As we have seen in previous blogs, God has given us free will. He has given us the ability to construct our world any way we desire. We construct our world through the choices we make and the actions we take.
So why do we call ourselves Christians and say we want a world governed by the teachings of Jesus and at the same time choose that which benefits ourselves but harms others? Why do we call ourselves Christians but fail to follow the example of Jesus? The answer is that it is easier to conform to the existing world than it is to strive to change our world by changing ourselves. Those who say religion is “the opium of the masses” obviously do not understand this point because God always calls upon people to do what is more difficult than they would prefer to do. [1] It is easier to blame our DNA or our culture or the devil or God and remain the person we currently are than to embark upon the changes we know we should make. Even in our religion we try to take the easy way out by making salvation solely dependent upon our belief system or a few actions instead of the renovation of our soul to be like God.
If evil triumphs in our world, it is because we decide that is the way we want our world constructed. Many of us say we want good to prevail but we take actions that make our world a more evil place because we are more concerned about our material well being than about the well being of our soul. In the movie Traffic a drug baron is imprisoned and his wife quickly takes over the drug trade because she does not want to give up her upscale life style. She simply wants her life back and the impact to others does not matter. [2] How many of us are like the drug baron’s wife? True, we might not deal in drugs but we will violate other ethical principles to maintain our lifestyle.
Sometimes we violate our moral code for what we perceive to be a noble cause. We are like the businesswoman, in the movie Head Office, who observes that we rationalize doing what we know is wrong so we can get the power that will give us the freedom to do all the good we really want to do. The problem is that when we get the power, we cannot remember what it was we wanted the freedom for in the first place. [3] We have so corrupted our soul in our efforts to get power that our soul no longer recognizes what is right.
We also try to rationalize doing what we know to be wrong by thinking that if we just violate our moral code just a few times, it will not matter. But it does matter because once we start down this road, where will we stop? And if most of the people on earth do the same then together we have created a world that is governed by a moral code we acknowledge to be wrong.
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[1] David Elton Trueblood, General Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 219.
[2] Steven Soderbergh, Director. Traffic. With Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Universal Studios, 2002.
[3] Ken Finkleman, Director. Head Office. With Judge Reinhold, Lori-Nan Engler, Eddie Albert, Richard Masur, Rick Moranus, Don Novello, Jane Seymour, Wallace Shawn, and Danny Devito. HBO Pictures, 1985.
