Heroes and villains are made out of men based upon prejudices and experiences that usually reflect our own thoughts of what righteousness should be. Whatever ideals we tend to gravitate towards or shy away from cause certain paths to be chosen and outcomes to be reached.
When I was a boy I thought all police officers were good. I remember being in a restaurant in New Lenox Called Sherwood Inn. I saw a barrel of a man with a gun at his side and a Sheriff’s star on his chest as he was eating lunch. I wanted to go over and see that star, because I knew, as TV showed me, that the Star meant he was a good guy. He was someone who would protect me against the bad guys in the world. I remember even thinking he rode on a white horse because that is what all Sheriffs did. My mom let me walk over to the man and I was able to see his gun and touch the star and thought this man is what makes everything to be alright.
In the quietness of what is true though is there is no such thing as people who are good. In essence goodness escapes itself even as a concept when you have nothing to address what the opposite of good would be. What is the opposite of good in the world when a lack of morality happens to permeate what would be called civilization?
My encounter with the Sheriff proved that as a child the symbols that made that man good were enough to define him as good, to me. I had no idea who he was or what he did in his life, how he treated his family or friends. I just made an assumption by the symbols that I associated with goodness.
Life is not meant to be lived ideally. It’s not the design anymore. Poets can love, artists can imagine and a literary can dream but the end result is the same. What is described as good is in essence a symbol as what we hope to be good.
If the statement is true - “Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” then submitted for further analysis must be “Truth Redeems, Absolute Truth Redeems Unequivocally.”
When symbols and men who brandish those symbols pass away and left are the concepts that are markers for what truth should be and what truth is only then do you come to discerning conclusion that must lead back to an author of that truth.
Could that author be a man? In solemn awareness of humanity, it must not be. For humanity in of itself has never lent itself to anything but its own destruction. In its own ends humanity self destructs when it reaches the precipice of panic and despair.
No, humanity cannot be a creator of truth, but it can be a witness of truth and its principles. Humanity can lift high the ideals of truth and strive to obtain those ideals, but also take comfort in the failures that occur along that journey. Imperfection can never obtain perfection without something to remove the imperfections.
Arguing that the basic human is good, that man is good by nature is disproved when you add more of man to it. Is one man good? No. One man is alone. Despondent and given to solitary delirium. Introduce another and you have competition, envy and jealousy among them where none was before.
Take the opposite path. No man on earth would leave a question to be asked by a soulless planet, why? Mountains, valleys, trees, winds, stars and oceans, why have any of this at all?
Now truth arises and asks “Why Indeed?” Chance is an insane answer, given over by individuals who have more faith in a statistical calculation of impossibility that even the staunchest of atheists must shake their heads in disbelief at when written on a board large enough to hold it.
Seeking truth in men for the answer will lead you to answers of men. Mired in jaded views of what life has given them perspective to have. And if life has had their way with the best of us, the most honorable, then these viewpoints cannot be given a foothold in the lives of those who seek to be liberated by absolute truth.
Being cynical, no one’s world view would affect mine, as their own personal life is not mine, their own experiences not shared with me. And mine are not yours. But Truth must be satisfied to have an existence, and it must be an existence that resides in something greater than us.
The question originates in us as it did for Pontius Pilate, “What is Truth?”
Truth is not a concept, it is a person.
To what every human heart knows and what many joy to deny, we fall short often of that truth and daily reject it outright.
But to those who know the truth, and who resides in and freely gives its wisdoms, we are made free indeed.
