The answer to a perplexing question

This is an excerpt from the book ‘Strength to love’ by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is addressing the problem that has always hampered man: his inability to conquer evil by his own power. In pathetic amazement, man asks, “Why can I not cast it out? Why can I not remove this evil from my life?”

Though the evils of sensuality, selfishness, and cruelty often rise aggressively in his soul, something within tells him that they are intruders and reminds him of his higher destiny and more noble allegiance. Man’s hankering after the demonic is always disturbed by his longing for the divine. As he seeks to adjust to the demands of time, he knows that eternity is his ultimate habitat. When man comes to himself, he knows that evil is a foreign invader that must be driven from the native soils of his soul before he can achieve moral and spiritual dignity.

So, how can evil be cast out? Men have usually pursued two paths to eliminate evil and thereby save the world. The first calls upon man to remove evil through his own power and ingenuity… Give people a fair chance and a decent education, and they will save themselves. This idea, sweeping across the modern world like a plague, has ushered God out and escorted man in and has substituted human ingenuity for divine guidance.

But in spite of the astounding new scientific developments, the old evils continue and the age of reason has been transformed into an age of terror. Selfishness and hatred have not vanished with an enlargement of our educational system and and an extension of our legislative policies. The humanist’s hope is an illusion, based on too great an optimism concerning the inherent goodness of human nature.

The second idea for removing evil from the world stipulates that if man waits submissively upon the Lord, in his own good time God alone will redeem the world. The fallacy of thinking that God will cast evil from the earth, even if man does nothing except sit complacently by the wayside, is that no prodigious thunderbolt from heaven will blast away evil. No mighty army of angels will descend to force men to do what their wills resist.

The Bible portrays God not as an omnipotent czar who makes all decisions for his subjects nor as a cosmic tyrant who with gestapo-like methods invades the inner lives of men but rather as a loving Father who gives to his children such abundant blessings as they may be willing to receive. Always man must do something. “Stand upon thy feet,” says God to Ezekiel, “and I will speak unto you.” Man is no helpless invalid left in a valley of total depravity until God pulls him out. Man is rather an upstanding human being whose vision has been impaired by the cataracts of sin and whose soul has been weakened by the virus of pride, but there is sufficient vision left for him to lift his eyes unto the hills, and there remains enough of God’s image for him to turn his weak and sin-battered life toward the Great Physician, the curer of the ravages of sin.

There is so much more to discuss and Dr. King’s thoughts on this are profound and life-changing to the reader. Please buy this book, read the rest of this chapter, and let’s discuss this further.

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