There Is Right and Wrong Isn’t There?

In real everyday life, the existence of right and wrong is ever before us.

There’s the simple and straightforward – a young man aggressively pushes past a fragile elderly lady to get to the front of a queue to purchase something. The lady is physically hurt and there are concerns about her. The young man doesn’t even stop to check on her as he gets his stuff and rushes off.

That’s not right, is it?

After the baby was born, the father didn’t stick around to support those formative years. The mother wasn’t in the right mental state to take care either and her mother took on the welfare of the baby in those initial years. She sacrificed the flourishing career that she had worked hard for over 25 years to develop in order to ensure the well-being of her grandchild. That child never got to know their rightful parents.

That’s not right, is it?

Yet where does that sense of right come from? Just something we cobbled together because of how we feel? If it’s all just genetic and primal instincts that have been sophisticated and systematised over time, then does that make it less valid? If they are susceptible to the changing opinions and whims of a majority or popular trends of the time does that make them all that fair?

Who is to really say that we are more developed and better than we’ve been before? What is there to suggest that we’re an advanced and more civilised society these days because of our take on certain hot topics?

More questions than answers as ever. The only thing that seems to remain are the questions. It is still worth asking them, though. Perhaps there are answers that not only appeal to the surface but have substance for the ages. Maybe there is a reason and a source for believing what we believe about right and wrong.

Maybe there is a reason for us to say that it just isn’t right and something should be done about it. An alternative would be to shrug our shoulders and accept what goes on around us as just the diversity and range of human interactions as they are and not even seek to do anything about.

That approach wouldn’t be right – would it?

(Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden