I've noticed that when I say "Be good!" I don't actually mean it. My suspicion is that most people who say "Be good!" don't mean it either. Most often, I hear these words said to children. I have, however, noticed that I occasionally toss a "Be good!" in the direction of a mischievous friend.
What we really mean when we say "Be good!" isn't "Be good!" What we mean is "behave!" which is something entirely different. It is far easier to behave than it is to be good.
Behaving is external. I behave by driving the speed limit, by not being rude, and by not flying paper airplanes in church. These are all negative examples--things I don't do, but behavior can be positive as well. For instance, I behave by respecting my elders, by sharing, and by helping old ladies across the street. But behavior is not goodness. Bad men can behave. In fact, most of them do.
Behaving is no mark of goodness in a man, but misbehaving is clearly a mark of badness. A good man will not (ordinarily) misbehave, but a man may behave and still be bad. In fact, behaving is often a good way to place yourself in a position to do wrong. For instance, the most effective way to harm a great number of people is through a misuse of political power. But misbehaving men are seldom elected. Hitler behaved for most of his life. He got himself elected.
But not all bad men are Hitlers. Most bad men will never murder anyone; in fact, most probably think themselves good men. But this is precisely where the trouble begins. Goodness and badness cannot be reduced to matters of behavior. Behaving is very simple compared with the trouble of being good.
The good man is good inwardly. The bad man is good only externally. A few examples may help explain what I mean. The good man loves his wife as his wife because she is his wife. The bad man loves his wife as his wife for secondary reasons--because of her personality, her beauty, her character, etc.. The good man also loves his wife for these traits, but he does not love her as his wife because of them. The good man loves her for them in addition to her wifeness. The bad man, on the other hand, loves his wife as his wife not because she is his wife, but rather because she is a certain way or has certain traits.
The Bible tells us this very thing. Ephesians 5 tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. A husband should love his wife because of her position as a wife--the love he has for her because of her traits is secondary and superseded by his love for her as his wife. Likewise, Christ does not love the Church because we are particularly good, smart, or beautiful people, but rather because we are the Church. Christ loves the Church as the Church because the Church is. It would be preposterous to claim that Christ loves His Church for any reason other than the fact that the Church is the Church. Clearly, He loves the Church's good attributes, but those attributes are not why He loves us.
This applies everywhere--not just to love as defined in marriage. The good man is good because he loves rightly--because he loves the right things in the right way for the right reasons. A man may love poetry and he may love hot showers, but he must not love them the same way or even pretend that his enjoyment of hot showers is anything like his enjoyment of poetry. He must take pleasure where pleasure should be taken and he must take displeasure where displeasure should be taken. And he must take them in the right ways and in the right amounts.
It is a very difficult thing to be good. If I were not a Christian, I should strongly doubt that any man could be truly good. Since I am a Christian, I know that no one is good--except God alone.
I do my best to behave, but I continually discover that I am a bad man. I love behaving only when it suits me and even then because it suits me, not because it is right. I do not take displeasure where displeasure should be taken--I laugh at bad jokes and excuse my shortcomings.
I am a bad man--not because I'm full of hate--but because I don't know how to love.
-D. Araujo
There is a reason that you are "bad." Goodness=completeness. Only G-d is Complete, and we are all pieces of HIM. But still He is G-d and this is His Mystery. If you were complete, you would always know how to respond, but you are learning as you said how to respond. You are reacting to new situations G-d throws your way daily, hourly, to learn the HOW not the what. How to be good not what WHAT is good. You said poetry must be enjoyed differently than hot showers...does this mean you value one experience over another. A mental stimulation is less "bad" than a physical one? This is not expressly stated in your writing, but as I read the first time my defense came up, "A hot shower may relieve a cough, you know." I thought. Is it to be certain that you evaluate your pleasures correctly or that you value them differently?
ReplyDeleteHmm, interesting thoughts. What do you mean by completeness? I'm not sure--given my understanding of what you mean--that saying that we are all pieces of God is NOT a heretical view. We exist separately from God: all creation exists separately. We are only 'in God' in the sense that we are a manifestation of God's power and glory (by our having been created and continued existence).
ReplyDeleteAlso, as finite beings, it is possible for US to be complete in the sense that we can be filled up. God is complete in the sense of a being a single Being (of three persons, granted). But God, being infinite, cannot be complete in the same sense we can of being 'filled up' because He is a self-full and self-complete infinite.
Thus, I am confused as to what you mean by saying that goodness=completeness.
I DO mean to say that we must make value judgments between experiences and things. I don't know that a mental stimulation is better than a physical one, necessarily: I don't want to over-correct into sheer Platonism.
To answer question on the correct evaluation of pleasure vs. merely different evaluation, the answer is Yes. I mean both. I believe that to evaluate pleasures correctly requires us to value them differently because not all pleasures (or loves) are equal: not equal in respect to the amount of pleasure received and not equal in respect to their benefits (physical, moral, spiritual, etc.).
I appreciate your comment! I hope that clarifies my position. (Also, thank you for asking met to clarify. I hate to be unintentionally vague.)
Cheers,