DO GOOD AND AVOID EVIL

1. From Catechism of the Catholic Church (1789) Some rules apply in every case:
- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
- charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience:
"Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against
Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58
2. Discerning Good and Evil
(http://www.truthortradition.com/pdf/DiscerningGoodsg.pdf)
This teaching is really about goodness, the fruit of the spirit, but well be looking at it in
light of its oppositeevil. There are only two states of being: submission to God and
goodness or the refusal to submit to anything beyond ones own willwhich refusal
automatically enslaves one to the forces of evil. We must ultimately belong either to God
or the devil.
The purpose of increasing in knowledge of good and evil is to call good what God calls
good and to call evil what God calls evil. We live in a culture and a time that wants to
believe that no one is evil, only misunderstood.
1. Recognize evil in order to be able to choose to be good and do good.
We all have evil present with us, and available to us. We can easily fall into patterns of
evil thinking without knowing it. It is the sense of our own sinfulness that prevents any of
us from undergoing a similar deterioration.
Good and evil is a major theme of the Bible; Genesis 1:31; 2:9; 17; 3:22; the first thing
that was not good is that man was alone; isolation and ungodly introspection are a
breeding ground for evil. God made us to be in community, and to care for one another.
Knowledge of good and evil is a good thing once innocence was lost and evil entered
the picture. Knowledge of the moral law is crucial to a walk of righteousness. Ignorance
is not innocence.
Sin is the state of disobedience and the individual act of falling short of perfection,
literally missing the mark. Evil enters the picture when we deny there is a mark, and/or
that we have missed it.
Naming evil gives us a certain power over it.
Evil defined biblically: maliciously inflicting pain on others
a. Characteristics of evil and evil people - a theme of Proverbs the Wicked vs. the
Righteous.
- They cast their pain onto others through projection and scapegoating. They
themselves may not suffer, but those around them do. They cause suffering. The evil
create for those under their dominion a miniature sick societyare we to consider
individuals healthy simply because they are not in painno matter how much havoc and
harm they bring to their fellow human beings?
- Evil: the use of power to destroy the spiritual growth of others for the purpose of
defending and preserving the integrity of our own sick selves. In short, it is scapegoating.
We scapegoat not the strong but the weak. For the evil to so misuse their power, they
must have the power to use it in the first place. They must have some kind of dominion
over their victims.
Proverbs 4:19 - Willful ignorance; refusing instruction, walk in darkness; characterized
by denial, complacency and self-satisfaction.
Proverbs 10:6,32 - Marked by verbal and physical abuse; cutting, slanderous,
accusative, etc. You can trace the evil from their victims; evil comes from a perversion of
strength: the poor of spirit are not the ones that are evil.
Proverbs 10:16; 11:18; 15:16; 1 Timothy 6:10 - Dishonest gotten gain, blood money;
the pursuit of money is the source of many evils. His income is derived from deceitful
and unethical meanslying to his supervisors, cheating his customers, not giving good
service, just pretending to, etc.
Proverbs 10:24; 28:1 - The evil person has secret fears that he wont confront; he lives
in denial of his feelings of guilt, suffering and emotional pain, and ignores his
conscience. The fear of self-criticism is typical of evil persons: they are pathologically
attached to the status quo of their personalities, which in their narcissism they
consciously regard as perfect.
- Evil persons demonstrate an extreme form of self-protectiveness (from fear) which
invariably sacrificed others rather than themselves, failure to be displeasing to
themselves utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are
unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral puritylying is

designed not so much to deceive others as to deceive themselves. They cannot or will
not tolerate the pain of self-reproach.
Proverbs 10:25 - Unprincipled; easily blown about by circumstances;
- Eph. 4:14 They lie in wait to deceive. There is a willful quality being spoken of. We
always want to believe that people mean well, but some people dont, even leaders in
the Church. They are caught in the snare of the enemy and are poison, not genuinely
caring about the spiritual growth of others.
Protecting their own interests, control, empire, etc. They are blown here and there by
every wind of teaching; compromise, lack of integrity.
Proverbs 12:5 The evil person gives bad advice and is deceitful because it is not
based on personal responsibility. Adam shifted the blame, scapegoating is characteristic
of evil.
- Proverbs 13:5; Ephesians 5:8-16 The evil person disguises his motives with lies evil
rather than bring it to the light.
Proverbs 29:7 The evil disguise their motives with lies; they want to appear as if they
want to help; basically have a lack of concern for others as persons and view them as
objects, means to the end of the satisfaction of their own desiresfor domination and
control, for wealth, acceptance, etc
2. Avoid being and doing evil; Job 1:1 feared God and shunned evil. Avoid even the
appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22 )
3. Avoid evil people who are unrepentant; Jesus said avoid the Pharisees. Proverbs
12:26; 1 Corinthians 15:33
4. Abhor, hate evil; Romans 12:9 this is a commandment!
There can be no compromise with evil--Proverbs 25:26
Sometimes we can get motivated by hate for evil and the Devil when God and the
Love of God seem remote.
The Evil Onethe Devil, the personification of stubbornness, contrariness,
disobedience, hatred, self- fulfillment.
- John 10:10f His only interest is in stealing, killing and destroying
Evil Spirits (not called demons, devils, as often as evil spirit)they have no concern
for their hostthey are interested only in having a dwelling place. It is evil to teach that
there is no evil, devil, or that evil spirits ought not to be cast out.
5. Avoid repaying evil with evilretaliationmuch evil is done with the motivation of
combating or eliminating evil.
6. Overcome evil with good. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do
nothing. Once we get over our spiritual naivete and see evil for what it is, we must
remember to love our enemies, and overcome evil with goodness.
7. Consistently manifest biblical goodnessa loving attitude toward God and man that
upholds standards and acts in the best long-term interests of others. It is the fruit with
teeth.
Do good and avoid evil:
1. Teleology everything has a telos, end or purpose. Morality involves working out
what our purpose as humans is, and acting in a way that fulfils it.
2. Primary Precepts:
- W orship God
- O rdered society
- R eproduce
- L earn
- D ont Die Protect & preserve the self
3. Deontology morality is about doing your duty, an obligation to follow rules or do
right actions. no contraception, no abortion, no divorce etc.
4. Secondary precepts
e.g. Do not have an abortion
Do not commit suicide occurs?
5. Aristotle: Efficient cause and final cause the efficient cause is what gets things
done, while the final cause is the purpose of a thing. For example, why do people have
sex? The efficient cause is enjoyment (I have sex because it is pleasurable), but the

final cause is procreation (God designed sex to result in children).

6. Real and apparent goods everyone tries to do good. Some people follow apparent
goods (such as a person who has an affair they seek pleasure, but it diminishes
human nature). Real good is reached by using reason to determine our true purpose.
7. Interior and Exterior Acts Your intention (e.g. to help someone whos starving)
might be good, but your action (stealing bread) might be wrong. Both interior and
exterior are important. did.
8. God Aquinas said God designed us with a specific purpose which could be
discovered through reason. He said that acting accordance with reason was the same
thing as acting in the way a Christian would act. He did believe that humans are
immortal though, and argued that natural law had to take account of this.
9. Double Effect It is wrong to do bad acts (e.g. abortion). However, you can do a
good act (removing the uterus of a woman with cancer) that may have a double effect
of resulting in an abortion. The good act has to have a good intent (to save the womans
life) and must be a good exterior act (removing the cancer).
10. Reason morality is not based on following commands from the Bible but on
following rules that can be discovered through reason. To disparage the dictate of
reason is equivalent to condemning the command of God.