yes, morality and civil behavior are a matter of choice. and, if we are to make choices, it certainly opens the possibility that we will make very bad, or immoral, and yes, even evil choices. (i do not think it follows that the freedom of choice absolves us of the consequences or the responsibility for bad choices, and certainly not for evil choices.)
but, god (or perhaps his representatives, or, perhaps press secretaries), has also said, let no man put asunder what god has joined. so, even the conferral of free will does not absolve us of, for lack of a better word, sin.
yes, we can choose. but, why do some choose bad, (or, "badly", if you will), while others choose a better or a more honorable path.
take the cases of the fed ex drivers who first abducted the little girls and then killed the little girls. by the way, i can think of absolutely nothing more morally repugnant (save, perhaps, making a career out of performing abortions.) is there any person, any thing, more innocent, more free of sin or guilt, than an infant or a very young child? (save an unborn and absolutely innocent fetus.)
were does the initial impulse, the well spring of the ultimate sin, come from. how is it born, and then nurtured to the point where the person acts upon his impulse, and kills a child. yes, there is the matter of the capacity so to do in the nature of free will, but why does a person choose to do so, when, with equal ease, he can choose not to do so. (have you ever read the description of an abortion? ever?)
what is the necessity that impels a person to commit such an act? yes, we are "free" to do so in the sense that we may be capable of doing so, but why do we step into quagmire of killing innocence. either one innocent at a time, or on a production line?
now, i am not one to condemn killing in a "blanket" manner. i think killing is justified in many settings, and for many reasons, witness my cheering of the ukrainians for defending their country from an unprovoked & heinous russian invasion. in that circumstance, i think that killing russians is a moral imperative. self defense from attack, the defense of one's nation from attack, to the point of repeated killing if necessary, is entirely laudable. (and, i am not unmindful of the fact that soldiers involved in this thoroughly defensible behavior are haunted by it in later years, ... , if they survive combat.)
but, true evil, and if it exists, it certainly exists when someone kills a young child. why does it happen?
we see more and more in our society when assailants "run amok" and kill multiple victims, who cannot said to have committed any offense against their killers, even by their killers in "justification" for their actions, other than merely existing. it is something of a mystery to me.
and, a mystery that is not compatible with my views on a just & harmonious existence.
john jay @ 12.05.2022
Comments