EDITORIAL: Christ's goodness vs. evil (12/25/83)

EDITORIAL

Christ's goodness vs. evil

Christmas is a time of joy. We rejoice at the birth of the Christ-Child because it signifies the reaffirmation of hope and the life-giving power of God. For us, God's gift of his only Son represents, in a real sense, the condescension of divinity and the exaltation of humanity. Christ's birth also portends the final triumph over evil and death in the glorious feast of the Resurrection.

Christ's birth, life and death represent the triumph of goodness. The oft-cited "Christmas spirit," then, is the spirit of goodness, of love, selflessness, magnanimity, tolerance. We are nurtured by that spirit. We bask in its warmth. But as we gather with our families, friends and neighbors to celebrate this great feast, it is imperative that we pause to consider the persistence of evil in this world.

The concept of evil as a palpable, tactile anti-thesis to good seems a quaint and outmoded idea in a world of subjective values and moral relativism. Unlike the philosophers, writers, painters and thinkers of other centuries, 20th century man no longer sees his history from the Garden of Eden to the present in terms of an ongoing struggle between good and evil. When Friedrich Nietzsche, culminating a philosophical trend that began with Spinoza, declared that God is dead, he also killed Satan in the process.

The result of this philosophic legacy has been a sense of moral ambiguity and relativism that has obscured the formerly clear distinctions between good and evil. The rapist, mass-murderer, pornographer is no longer seen as an externalization of a palpable evil but as, say, a victim of a traumatic childhood, economic disadvantage or psychological disorders. A government that shoots down an unarmed civilian jetliner, uses chemical weapons against defenseless civilians, or plots to kill the pope, is seen as protecting its own interests or acting out of fear and paranoia. When President Ronald Reagan rightfully called it an "evil empire," he was ridiculed for engaging in provocative and antiquated rhetoric.

But can we really explain the actions of terrorists whose bombs mutilate children in Lebanon, or who plant bombs in crowded department stores strictly in political terms? Can we dismiss the sadistic incidents of child abuse, kiddie-porn and other depravities simply in terms of sociological and psychological factors?

This is not to suggest that the child prostitute or individual terrorist are, in and of themselves, evil people. But if we accept the notion that evil exists as a tactile, potent force, that it has the power to tempt (witness Christ in the desert) an imperfect and fallible humanity, that its very nature is to confuse, to terrify and to mislead, then we can at least have a clearer view of what it is that confronts and frightens us. We may never be able to understand why evil exists, but we must never forget that it does. It is more than the absence of good; it has an independent existence.

So as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, the renewal of hope and goodness, we must, as Christians, recommit ourselves to a morality than is not relative and values that are not subjective - the Bible and the teachings of Christ. This may appear, in our age, simplistic and old-fashioned. But in a world rife with evil, at a time, when, for example, the very sanctity of life is being arbitrated by doctors or parents that want to allow deformed children to die, or terrorists who see their own aims as superior to life itself, it may be time to re-examine a Christian philosophy that took the reality of evil into account and provided a code of conduct that could, if followed, keep it at bay.

And lest we despair at the persistence of evil among us, we must remember that the meaning of Christ's glorious birth is the triumph of hope. By incorporating this hope into our holiday celebrations and pledging ourselves to the goodness manifested in Christ's life, we give relevance to the words "Christ is born - praise be to Him."

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