Everyone is familiar with the concepts of “Good” and “Evil.” They are the subject of almost every storybook and every movie. And every one of us (except the truly malevolent) hope and expect that the “good guy” will win. While there is some discrepancy about what qualifies as “good” and “bad,” few will argue about their existence. Those who do argue that morality is all a figment of our imaginations and created to help us make sense of the world will only contradict themselves in the process.
What is known by most as a “conscience” was called the “Law of Human Nature” by C.S. Lewis, or the “Law of Nature” by other philosophical thinkers.
C.S. Lewis taught: “This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it… Taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about [World War II} were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practised? If they had had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair.” (Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis)
Example after example could be mentioned to prove that we ALL believe in good and evil and that we all have at least some sense of what fits in each category. Good and Evil is not a relationship that exists only on this earth. It is an eternal principle.
I’ve always loved fairy-tells. Stories of a princess and her white knight finding true love and conquering evil are prevalent within our society and stir something in our hearts. As children we believe in fairy-tells – and then we grow up and begin to doubt that they are real and could EVER really happen. The difficulties, the suffering, and the bad things in life overtake us and we lose sight of the simplistic goodness we once believed in as children. However, I believe that fairy-tells do exist and that the “good guy” WILL win. Good will conquer evil. Our desire for it be so proves that it is. One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is this:
“Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us… Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."(Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis)
We could not have imagined good and evil or right and wrong. You cannot imagine something out of nothing. You cannot see a reflection in a mirror if there is no object off of which the light might reflect. If there were no sugar, we could not crave it. If there were no heaven, no God, no real joy- we would not desire those things. Good is real. God is real. Happily-Ever-After is real…it just may not be meant for this life.
