Two contrasting truths dominate our human scene today. Perhaps never in the history of the world has there been so much generosity, kindliness, and sympathy expressed as is evident in the outpouring of aid and help to distressed peoples in the world. And surely the world has never before seen so much cruelty and barbarity as this century has witnessed.
Any attempt to evaluate the goodness in man must always take into account the evil from which no man ever escapes. And every proposal for meeting and curbing that evil must be made in the light of the goodness that God has ineradicably placed in man.
No responsible and principled person can dodge the necessity of attempting to deal adequately with the evil he meets. But he must always do it knowing that God works with him through the eternal forces of goodness, forces that survive every storm of barbarity as surely as seeds remain after fire and drought and floods to renew the gift of life in plants and animals and man.
Our first responsibility is to deal with the evil in ourselves. This life-long struggle, though, does not exempt us from the social problems that surround us and of which we are a part. And the attempt to lessen or eliminate the evils in our society is far more complex than our struggle with ourselves, difficult as the combating of our own selfishness and pride must always be.
Person to person and group to group relationships, however, are still not so baffling as nation to nation problems where so much of both good and evil are inextricably intermixed. Even in Nazi Germany there was far more of good than we could understand during the passions of war. In fact, the evil of tyranny could not fasten itself upon a nation and be maintained were it not mixed with so much good. The dictator is dangerous precisely because of the extent to which he adds goodness to evil.
