Andy: Marlena, how do Christians reconcile that god
made both the lion and the lamb, and he made it the lion's job to
eat the lamb?
Eric: I'll take a crack at this too. Studies claim that zebras relax
in the lion's jaws. Skydivers who have survived great falls report a
feeling of utter relaxation and peace as they hurtle toward
landfall. "People watching me fall probably suffered more than I did."
The horror is in us. You call that particular horror evil. I'd say
it's the horror of trying to avoid suffering and seeing suffering in
other beings. The lion's jaws are real and when we see it, and
realize there's a chance we could end up there, we call that evil
instead of our own healthy self-interest. The horror is the force of
our desire not to end in the lion's jaws.
If people were innately evil, thoroughly rotten to the core, lost
causes, we wouldn't know it. Good would be a perversion. Everything
you call evil would be normal, and hence invisible to us. If evil is
"missing the mark," and we are totally evil, where did the mark come
from?
I'd prefer to think that our personal evolution is away from
egocentricity and toward greater ability to see the other. What good
is art otherwise? What good science? What good love?
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