I think it was one of Donald Miller’s friends who said “I am drowning in a sea of good”. At first I thought this was a very stupid thing to say. People strive to surround themselves with good things. It stands to reason that if you are in a sea of good, you can’t really get much better.
I failed to realize that good is less than better which is in turn less than the best. I think that Orthodox Christianity believes that people were made for the best and not just the good. I really really really like that idea, and, frankly, I think the rest of the world should adopt it. In the book of Genesis, after God creates each thing, he sees that it is good. I am incredibly excited to live in a world full of good.
As a thought experiment, attempt to equate ‘doing what is best’ with ‘doing what is moral’. Within our own society there are widely different beliefs for what is moral. I think this rift is due to the acknowledgment of what is good without thinking about what is best.
For example, It is good for an orphan to have a family. It is good for two people to devote themselves to each other for life. A stable loving home is a good thing. Everybody acknowledges these goods. So why is it that when it comes to gay marriage, Catholics remains stubbornly unaccepting? I think you can understand this seeming jump in logic by understanding that Catholics don’t believe that homosexual relations are the best.
Another excellent example is Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is pro-sex. Sex is good. My God invented it –yeah he is THAT cool-. Yet, Catholicism insists that sex is only good between a man and a woman, within the bounds of a certain institution, with an openness to conceive….. blah... blah… blah… All of these ‘requirements’ are due to the belief that sex gets better with each requirement, and it is this belief that needs to be debated.
Sex, money, McDonalds… These are all good things, and it is easy to see how each of these can lead to a depraved life. In the book of Genesis, after God creates each thing, he sees that it is good, and I for one, am incredibly excited to live in a world full of good.
For clarity’s sake, I am not trying to give reasons why certain actions are immoral. Nor am I saying that Christianity’s idealism leads to the best outcome in real-life. My real point, -which I didn’t make very well- is that arguments about morality are not all that dangerous to the faith. People try to choose what is good, but fail to choose what is best. It seems at some point, the church started wishing bad upon these people with ‘lesser moral standards’. People all around us –myself included- are drowning in a sea of good and are desperately in need of the best. It is not the Churches job to beat them with the scepter of morality, but to live the best, and in so doing, show them that there is something better.
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