
Can we ever mistake good for evil and evil for good? Yes. The prophet Isaiah says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own sight, and prudent in their own esteem”[ii] All people desire good, the question is not if they desire good, but what do they think “the good” is. For example Adolf Hitler was wise in his own sight and prudent in his own esteem and he thought it was “good” to exterminate Jews and any other person opposed to him. He had mistaking good for evil and evil for good. Another example is abortion and birth control was promised to bring good things for families and marriages to America and the world. In the past fifty years divorce rates have skyrocketed, single-parent families have gone from 6% to over 40%, and we have had over fifty million innocent babies killed in America alone.
MUSIC – Michael Jackson - Bad
It may seem trivial but in American culture the word “bad” was, and in some cases is still used as slang to mean “good”. The trend has continued with slang term. Usually being “sick” is not a good thing, but “sick” became and is still used as slang for being good. Even the word “wicked” is used as slang to mean good. In pop culture through our terminology we have called evil good and good evil.
What is the result when we mistake good for evil and evil for good? The result is confusion and then the belief that good and bad is in the eye of the beholder. This is called moral relativism. Adolf Hitler’s ally Benito Mussolini was a relativist and said, “Everything I have said and done in the last years is relativism, but intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism.”[iii]
VIDEO – Benito Mussolini
Here is a short bio of the rise of Mussolini and how he would try and control the message. The longer video speaks of how he thought he could get his way in this world by using violence and evil.
What is relativism? “Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger identified relativism as ‘the greatest problem of our time.’ Considering the times in which we live, that’s a big claim, and it’s one we can’t afford to ignore. Relativism is the idea that there is no universal, absolute truth but that truth differs from person to person and culture to culture. In other words, truth is relative to what each person or culture thinks.”[iv]
Mussolini defined it best. Relativism is an ideology. Ideologies are subjective, from each person. All ideologies are of equal value. Because ideas are from people and all people are equal then all ideas are equal. All ideologies are mere fictions. We cannot know for sure, because nothing is absolute, that any ideologies are fact, so there for all ideologies are fiction. We not only have a right to our own idea but we have the right to enforce all ideas with all our energy. Hitler and Mussolini definitely enforced their ideologies. The relativist does not believe that there are “fixed categories”, absolute truths, and certain facts. They also do not believe that truth is objective or immortal. In other words truth is not reveled from God, for the relativist there is no divine revelation.
ACTIVITY – Absolute Relativism by Chris Stefanick
There is an excellent 59-page booklet published by Catholic Answers called Absolute Relativism. If you have a group of 12 or so, you can have each group read 5 pages and then discuss the questions and answers discussed in their section. This would be excellent for a retreat or series.
In the booklet Chris gives the following list of relativisms bad effects. Selected quotes from these sections have been added to summarize the sections.
1. Relativism robs us of a sense of meaning.
“False teachers, many belonging to an intellectual elite in the worlds of science, culture, and the media, present an anti-gospel…When you ask them: What must I do?, their only certainty is that there is not definite truth, no sure path…Consciously or not, they advocate an approach to life that has led millions of young people into a sad loneliness in which they are deprived of reasons for hope and are incapable of real love.”[v]
2. Relativism leaves us with no criterion for moral decision-making but personal taste.
“Relativism, which recognizes nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.”[vi]
3. Relativism deprives children of formation.
“Only in the truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived…Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love.”[vii]
4. Relativism separates us from one another.
“Under the semblance of freedom [relativism] becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.”[viii]
5. Relativism undermines the right to life.
“If abortion isn’t wrong, what is?”[ix]
6. Relativism makes it easy for those in authority to manipulate others.
“To educate without a value system based on truth is to abandon young people to moral confusion, personal insecurity, and easy manipulation.”[x]
7. Relativism puts the freedom of speech under attack.
8. Relativism destroys faith.
[See also Link to Liturgy Lesson - The Way, The Truth, The Life: Part II]
Relativism deprives each soul of good and truth. It causes each person and society to perish not only in the examples given above but in many other ways.
It is only Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life[xi] that can save us from perishing, this is why Jesus assures us “they shall never perish.”[xii] “In Jesus Christ, God the Son made man; heaven has come to earth to dispel darkness of error and sin and to fill our souls with the light of truth and goodness.”[xiii]
It is our obligation as a sheep to know our Good Shepherd. Blessed John Paul II challenged the youth of America to do this when he said, “You are children of the light (cf. Jn 12:36)! You belong to Christ, and he has called you by name. Your first responsibility is to get to know as much as you can about him, in your parishes, in religious instruction in your high schools and colleges, in your youth groups and Newman Centers. But you will get to know him truly and personally only through prayer. What is needed is that you talk to him, and listen to him. Today we are living in an age of instant communications. But do you realize what a unique form of communication prayer is? Prayer enables us to meet God at the most profound level of our being. It connects us directly to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in a constant exchange of love. Through prayer you will learn to become the light of the world, because in prayer you become one with the source of our true light, Jesus himself.”[xiv]
There are many voices in the world today, but will we hear His voice? Are we part of the flock and listening to the Good Shepherd? Pope Saint Gregory the Great says, “Ask yourselves whether you belong to his flock, whether you know him, whether the light of his truth shines in your minds”
[i] Revelation 12:7-9
[ii] Isaiah 5:20-21
[iii] Quoted by Chris Stefanick in Absolute Relativism
[iv] Chris Stefanick; Absolute Relativism
[v] Blessed John Paul II
[vi] Pope Benedict XVI
[vii] Pope Benedict XVI
[viii] Pope Benedict XVI
[ix] Blessed Mother Teresa
[x] Blessed John Paul II
[xi] cf. Jn. 14:6
[xii] Jn. 10:28
[xiii] Chris Stefanick; Absolute Relativism
[xiv] Blessed John Paul II; St. Louis, January 26, 1999