When the Road Less Traveled Leads to the Abyss

I wrote the other day about re-reading People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck. I'm over halfway through the book now and I have to kind of shake my head to clear it. When I read it some 40 years ago I was still a bit naive and enthralled by men in white lab coats, although my pro-life activism had already dispelled the childish notion that all doctors were Albert Schweitzer.

Today, I'm reading the book with a more critical eye and, while I still find it useful, interesting, and thought-provoking; I'm much more aware of the flaws and my serious disagreements with Peck's philosophy and opinions. So here goes with a few:

• Peck was obviously Freudian in his approach to psychotherapy. Like Freud, most of his client examples go back to childhood assuming that almost all psychological problems are the result of parental abuse, neglect, and, as this book makes the case, actual parental evil. Freud believed that anything wrong with a person was the fault of upbringing, particularly problems with the mother. Many of Peck's cases exemplify this Freudian theory. Mom is a villain, in one case a spider. In several cases both parents are villains and I don't disagree, especially the case of the parents who gave their son a rifle for Christmas that his brother used to kill himself. That appears diabolical!

Sunday Meditation: When Silence is Evil

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."                                                    Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And not to warn those immersed in evil is a failure to love.

Peter Kreeft has an interesting article on the problem evil, a subject that deserves serious reflection especially during Lent when the Church admonishes us to repent and hear the good news of the Gospel.  Here's a little from Kreeft's article:

More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it's not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it. That's why the Book of Job is so arresting.... 

There are four parts to the solution to the problem of evil . First, evil is not a thing, an entity, a being. All beings are either the Creator or creatures created by the Creator. But every thing God created is good, according to Genesis. We naturally tend to picture evil as a thing—a black cloud, or a dangerous storm, or a grimacing face, or dirt. But these pictures mislead us. If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is. But it is just as real. It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion....

 The worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil, hell. Does hell not contradict a loving and omnipotent God? No, for hell is the consequence of free will. We freely choose hell for ourselves; God does not cast anyone into hell against his will. If a creature is really free to say yes or no to the Creator's offer of love and spiritual marriage, then it must be possible for the creature to say no. And that is what hell is, essentially. Free will, in turn, was created out of God's love. Therefore hell is a result of God's love. Everything is.