Is Good and Evil Simply Right and Wrong?

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Discussing good and evil seems easy enough.  Good is the “right” thing to do and evil is “wrong.”  Hitler was evil and Mother Theresa was good.

Unfortunately that is the way the world does view good and evil so, let’s look at a couple of instances that may stick a fly in the ointment.

The United States goes to Vietnam to protect the country against Godless communism.  However, there are two problems.  First, the country doesn’t want to be protected and secondly the United States’ motives also include protecting oil interests.  In fact just a few years ago the Secretary of Defense at that time, Robert McNamara, wrote a book saying that the war was wrong after all.

But there are more poignant issues than that—I was there and I saw it.

Mothers and daughters were sold to soldiers as prostitutes.  Soldiers of course died and many, many people became drug users; perhaps three out of four soldiers did drugs to one degree or another.  We, a purportedly Godly country, a “good” country made a mockery of morality in Vietnam.  The truth to any student of history says we weren’t “good,” we were powerful.

Of course therein lies the phrase “Might makes Right.”

During WWII we locked up Japanese citizens to protect society.  We saw that as right but I’m sure most Japanese people didn’t deserve it and I’m sure they didn’t see it as right.

What about a baby that dies?  The parents are devastated.  God let that happen.  How can that be right?

Today in American society we give criminals more rights than victims; we tolerate same-sex activities; we worship material things; we murder millions of babies every year and plug the courts suing one another.  And, we think we’re “good.”  We are not good.  What we have done is lose sight of the true reality of good and evil.

Since we know that any two people can have major differences of opinion when it comes to the definition of right and wrong then, unless we are hapless, evolutionary and meaningless beings there must be a right way to measure right and wrong or good and evil.

God created the universe and He created us.  His word, the Bible has one main theme, Jesus and it is the story of God’s love for mankind.

This is accomplished by creating an intertwining following of those that act “right” of good by God’s standards and those that are evil or act “bad.”

We soon find that specific acts aren’t the measurement of right or wrong, it is our relationship to God.  It is a fact that two people can perform the same sin and if one is saved they will go to Heaven and if the other is not their sin will condemn them because the real sin is the denial of God and the retention of pride.

Therefore, good is God, is Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  They bring light into a fallen world.  Good equals those who accept God’s gift to them and acknowledge they are sinners.

Evil is the father of sin, Satan who would destroy anything for his own gain and evil are those who are his “children” and take offense at Christ.

Chapter one of Job shows us a “behind the scenes look” at Spiritual activities amongst Powers.

Is God good?   He allowed Job to be pummeled, his children killed and his fortune lost.  You see at the end of the book that God has replaced Job’s fortune two to one.

Interestingly he doesn’t double the number of children.  Why?  God took them to Heaven.  He honored Job.

Good is God.  His ways are higher than our ways—we have no way to judge Him, just as Job didn’t, so He defines good and evil…man cannot consistently and effectively define his own morality, his own “good and evil.”