Finding God (part 1) Good and Evil

Good and Evil

As I have been thinking about the presence of God perhaps one of my first thoughts was about the existence of evil. When I hear people speak of God they often use words like omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and many phrase from the Bible speak of his goodness and excellence. So...where does evil come from and is there such a thing? Lets look at the logic argument.

1. If there is evil then we accept there is good. A comparison that can be made between the behavior of free thinking individuals.
   
2. Instinct alone does not control the actions of humankind. Instinct is a piece of the data we collect and process when we make decisions. There is a choice involved.
3. One chooses to act morally or immorally. One is seldom wholly committed to one or the other. In fact this is very rare. More likely each person is a blend of moral and immoral behavior. We are free to choose our actions.
   
4. As actions become a choice, moral will define good behavior and evil will define immoral behavior.
   
5. There are many generally accepted principles of goodness and evil; e.g. charity, trustworthiness, murdering, stealing and dishonesty are a few. These widely accepted principles are a universal moral law.
   
6. Then a moral law exist that transcends religions, ethnic origin and geographic origin. These beliefs are universally true.
7. If there is a moral law it originated somewhere. For there to be a moral law, there must be a moral law giver.

Logic would explain that we are free to act on our own accord. Free to choose behavior that has been defined by a moral law giver. In other words; there are some absolutes in life. We are free to decide if we shall pursue a life that attempts to walk the path that agrees with these truths or if we will pay them no regard at all.

Choosing to be moral or immoral does not guarantee success. Each of us will likely be faced with situations where we fail to take the path we would find most congruent to our past behavior. Circumstances may intervene that cloud a usual practice or make it less desirable. However, one may take a general path towards goodness just as one may choose a path of hedonism and self fulfillment.

This week consider the possibility of a law giver. How did we establish the ideas of good and acceptable behavior?