Is Evil Dead: Where on Earth Do We Get Our Modern Morals From?

Photo by Pat Whelen on Unsplash

Have you ever wanted to be like one person and not like someone else. Or, have you wondered why their are so many villains in movies? There seems to be a bad guy for the good guy to fight in every story. The good guy most often wins in the end but not without a fight. With the removal of truth, or more so the re-defining of truth on ones terms, comes the need for something or someone to model or anti-model our worldview after. If one cannot find someone to follow, they will find someone that they should act the opposite. In an article by Todd Brewer, the idea is brought forth that Hitler, yes Hitler, may be the one that has had the greatest influence on modern morality. This is due to the fact that no one wants to become like this man that was so evil.

“Adolf Hitler was evil incarnate, and therefore the fixed reference point against which all modern ethics became measured.”

This brings one to the question is evil still here, and if so, is it diminishing? Or, have we moved past the days of evil? In an article by Walter Sundberg, he talks about the book The death of Satan

We have taken everything apart to the point that “the deconstructed world is the world that we inhabit.” Nothing is to be worshipped, or outright say that it is being worshipped, so does that mean that we don’t worship anything? As beings that were created to worship God, is it even possible to not worship? giving up the idea of God is easy for some, but to give up the idea of evil is almost impossible. We need a way to explain the evil that happens around every day. Events like school shootings, terrorist bombings and genocide on a mass scale cannot simply be excused because of mental insanity. Evil is something that no one can deny.

“Evil is in, with, and under human experience; it is an anti-sacrament that, in its twisted way, witnesses to the Holy. It does this by making us hunger for an ordered, moral universe. We want moral order because we desperately want to interpret human experience, including the experience of suffering, as meaningful.”

As stated earlier in this article, if I say the name Hitler, you automatically think of the attrocious evils that were done to many people. Because of the evils around us, we want moral order. It is a desire of our hearts. Where does that moral order come from? Where does good and evil come from? Whether the secularist wants to admit or not, moral order comes God. It says in Genesis, that God made everything and it was good. Then came the fall, where evil entered the world through direct disobedience by Adam and Eve. God provided a way through Jesus to be free from sin and the power of evil. However, this requires surrender and obedience. Defiance of the authority of God is how sin entered the world in the first place. Does one really think that the removal of God in defiance and unbelief can now lead to a better story? When the moral lines get blurred between good and bad, the results are bad. We cannot create good on our own, but we can give into evil. Or, we can choose to surrender to God and let him fill us with his goodness. The choice is up to you.