As odd as it might sound, people generally do ill to or speak ill of another in order to serve justice or establish peace. Schoolyard fights, marital disputes and wars between nations work out on this basis. Whenever such acts are committed in the name of peace or justice, there is either a presumption of present guilt, and the retaliatory action is in reaction to a specific offense or there is an expectation of some future evil, and the action is preemptive.

But man, in all his fervor to create a better world, rarely stops to think about the compromises to his integrity with love and truth he must make to take this approach. This, by the way, is even true of the so-called “good” and “faithful” people of all faiths who resist evil in the name of the God or gods they worship.

I suppose this is the case because they are blinded by a pervasive set of underlying assumptions and beliefs which skew their vision. Some examples of these include, but are not limited to the belief that:

• Goodness, love and truth, though desirable, are inherently weak and incapable of dislodging the iniquity resident in others
• Man is “only human,” inherently flawed and impure and therefore incapable of marshaling the the force of the pure, unadulterated spirits of love in relation to evil entrenched in the minds and hearts of others
• The end always justifies the means. Put plainly, it is assumed that evil is more likely to be overcome by evil than it is to be vanquished by goodness, especially when meted out by imperfect humans, so evil means are temporarily employed and rationalized to be necessary

Whenever evil is resisted on this basis, evil is perpetuated, even if appears for the moment that it has been subdued. The only way to rid ourselves of evil, once and for all, is to see that, in fact:

• Goodness, love and truth are immensely powerful and always capable of getting the job done
• Man is more than “only human,” in fact, he is a human being, that is, a perfect, eternal being equipped with human form that is capable of magnifying the perfection within – the intrinsic goodness, love and truth – outward into visible expression
• The end – no matter how glorious – never justifies evil means. Only goodness, love and truth beget peace; justice is never served and peace is never established by fighting evil with evil
• Evil contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.