Tragedy and Moral Language
Kevin DeYoung Blog | July 21, 2012
We instinctively resort to passive speech, unable to bear the thought (let alone utter the words) that a wicked person has perpetrated a wicked crime. The human heart is desperately sinful and capable of despicable sins. Of course, no one commends the crime, but few are willing to condemn the criminal either. In such a world we are no longer moral beings with the propensity for great acts of righteousness and great acts of evil. We are instead, at least when we are bad, the mere product of our circumstances, our society, our upbringing, our biochemistry, or our hurts. The triumph of the therapeutic is nearly complete.
Read the whole thing.
Comments:
July 24, 2012 at 11:08 AM
[...] DeYoung, Restless and Reformed [...]
July 23, 2012 at 03:45 PM
Both things are *possible*. (I'm not glued to the news right now, so if a definitive(?) answer as to which occurred has been found and disseminated, I don't know that yet.)
He may have been a depraved killer, making a moral choice. Or he could have been genuinely mentally ill, imagining that he was someone who he is not, doing things that made some kind of sense in his imaginary world.
Mental illness is real. Not all things, obviously, that look like bad moral choices, are due to mental illness. But *some* are.
Just as we can't categorically dismiss the possibility of bad moral choices, we also can't categorically dismiss the possibility of bad choices driven by mental illness. It happens.
July 22, 2012 at 07:31 PM
I quite agree. I think one simple way to start would be to reserve the word "tragedy" exclusively for events such as sickness, accidents, natural disasters, and other such things that are beyond our control. At the same time, use words like "murder," "evil actions," "massacre," etc. for events other people are lumping into the "tragedy" category (like 9/11, for example).
July 21, 2012 at 10:07 PM
What culture needs is our Doctrine: God created man imperfect, but commands man to be perfect.
July 21, 2012 at 07:07 PM
What I find very interesting about this concept is the options offered as solutions. I'm not so surprised that the media and culture would argue that a person with some sort of "disorder" needs the therepeutic solutions you mention. What surprises me is the number of people in the church who would readily assent to the depraved nature of man and then offer as a solution the secular therapist or psychologist in town as remedy. What society, depraved killers, and each of us needs is the application of the Gospel to our wicked hearts. The church needs to recapture the vision of 'soul care' which our Puritan forefathers spoke of so often.
July 21, 2012 at 05:32 PM
I actually thought of that earlier post Kevin when I heard what had happened in Colorado. Interestingly enough, I had literally just driven through Blacksburg, VA yesterday where Virginia Tech is located as well. The examples of what you write about are all around, yet we look for other explanations to excuse ourselves.
July 21, 2012 at 03:16 PM
Thanks, Kevin. This puts into words what I couldn't, but have sensed happening for years now. Every evil deed is analyzed with the psych[fill in the blank], therapeutic lens instead of what the Scripture says about man's *universal* sinful nature.
Weekly Web Gems | Evan Vanderwey
July 26, 2012 at 05:26 AM
[...] Tragedy in Aurora . . . Kevin DeYoung speaks to a truth we’d rather forget. This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Aurora, capitalism, Imprimis, John Steele Gordon, Kevin DeYoung, Matt Zwolinski, Thomas Sowell. Bookmark the permalink. ← Friday Fun [...]