By Justin Gray
On July 20, 2012 a young man entered a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire on the audience. During this violent episode, seventy people were shot and 12 were killed. The effects of this tragedy were felt throughout the United States by loved ones and observers alike.
In C.S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain, he seeks to answer the question so many people have asked in similar moments of crisis: "If an all-loving, all-powerful God exists, then why is there suffering in the world?”
In an attempt to satisfy this question many people assume the following: 1) that God is not loving, and therefore either indifferent and even possibly evil, or 2) he is not all-powerful and therefore impotent in dealing with human suffering.
In the opening passage of Chapter 2 Lewis states:
"...if God is wiser than we His judgment must differ from ours on many things...What seems to us to be good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil."
Could it be that our concept of good and evil is so divergent from God's standard that we are completely out of touch with the true essence of these concepts? Lewis goes on to discuss several factors that help to unstick a seemingly sticky issue.
In terms of our understanding of good and evil, in order for any semblance of true good to exist in our world God must accommodate Himself to our reality.
It would be wholly improper for God to leave us barren of any moral point of reference, so He has peppered throughout humanity certain exemplary qualities consistent with His nature. These qualities prompt us to make a distinction between inferior and superior moral standards.
"...a man of inferior moral standards enters the society of those who are better and wiser than he and gradually learns to accept their standards" (Lewis)
It is precisely this phenomenon that proves existentially that man is aware of his inadequacies and tries to move in the direction of a more acceptable moral standard.
However, in the case of the Colorado gunman his rejection of such a standard stands in stark contrast to Lewis' assertion. If we are all prone to conform to the standards of those who are better and wiser, then how could someone blatantly violate such a common inclination?
Upon further analysis, it would seem that the answer is found in God's gift to humanity of free moral choice.
Experiencing divine goodness, as Lewis posits, would not be possible unless a man was irrevocably endowed with the ability to choose for himself which standards to follow. God would be unjust if he through absolute force, or subversive manipulation, constrained humanity to actions only consistent with His will.
Man must be free in order for love to be pure- for true goodness to be experienced.
Consequently, if man is ever to experience God's love he must endure the challenge of becoming lovable which is itself a great pain.
Unfortunately, moral autonomy is a blade that cuts both ways.
If man is free to choose, then it is possible for him not to choose the more acceptable moral standard. However, the freedom of man, is not a freedom from rules, but provides the possibility for one to agree to the terms of an all-loving God.
The Colorado gunman, in a moment, chose to reject God's terms of grace, kindness, charity and the value of human life in order to satisfy his own desires. His murderous binge, was against the natural order of things and consequently against God. This is what Lewis suggests as the essence of human wickedness.
"God is good...he made all things good and for the sake of their goodness; that one of the good things He made, namely, the free will of rational creatures, by its very nature included the possibility of evil; and the creatures, availing themselves of this possibility, have become evil." (Lewis)
In other words, true freedom includes the possibility of injury to the one through whom freedom is given. Every day we walk a forked path, which demands a decision:
Right? or left?
Right? or wrong?
We may wish to redefine 'right' and 'left' for ourselves, but despite our frantic shuffling of the cups God always knows under which one the ball lies. On this road called life, right and left are permanent, just as good and evil- and God has made it so.
Works Cited
ABC NEWS on the internet. Colorado Movie Theater Shooting: Suspect Bought 4 Guns, 6,000 Rounds of Ammunition in Past 60 Days. http://abcnews.go.com/US/colorado-movie-theater-shooting-suspect-bought-guns-6000/story?id=16817842
Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. New York: HarperCollins. 1940. Print.
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