new church life: jan uary/february 2015
The Writings say that even babies are in some evil but how can this be?
The Lord made them. But it is not the baby who has evils, but the hereditary
evils attached to him or her. Babies are in good from the Lord.
So why do we have hereditary evils? This is in order that we can be free.
The Lord is on one side and hereditary evil is on the other. We choose. If we
had no evils and were just good by nature, without giving it much thought or
striving to be good, we would be like puppets. We make ourselves what we are,
but with God’s help and by our choices.
But why do we have so many of these evils and why do they multiply one
generation after another? Why are they so hard to get rid of? And why do the
Writings say that our “as of self ” is evil? The Lord gave us this “as of self ” so
we could be something – so that we can act as if of ourselves. Again, otherwise
we would be like puppets, or animals that follow their affection and have no
power to choose.
So if this is important, why do babies who die young and the people of the
Most Ancient Church make it to heaven without any chance of going to hell? I
think the Lord needs a lot of these innocents in heaven who don’t know much
about evil. But I think He also needs people who have made their natural life
strong by working and suffering to shun their evils.
Maybe the reason the most ancients fell away from the Church generation
after generation was because they didn’t have this strength.
I think the “as of self ” can be either good or evil. It is evil when a person
takes what is the Lord’s and claims it as his own. Actually his life and all his
power and ability are the Lord’s with him. If the Lord’s life wasn’t continually
flowing into him he would be nothing. But the Lord’s gift of life and the
ability to choose is good.
Charis P. Cole
Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania
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