It is the nature of evil to “hide among the good.” Satan masquerades as an angel of light…
Aristotle, like Plato before him, had great faith that if we know what is good for us we will quite logically pursue it. Our “sin” is mostly a matter of a failure to know what is good for us, a failure of the intellect rather than of willpower…
Paul wrote that he could know the good but he could not do the good. In fact, the story of Jesus nailed to the cross teaches Christians that our virtues are not merely the opposite of our vices but sometimes the royal road to the worst of our evil. Jesus was crucified for the very best of human good reasons such as peace, justice, doctrinal fidelity, national security, and on and on. We are rarely more murderous than when we are defending some noble ideal like freedom or democracy.
– Sinning Like a Christian, William Willimon
