Our Alarming Ability to Ruin Everything

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Some things are intrinsically good, some are intrinsically bad, and some are in between. Things good in themselves are wisdom, justice, temperance, courage. Things intrinsically evil are the lack of these virtues. In the middle are wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, health and illness, knowledge and ignorance and so on. They are said to be in the middle because in themselves they are neither good nor bad: it depends on their use whether they are called good or bad. For instance, wealth is good when given to charity, but bad when spent on pleasure. Similarly poverty is good in teaching us patience and unshakable gratitude to God, but bad if it produces blasphemy and servility with lack of endurance. Fame and notoriety are good if they teach us to be humble and to strive for future glory, but bad when they induce a spirit of dependence, adopting ‘what people may think’ as the criterion of our actions. In conclusion, we must not condemn things. Nothing that God has made is bad. It becomes bad only if we, of our own free will, make a bad choice because we are urged on by, for example, self-love or passion.


NICETA STETHATUS The Spiritual Paradise, 3

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