What makes one man good, and another man evil? Is it time, circumstance, or opportunity? Or from a spiritual standpoint, is it original sin? It must be more than how one is raised, or the environment to which they are exposed. Sure, we know that if one is exposed to a life of crime and vice, odds are, they will end up there as well. But we also know that sometimes the serial killer is the wealthy guy on the front page of the paper, or worse, the guy next door. The one all the neighbors described as “Such a good guy.”
We could ignore that description of good by labeling them a hypocrite, since the guy only appeared to be good. Such people exist, otherwise, why bother to watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing? The metaphor plays because it pitches us as fellow-sheep; good guys! We stick together, on guard against evil wolves who prey on us with their wickedness. The wolf is easy to spot, because there is blood on his fangs. Look past the sheep mask, for even a harmless looking neighbor may be nefarious.
I think our labels may be too simplistic. Where we are describing the individual as good or evil, based upon a collection of actions on their part, we may be missing the bigger picture. It’s that bigger picture that frames us all, wolves and sheep alike. For in the grand scheme of things, it’s possible that being human is less about being a good man or an evil one, for that definition gives an excuse to bad behavior: “Oh, what do you expect, he’s an evil guy,” or the ever popular, “I’m only human.” A better idea is that we are not mere animals, responding to instinct and impulse. We are free moral agents, faced with good and evil, and our response to these show that we aren’t all or nothing, but on the contrary: we are a little of one and a little of the other.
In Christianity, an understanding of good and evil cannot help but find its genesis in Genesis, where a tree bearing that name stood, off-limits, in the midst of the Garden of Eden. I’m of the persuasion that we have over-spiritualized the story of the Garden, assigning deep theological conclusions to the actions of the characters that trap us within a cage void of personal responsibility. At the end of most Eden interpretations we are hopeless, born useless due to the failure of our first father, and no more equipped to face future snakes in future Gardens than when we started. I think we would be better served to view the story as a way of understanding our propensity to introduce hell into our heaven, or chaos into our order. We have the inherent power to choose, and we choose wrong. Our wrong choice opens our eyes to things we would rather not see, and forces us out of our Edenic existence, to face the unknown. From our first beginnings of conscious thought, we are trapped to the choice of doing good or doing evil. Only through the lens of the New Testament is it seen as a metaphor of performing in order to be righteous. Long before that, and maybe even more important than that, it is about a man making a choice to do good or do evil. Perhaps we shouldn’t leave the story with the assumption that it MADE man evil, but that man is forced to choose how he will live his life. The fruit from that tree is still around, like holiday leftovers we can’t get away from.
Psalm 37:27 says, “Flee from evil and do good, and dwell forever.” The Psalmist must have known that his audience struggled with this dynamic. He doesn’t warn them to stop being evil and to become good, for I don’t think he had such a theology. His is more about choice. He seems to be saying, “Run away from the evil and do the right thing, and stay there!”
Let us consider that rather than being good or evil, we hold a volatile combination of both in our grasp. We maintain the likeness and image of our Creator in that we retain the right to choose. He stood on the edge of darkness and created light. We often stand on the edge of darkness and rush headlong into chaos. Perhaps Psalms is not putting a legal restriction on our liberty as much as it is warning us that both good and evil are at hand; choose wisely.
In another garden, Gethsemane, Jesus faced the darkest night in His own soul. That New Testament garden is a lesson in contrasts. It’s full of pain, choice, and resolve, and how different men deal with that darkness. One man enters it, kisses Him, and is thirty pieces of silver richer for it. How does Judas face his dark night? Betrayal. Regret. Suicide. A chance to choose the good, squandered. When the sun comes up, he is hanging from a tree.
Peter faces the night as well. He sleeps and slumbers, turns violent, cowers in the face of opposition, and denies his friend. A chance to choose the good, to do the right thing, gone before the sun comes up. And when that sun comes up, the rooster crows and Peter goes back to fishing.
