Spend 1 minute and 43 seconds for this neat explanation of why God leaves us free to make both good and bad moral choices.
When we think on the reason for this freedom, we have little excuse for using force to make our neighbor behave (at least if he is not hurting anyone else).
What has the modern welfare state to do with charity? Almost nothing. The system seems almost designed to eliminate virtue, kindness or gratitude. The taxpayer gives not through the love of his neighbor, but through fear of the government. Charity is replaced with indignation, so that when confronted with other’s needs, we may ask–like Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”–”Are there no poorhouses?”
No matter how well a government might behave in most matters, no modern state (except perhaps one: the Vatican) avoids aggression as a means of accomplishing the “good.” Even the “good” government—which never initiates violence except to finance its good-deed-doing—finds itself making the moral choice condemned by St. Paul in Romans 3:8: that of doing evil that good may come of it.
Here is the 1787 penny. Before E pluribus unum was ‘Mind Your busness.” Ben Franklin is said to have designed the coin, along with the advice it carried.
” . . . cause if you mind your own business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine.” ~ Hank Williams, Sr.
And here is Willie Nelson singing Mind Your Own Business:
The first in a series of YouTube videos:
Free Download – Audiobook
Chapter Five: Liberty and
the Criminal Law
Ignorance of the law is no excuse | Thomas Aquinas: Should all vices be crimes? |
What should be criminal? | St. Augustine: Divine Providence and the problem of evil |
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