My family and I
recently went on a few hikes in the Rocky Mountains and there was
one particular hike that was such a spectacle, in every direction
you turned, that I was reminded of an anecdote that CS Lewis
introduces in his book, the Abolition of Man, which, by the way, I
believe is one of the most important modern books I’ve ever read.
He treats a scenario in which two people are observing the same
waterfall and in which two people could have different responses to
that encounter. You could say something like, “It is majestic, it
is beautiful, it is sublime.” Or, you could say, I am experiencing
sublime feelings, I am in awe. And the difference between these two
reactions, can reveal to us the very heart of human evil. Take any
obvious example of evil that we can point to and you will find the
same common denominator among them all – the same erroneous pattern
of thinking and the behaviour that proceeds from it, is at the root
of all evil.