When Jesus squared off against the darkness we love to imagine that it was an effortless victory, but the Gospels portray something else. While each of the four writers tell us of Gethsemane, they all add different details. What they agree on with perfect unity is that at the moment of maximum danger Jesus appears to take a step backward from the cross. “Father, let this cup pass from me.” Here stands Jesus, the ultimate good guy; the ideal man, and when faced with the difficult option of doing the needful thing or the expedient thing, He has a moment – though brief – where we wonder, “Will He, or won’t He?” Quickly, the writers resolve it with, “Not my will but thy will be done.” A chance to do good, accepted. When the sun comes up, Jesus is on His way to the cross. But “good” is like a seed in the ground, and just as evil leads to chaos, good leads to an empty tomb. The dark night gives way to resurrection morning and a whole new world. As Shakespeare said, “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
Could it be that the New Testament is re-imagining the Garden of Eden, this time retitled Gethsemane? Perhaps the message is not that good men always do the right thing, but that good men peer into the darkness and embrace the side of themselves that most resembles their Creator, and they drink the cup, even though it is a bitter one.
One other thing must be considered if we wish to answer our original question, “What makes one man good and another man evil?” That is the question of opportunity. What if a man is not moral as much as he is unchallenged? If you are never tempted to lie, have you overcome temptation as a truth-teller? If not faced with the moral dilemma, can you claim the moral high ground?
Hebrews declares that Jesus was tempted in every way in which we are; yet He never missed the mark. It proves Jesus’s obedience when we can look inside His mind and see that He must deal with the situation, through a real struggle of the soul. If there’s no struggle in the face of a decision, how can we believe the temptation was authentic? How do we buy it? We know our temptations are real; we live through them. But Jesus’s would look weak otherwise.
He’s in the Garden. He knows He’s going to die. He could rid himself of all of it. He’s an excellent communicator, so when He stands before Pilate, he could simply say the right things; Pilate would let Him go (Pilate is practically begging for a reason to release Him!). But Jesus knows why He is there. He is there, not to be relieved, but to endure. His is the ultimate sacrifice. As He says to Peter at the end of His Gethsemane experience, “Sheath your sword. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” Now that is resolve!
Seeing Jesus struggle in the Garden gives us hope because life is a struggle. The Bible is all about that struggle! Man’s struggle against sin, against the enemy, against other men, and against himself. Where you don’t struggle now, you probably will later, one way or the other. To be considered a good man is often less a moral compliment and more a commentary on the lack of struggle, or perhaps the lack of opportunity. But don’t bemoan the lack of opportunity! Rather, do all you can to avoid it, for in real life, we don’t always put ourselves into temptation as much as it finds us. Maybe that is why in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prays that the Father “lead us not into temptation.” Could He be encouraging the disciples to pray, “Keep us out of the test, because maybe we are too weak to pass it”?
Maybe we don’t find out how good a man is until he faces his own hour of maximum danger. Until there is an opportunity to fail, we don’t really understand success. When we boast of morality, we should temper it with equal parts thanks that we have only been faced with so few opportunities to test that moral courage. We should also remember the warning of Jesus, that external adultery is not the only way to determine if a man is a law-breaker, for even the desire to do as much must be dealt with. It could be that those we deem as wicked and evil were overwhelmed with opportunities for destruction. Perhaps they got it right 99 times out of 100, but it’s the one moment when they gave in to the darkness that convinces us that wicked lives among us.
The Garden of Eden story presents us with another tree. The Tree of Life, inaccessible to fallen man, was guarded with a flaming sword. Its presence indicates that God had another way for us to face the world; not only through consciousness but through His life; His reality. Jesus would face that flaming sword on our behalf and then offer us access to the treasure trove of life found in His name. He presented this life as a river springing up within the soul, giving comfort and advice, like a voice from another dimension: literally, God doing a work inside of man.
So what makes one man good and another one evil? Corinthians says that if a man is in Christ, he is a new creation. That seems to at least give him a fresh start. Sort of a Garden of Eden reboot. He has an advantage in choosing – he can eat from the proper tree; the one that grows in his soul. For him, choosing the good is like putting a seed of the kingdom of God into the ground and stepping back to watch it bloom and grow.
In conclusion, I’m no arbiter of what makes a man good or evil, but I do believe in man’s power to choose how he navigates through the world, and I believe he has a mandate from heaven to choose in a way that aids his neighbor on the journey.
President Kennedy summed up this attitude in his inaugural address. It may not be Scripture, but its full of the choice we’ve been discussing, and it rings true today:
“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
Grace to you.
Deeper Daily Podcast- Essay Edition 