Which Is Worse?

There are some people in this world who want to do evil because it is evil. They willfully rebel against the counsels of God. They realize the opportunity to make themselves their own god and they take it. Hurting people can be fun, and exciting, and empowering. Realizing this, they take the bull by the horns and make the world all about themselves. They are lions and they know it. This need not imply criminal behavior. There are people in this category who would never do something illegal. For them the law, and staying within it's bounds, is a form of self-preservation, and they are happy to abide by society's laws, but they refuse the rule of a higher MORAL order. They define right and wrong for themselves within certain legal limits. Of course, there are plenty in the criminal element who fit this mold as well. They seek a kind of godhood that transcends all of society's boundaries. They refuse any limit on their behavior on the principle that they want what they want. In either case, evil is embraced.

However, this person is the rarity. Far more prevalent, and we all do this to some degree, is the sinner who seeks to have his sin justified in some way, shape or form. Either the sin is mitigated in one's own mind, by comparing oneself to others, or even worse the sin is given the justification of divine mandate in one's own mine. One projects one's sinful ways onto God. In either case, the result is making oneself one's own god, just as the first case, but it is hidden behind the mask of the true God. One pretends one's idol is really Yahweh. In the case of justification by comparison, one takes the place of God and makes a final pronouncement upon what is just or is not just in this world. What I do is okay, because what that other person does is worse. But how can one know that? This is the real judgment Jesus warned us against. Everything is a moral calculation, I do this much knowing that this other person does a little more, or really just pretending to know that. I become all-knowing judge of everyone else, while I myself wallow in my sin. Worse than this, I will attribute my judging to God. I have to, for if I allowed myself to admit that I am doing the judging myself, my own sinfulness and limitedness would be on display for all to see. I know the mind of God, says the sinner, and God has judged me 'not as bad' as everyone else.

In the more dangerous case of doing evil and calling it good, I simply seek out justifications for my moral judgments, and having made a case I claim to be rational and reasonable, I attribute my rationalizations and 'reasons' to God. Oh and how many people worship their own simply little moral system as if it is the very image of divine justice and judgment. Surely this is the foundation of all religious radicalism, hate and evil. I create a particular God that justifies my actions, that stands on my side against all others, and that holds the values that seem, to me, to be most dear. This is the worse kind of idolatry, for it is really self-idolatry.

Which is worse? In the latter cases, where justification or amelioration is sought by attribution of one's own perspective to God, there is a subtle recognition that what one is doing is, in fact, sinful. For one realizes at least on some unconscious or unrecognized level that what one is doing is wrong, or else why seek the outside justification? If it were not wrong, then one could just be like the first person who embraces rebellion without question. In fact, the need to seek a divine perspective for one's own evil is proof that humans are not TOTALLY depraved in the Calvinist sense. For if they were, no pretense would be necessary. We could wallow in our crapulence out in the open. But no, we know that it is not okay to form our own moral world and so we must attribute that world to God, even if that attribution is itself idolatrous.

Yet this hiding behind the cloak of the divine is much harder to fight against. Foolishness and willful ignorance are in some ways more dangerous than outright evil. Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued this in a devastatingly successful way in his Christmas Letter AFTER TEN YEARS, a must-read. Since the person really believes that their judgments and justifications come from God, since they believe God is on their side, it is much harder to confront them with the truth of the True God, of Yahweh-Yeshua-Ruach Hakodesh (Father-Son-Holy Spirit). Their evil is well-hidden, and so shining the light of day on it is more difficult. And since they talk the right talk, it is sometimes harder for others to see their evil as well.

The self-deifier lets the light of day shine on his or her sins. We can see them for what they are. And indeed, there is something braver about saying 'yes, this is the way I am, deal with it'. The truth is that most people are about the same kind of scoundrel. We all are idolaters to one degree or another. Most of us take the avoidance way out, justifying and judging, as if we could leash El-Shaddai and force Him to be the slave to our own inner demons. The true repentant, who recognizes their sin and refuses to be okay with it, is a rare thing, and achieved by most of us for only moments. Few people really owe us anything. Yet we owe God everything. Most of our judging, and 'justice' and justifying are little more than plays at being god ourselves, all the while applying to THE God as the true source of our judging. Is honesty better or is it better to hate the sin within ourselves?