Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron… But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. (1 Timothy 4: 1-2, 7-9)
This is a difficult lesson. It will take more than once for us to really understand.
Introduction: The Ontology of Goodness
The last few weeks I have shared with you one of the great Truths revealed to us through Holy Orthodoxy. It is a Truth that has been attacked and discarded by so many people in our world – not just anti-theistic materialists, but even by a large proportion of Christians (especially evangelicals). [It is ironic that in preserving and celebrating this Truth, we occasionally find ourselves allied less with fellow Christians and more with New Age spiritualists and Eastern mystics.] This Truth is that Goodness is ontological; it is tangible, it is real, and it has visible consequences in the world we know. So far, I have two aspects of this Goodness: how Beauty and Truth flow into creation from the uncreated Godhead as energies, and how these energies can change both your life and this entire world.
The last few weeks I have shared with you one of the great Truths revealed to us through Holy Orthodoxy. It is a Truth that has been attacked and discarded by so many people in our world – not just anti-theistic materialists, but even by a large proportion of Christians (especially evangelicals). [It is ironic that in preserving and celebrating this Truth, we occasionally find ourselves allied less with fellow Christians and more with New Age spiritualists and Eastern mystics.] This Truth is that Goodness is ontological; it is tangible, it is real, and it has visible consequences in the world we know. So far, I have two aspects of this Goodness: how Beauty and Truth flow into creation from the uncreated Godhead as energies, and how these energies can change both your life and this entire world.
We are made in the image of God, little creators, given the power and authority to shape things by infusing our relationships with them with these energies. Creation is like a living symphony or work of art that joyfully and continuously celebrates the wonder of God and our love for Him and everything.
Or at least this is how it was meant to be. Rather than using our powers according to Truth, Love, and Unity; we created new “truth”, new “loves”, and a new “unity”. Rather than the eternal Truth whose study points to the God of Truth who is outside of Creation, we have ones that point only to ourselves and are bound within the limits of creation; rather than the perfect love whose consummation brings us into closer relationship with the God of Love who is outside of Creation; we have a love that brings us into closer relationship with ourselves, even using others to satisfy our selfishness; rather than a celebration and growth of Unity of all creation, life in the world we have remade according to our own truth and love becomes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ch. 13). Humankind becomes fractured and separated from God. Goodness remains ontological, but usually misunderstood and covered with filth.
And from this perversion, a new ontology arises. One that is completely of our own making – a creation of the created. A selfish perversion of things as they should be: evil becomes real.
The Ontology of Evil.Evil is real. It is not just the absence of good: it is an active power. And people who chose to align themselves with that power are shaped by it and are able to warp the world around them through its application. And I do not just mean people who use Ouija Boards, or Tarot, consult mediums, or engage in other wicked and profane practices (although I hope the reality – and thus the danger – of such things makes you realize why you must steer clear): because the world has “groaned in sin” for so long, it has become normal; institutionalized. As a result, “normal” actions participate in and reinforce the power of evil. Every child is born into a world and from the womb, is shaped by the presence of this malevolent power as surely as it is shaped by gravity. Think of your own life and the things that you are ready to explain away or defend – perhaps even thinking of them as being exemptions from what some theoretical “ideal” might requite. But such exemptions soon become a matter of policy, and after becoming policy, they become the new normal, and from the new normal, they become the new good. The “theoretical ideal” moves from being a goal to being irrelevant anachronism. Simultaneously, an excuse for sin becomes, over time, a justification and celebration of that sin. For instance, a man’s adultery is defended on the grounds of love and “truth to self”, divorce is granted as allowance for this, then divorce becomes commonplace, and before we know it an institution that was created as an icon and sacrament of chastity, unity, and stability is replaced serial monogamy and God knows what else – while marriage itself becomes a sad anachronistic mockery of the Truth.
Goodness remains in creation and in us as God’s stewards of it; but it is continually attacked by evil. And this evil resides within us as surely as does the good. Our consciousness are divided. To paraphrase St. Paul even when we mean to do good, we do evil. And so God gave us the Law to act as a guide to what was right, but this could only do so much: a fallen man will either interpret the law in a way that supports his own sinfulness (and this happens not just in government, but also in the church; it was against the perversion of religion that Christ spent his energy – not against the government), ignore the law, or will become despondent at his inability to live according to that Law. To make matters worse, man made many other laws that were indistinguishable to him from the ones that God sent, the following of which is sure to do harm to all involved (1 Timothy 4: 1,2, 7-9).
And so we had a problem. The fact that God is perfect Goodness and made the world to reflect that Goodness and us to rejoice in that Goodness. But we perverted the fruits of that goodness, shaping it to our own ends. Evil grew and people gave in to it. The world groaned in agony. And this could have been the end. Left this way, evil would have consumed itself and all of creation. But instead, the uncreated source of Goodness became a part of creation: God was incarnate here. Through His Light, we can discern good from evil. Moreover He will work within our hearts, driving out our confusion and desire for evil. He has re-established unity in this world and allowed us to regain our place in it.
How do you do this? Forsake your confusion. Forsake the evil within you. Unite yourself to God. Serve Him and bring His Goodness to all around you.
