First, let me apologize fo the delay. The Iran War and a prolonged power outage kept me from getting these out. Mea Culpa and all that.
The topic of this chapter is the relative morality of avoiding the issue of resisting evil. The central point is that Tolstoy and the "Jesus is My Boyfriend" or "Love is all" Christian Church posit that only your own morality and actions matter. You cannot influence others by any way other than reason and that you cannot and should not condemn or judge the actions of others as evil or wrong, as they do not concern you. While that sounds right on the surface, "Judge not lest you be judged", on a big enough scale, its allows evil to win.
Ilyin states that the idea of non-resistance to evil under any circumstances is juvenile at best. It's not rooted in reality because evil does indeed exist and evil acts are perpetuated against good people. The idea that evil acts don't really affect anyone other than the person doing them is intellectually dishonest. There is always a victim.
The general puprose of humanity is to always improve ourselves and to always expand our abilities, according to Ilyin. I agree with this, as I think training is important.
Ilyin warns that people who write or teach others in response to this quest for self-improvement inherent in us all have a responsibiltiy to actually study and learn about things, rather than just express their own opinions, infected by their own biases. He points out that these opinions are often wrong. People who think too highly of themselves tend to pontificate their own, incorrect, opinions as fact.
A great point he makes here is that in order to properly define evil (or love, really), one must see & experience it personally, rather than just think about it in the abstract. I agree, as anyone who has ever seen the evil men do upon other men will tell you that evil is real and needs to be opposed by strong men and women of virtue. Otherwise, any discussion of good and evil is just an academic fallacy, presented as fact (the modern church).
I want to expand on this idea for a second, with my own concurring ideas. The modern church will tell you that you can never condemn others, especially another entire religion. They will also tell you that the responsibility for protection has passed to the State, not to you, as a Christian. However, the medeival church experienced firsthand the evil that Islam and her soldiers did upon Christians. Their opinion was very different, and from that, when governments failed to act, the first Military Orders of Christ (THE KNIGHTS) were born. A major historcal fallacy is that Kings and Queens knighted people. In the modern world, I guess so, but originally, the CHURCH decided who earned the title of Knight. While some Kings led Knights, the Knights represented the CHURCH and GOD, not the Nation-State. They fought with the King, not for him, and this led to some spectacular disagreements. This is coming full circle today, with Islam openly attacking both Christians and Jews once again (still).
Note: God believes in ONE religion, and it is not Islam.
Ilyin points out that Tolstoy, and in our case the modern church, excuse evil acts as errors, mistakes, weaknesses, passions, and the like, rather than as a manifestation of evil. They say that a good person must ignore these acts in others and be concerned only with themselves. They constantly warn against judging or condemning any sin, rather insisting on "loving the sinner". This is NOT Biblical. This avoids the issue (hence "FLIGHT" in the Chapter title). The effect of this leads to a great quote in the chapter: "Virtue enjoys its love and vice freely unleashes its evil will into the world." Based.
Tolstoy insists that his position is reason and that any disagreement with it is "false". That sure sounds like the modern left arguing about literally anything, doesn't it? People believe things that aren't true and refuse to even give life to any argument that fails to confirm their bias. It doesn't make them right, it just makes them FEEL that they are right. You cannot reason with that.
Ilyin says that thinking only of ourselves and being concerned only with our own actions & "doing good", rather than stopping the march of evil is self-centered and gives no consideration to the greater good. This reminds me of the meme with the guys on their knees in front of the executioner saying "at least we didn't give them a reason, right?" This is a classic formulation of the "Main Character Theory", where you are the main character in a movie and everyone else is just an extra. It's a logical fallacy.
The problem, according to Ilyin, is that when faced with a national evil (a communist revolution in his case - and ours) this type of person is only concerned with the image of how they responded to the situation as virtuous or not, hence "non-resistance" and the meme, yet again. Rather than doing anything effective to stop the wider evil, they get to point out that they are better than their oppressors because they didn't resort to "violence" - despite violence being exactly what was needed and expected (even by God).
Ilyin illustrates this point with the example of being a witness to a riotous mob raping a child, while you have a gun in your hand. Tolstoy, and the modern church, would tell you that violence is evil and not justified. Ilyin asks, what will God say or expect you to do. The answer is in Proverbs 24:11 (Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter) and James 4:17 (If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them).
I know what I would do, and I hope you would too.
Leave your thoughts below.
