Why Do We Have Good?

Shifting the Focus Away from Evil

Photo by Sara McLaughlin

To those people who doubt the existence of a Creator, I wonder how they explain why we have goodness in the world.

Instead of the usual “Why do we have evil in the world?” this perspective offers a truly flipside look at reality. It popped up on a discussion board about school shooters.

Some people were lamenting the increasing frequency of these tragic events while others were trying in vain to pinpoint a single cause.

Suddenly one lone voice posted this thought-provoking question: “Instead of asking why we have so many school shooters, the question we should be asking is why don’t we have more? What prevents the majority from resorting to evil?”

Where does goodness come from?

It is a stunning question.

If “creation,” or more specifically, human beings, eventually evolved from splashes of primordial soup that climbed up to the top of the food chain, then it seems more likely that we would all be the most narcissistic creatures on the planet.

If I am hungry, stealing food is easier and faster than working and earning money to pay for it. Killing people who get on my nerves or in my way for any reason is a perfectly understandable and efficient reaction.

So how could a combination of carbon, hydrogen, ammonia, and other elements morph over time into a person with a conscience?

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, does a fantastic job of analyzing the mysterious capacity that humans have for determining what is good. He believes our conscience is hard-wired into our consciousness, and he systematically refutes every imaginable objection to his view.

Lewis writes, “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him” (Mere Christianity, NY: Macmillan, 19).

The outliers without a conscience, possibly owing to mental defect or disease, never fail to shock us by their behavior.

No one in his or her right mind believes that torturing babies is good. But why?

There is so much goodness in the world that the scales are tipped in its favor. Not only is there goodness, but there is even more longing for goodness than there is for evil.

Evil is simply the absence of good. St. Augustine makes that point abundantly clear and convincing. It is not as if we have two battling forces.

God creates and gives us only good because He is good.

I saw a wonderful demonstration of a Montessori approach to teaching young children in the Catholic Church about God. The program is called “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.”

The teacher who demonstrated one lesson for three-year-olds said the teachers present Jesus as a healer.

She illustrated the parable of “Jesus, the Good Shepherd” by using tiny plastic sheep, a fenced area, and a figure of Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulder. She read from John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Then she asked questions, such as “What would the Good Shepherd give his sheep when they are hungry? Would it be yellow, dry grass? No! He gives them the best, the greenest, the freshest grass because He is the Good Shepherd and he loves his sheep.”

The presentation drove home the goodness of God in a concrete way that even a small child could comprehend.

Goodness came from somewhere. It didn’t just happen by accident because it is contrary to a base instinct for personal survival that should triumph as the default.

We are better than that only because God made us in His image.

And everyone and everything He created is good. In the Genesis creation story in chapter one, there is the repetitive refrain after each act of creation: “And God saw that it was good.”

Why does anyone forgo goodness? We all can think of times we have done something we later regret, something we knew was not good for us and/or for others.

Unfortunately, we have free will and the capacity to veer off course. Take a look at Genesis to read about our cocky ancestors who first disobeyed God and chose a path of rebellion against the Good.

For that reason, we needed to be restored to a right relationship with God again. God sent Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to live and die and to rise again and to save us from our sins.

God alone can restore the goodness in us.

Jesus is the Divine Healer, the Good Shepherd, the One who is willing to lead us to nothing but greener pastures, and He gave us the Catholic Church to help guide us and to keep our feet firmly on the right path to be united with Him in heaven forever.