Evil at the Core

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

My family and I recently went on a few hikes in the Rocky Mountains and there was one particular hike that was such a spectacle, in every direction you turned, that I was reminded of an anecdote that CS Lewis introduces in his book, the Abolition of Man, which, by the way, I believe is one of the most important modern books I’ve ever read.

He treats a scenario in which two people are observing the same waterfall and in which two people could have different responses to that encounter. You could say something like, “It is majestic, it is beautiful, it is sublime.” Or, you could say, I am experiencing sublime feelings, I am in awe.

And the difference between these two reactions, can reveal to us the very heart of human evil. Take any obvious example of evil that we can point to and you will find the same common denominator among them all – the same erroneous pattern of thinking and the behaviour that proceeds from it, is at the root of all evil.