The World of Grandpa Don

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It seems as though evil has a tight grip on things, a grip that is very tough to break. I don't mean only what you would call 'hard core' evil but even the mildly bad things such as small lies and deceptions. Once a person has embarked on a non virtuous path, no mater how innocuous it may be, it is extremely difficult to turn from it. 

I, for one, have been perplexed about this. My observation is not confined to the actions of others but also to myself. But I found a possible explanation in the science fiction "Perelandra" by C. S. Lewis. Of course you need to know that Lewis is recognized as one of the great authors of books on Christianity and that subject is one of the prime ingredients of his science fiction books as well.

So, what does he say? I will paraphrase his words and even read between the lines, adding the theology that his words have awakened in my head.

We are now living an imperfect human life and many truths are hidden from us as if our eyes are veiled and clay has been placed in our ears. Someday, when our human life is ended, the veil will be lifted and we will see clearly and our ears will be cleared and we will hear perfectly. We have all heard that from the Bible and other sources. Lewis compares it to the way we perceive things when we sleep, as a dream.

He says, "... for it is waking that one understands sleep and not sleep that understands waking." When we sleep, our dreams are not the reality of life. Not only that, in our dreams, we can not understand the reality. Lewis goes on to say, "There is an ignorance of evil that comes with being young: ("young" in the book is the same as immature.) there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep."

When we move into the sleep of evil we become unaware of our evil. We can not recognize evil any more than we can be aware of sleep when we are sleeping. When, however, we are living in a moral and virtuous state, we are very much aware, not only to the goodness of our actions but to the evil of what we did when we were not awake to the grace of God. The situation is bad enough when we slip into evil ways, but when we deliberately chose evil the condition is worsened.

That is why evil is addictive. If we remain asleep we never realize that we are sleeping. The evil-doer becomes unaware that what he is doing is evil. We see examples every day in the bigoted, the slacker on the job, the cheater at the game, the person who selfishly believes that he is the most important person in all God's creation.  

We need to wake up out of our dream world.

Don Plefka
5/20/03

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