What is Good and Evil

We must distinguish between what is good and what is evil.  An absolute truth exists outside our own minds.


God tells us what is good and evil


The law of the Lord is the Truth onto which our conscience locks like radar. He is telling us what is good and evil. “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!” We heard it in this past Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 119) “Blessed” -- that is, deeply, deeply joyful -- sharing in the joy of the Lord, “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.”


Of course, nowadays this passage has been retranslated by many people, given their misunderstanding of conscience. It now reads, “‘Pre-Vatican II’ are they who follow the law of the Lord, because, didn’t you hear about Vatican II? It said that our conscience is now the only law. We can choose what is good and evil.” This is the misinterpretation that has been given.


We are duty-bound to follow our consciences, yes!
But what are our consciences? They are like truth-seeking radars that we tune up and keep calibrated to follow the law of the Lord.


In the Gospel of this past Sunday, Jesus said to us, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Mt 5:17).” He came to bring us back to a life of Grace, so that, living within His Church and in Him, we might once again have the rightly calibrated consciences to follow the law!


Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! The conscience is made for the truth of the law of the Lord. And as it says at the end of the first reading, “God doesn’t give permission to sin (Sir 15:20).” And so many people today treat conscience as a dispensation machine, which allows them to disobey the law of the Lord, because after all, it’s my conscience, and I’m a big deal, just like Adam and Eve thought they were.


Link