I heard this song yesterday that had a message that I’ve heard people use to justify their own choices, and it drives me crazy. The message is something along the lines of “The commandments / church standards / etc. say I should <some standard>. I don’t because <reason>, and I think God understands.”
He understands? And that means what you’re doing is okay? Of course he understands your motive. He knows everything. He understands why Hitler did what he did; that doesn’t mean that Hitler was justified.
If you break down that attitude, what these people are really saying is this: “Anyone who understood my motives would say I’m justified. And God understands my motives, therefore he must consider me justified.” That’s pretty backward. It’s essentially setting yourself up as the arbiter of morality and implying that God is just going along with your opinion.
Now, I realize that not everyone who uses that phrase means what I just derived above. Hopefully, what at least some of them mean is that they felt their circumstances were exceptional, and they asked God sincerely if they were right, and they felt a confirmation from the Holy Ghost, so they have a clear conscience about their choice. Of course there are plenty of people who have done bad things with a “numbed” conscience and confused that with divine approval. But at least that seems more like an honest mistake than implying that God will just overlook conscious sins just because he knows why you commit them.
No comments:
Post a Comment