Sunday School: Good, Evil and God

Have you accepted the modern two story world narrative as your own? What story are you living in?

Our Faith is the greatest love story ever and it’s being written as we speak. It is a story about God and his people, us. We are immersed in it and we have a chance to shape it. It’s a life that leads to union with the creator God and deep, profound happiness. It isn’t a life of hopelessness awaiting a miraculous transformation at the end of time. The immense gift of our Byzantine Faith is lived experience of God here and now transforming, sanctifying, healing the sickness of our fallen humanity. We must tell ourselves, our friends and even someday, perhaps, our children this story.

The video for this week starts by posing the question; can we be good, without God? More importantly though, can we know what good is without God?

As the video demonstrates, without God, there is no objective reference point for determining what is moral or immoral. Just as our senses convince us of the reality of the physical world, so our moral sense convinces us that moral values are objectively real. It’s not a matter of preference or opinion.

Some ask; is something good because God wills it, or because God wills it therefore it is good. The reality is good, or moral acts, are characteristics of Gods nature. The more our actions align with them, the more we are becoming like God. As Byzantine Catholics we believe this is much more than an intellectual exercise. We believe that when we “do good” we are actually being transformed toward Christ-like holiness. We can and are participating with God in the act of our own and humanity’s redemption.

From the Saints and Others

“True knowledge is being struck by the arrow of beauty that wounds man: being touched by reality, “by the personal presence of Christ himself,” as Nicholas Cabasilas puts it. Being overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underestimate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and careful theological thought; it is still absolutely necessary. But to despise, on that account, the impact produced by the heart’s encounter with beauty, or to reject it as a true form of knowledge, would impoverish us and dry up both faith and theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge—it is an urgent demand of the present hour.” – Pope Benedict XVI

On Disputes

Science, as we discussed last week, is the domain of physical facts because it studies the physical universe. Scientism is the modern belief that only science can and does describe the entire reality of the universe. Scientific truth cannot contradict moral truth. As Dr. John Patrick stated in the first video, truth and falsehood have never changed. You can make a truthful or false statement about anything.

Human beings inhabit both the physical universe and a moral universe, but we value the moral realm most. Humans need and crave love, truth, honor, beauty and fidelity to name but a few. Science has nothing to say about these because they have no physical existence. But we do know, deep down in our inmost being, they do in fact exist. As this week’s video states quite eloquently, we can’t even know what is good without God’s revelation of his nature which sets the standard for what is good and right morally.

This moral universe of which we speak, unlike the physical universe, is not expanding, it stretches from truth to falsehood, from love to hatred, from honor to dishonor, from justice to injustice, from fidelity to infidelity and we live in the middle it. It doesn’t mean it is always clear how true or false, just or unjust an act may be, but the moral reality of our existence cannot be denied.

Atheists and others rejecting God regularly insist science gets it right, but morality gets it wrong… These same people often claim we are just highly evolved animals. Animals have no moral obligations to one another, and so neither do people they claim. Does the lion need to ask the zebra for permission to eat breakfast? No. Can we know killing another, innocent human being is immoral? Yes. Were the murderous aims of the Nazis immoral? Of course they were, and every honest atheist is willing to admit it.

But what about the problem of evil, even natural events that lead to suffering and are often described as evil, typhoons, earthquakes, disease, etc. If God is a loving God, why does he allow these to occur? The videos for this week discuss this and the counter arguments to those who claim the existence of evil proves God does not exist.

Challenges This Week

Read from one of the Gospels for three minutes every day. Take two minutes afterward to think about what you read.

Choose a prayer space at home for a daily conversation with God. Make sure a Bible is handy for your use along with any images or items (natural or man-made) that help you focus your mind on God. Spend at least 10 minutes being still, with as few distractions as possible.

Practice your listening skills. Meet with a close friend or family member. For a full five minutes, listen attentively, asking questions as needed