“The Creator has so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former.”
English jurist William Blackstone
The Happiness Evil Cannot Give
In my early morning today with the Word of God, I became fixed upon a single proverb:
“Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things.” — Proverbs 28:5
My first instinct might easily have been the instinct of most of us: Well, I am not an evil man.
The word “evil” immediately summons people worse than ourselves. We think of the cruel, the violent, the corrupt and the obviously wicked. Whatever else Proverbs 28:5 might be saying, surely it is talking about them.
But perhaps that instinct itself should make us stop.
Psychologists speak of what is sometimes called the Lake Wobegon effect, named after Garrison Keillor’s fictional town where “all the children are above average.” Applied to ourselves, it describes our rather endearing—and sometimes dangerous—tendency to rate ourselves more favourably than is warranted. Most of us find it easier to recognise selfishness, prejudice, pride and questionable motives in other people than in ourselves.
Then we encounter the Hebrew word translated “evil” in Proverbs 28:5.
It is raʿ (רַע), a wonderfully uncomfortable little word. It can certainly describe what is wicked or evil, but its range is broader: that which is bad, harmful, disagreeable, morally wrong or injurious. Suddenly it becomes harder to keep the proverb at a comfortable distance.
The question is not simply, Am I an evil person. It is this: What is there within me that bends away from the good?
And now the proverb becomes intensely personal.
Its remarkable claim is that evil does not merely affect our behaviour; it affects our judgment. “Evil men understand not judgment.” The Hebrew word translated “judgment,” mishpat, carries the idea of justice, right judgment, what is fitting and what ought to be.
In other words, our moral condition affects our ability to see.
That is a profound observation about human nature. We like to imagine ourselves as detached judges of reality, calmly examining evidence and reaching rational conclusions. But human beings are not quite like that. Our reasoning travels in company with our desires. We are remarkably good at finding reasons for believing that the thing we want is also the thing we ought to have.
Greed can rename itself ambition. Pride can masquerade as self-respect. Resentment can call itself justice. Selfishness can present itself as freedom. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the moral compass moves.
And this matters enormously because we are all searching for essentially the same country. Namely, Happiness.
We may give it different names—peace, fulfilment, success, love, contentment—but behind so much human activity lies the hope that somewhere ahead there is a life worth having.
Here Proverbs 28:5 contains a warning of extraordinary importance. If evil distorts judgment, then evil may distort our understanding of happiness itself.
Imagine a traveller whose compass is gradually becoming unreliable. He desperately wants to reach home. He walks faster, works harder and covers enormous distances. His problem is not lack of sincerity or effort. His problem is that the instrument by which he determines direction is pointing away from his destination.
There is something like this in the relationship between goodness and happiness.
We may seek happiness through wealth and gradually become incapable of saying “enough.” We may seek it through admiration and become dependent upon the opinions of others. We may seek it through sexual gratification while damaging our capacity for faithful intimacy. We may seek freedom by avoiding obligation and eventually discover that the deepest friendships are built precisely upon loyalty, sacrifice and commitment.
Evil offers us the fruit while quietly taking an axe to the tree.
This is why goodness and happiness may be much more intimately connected than our culture sometimes imagines. Goodness is not merely the entrance fee God demands before allowing us to be happy. Goodness may describe the very kind of creature a human being must increasingly become in order to experience the deepest forms of happiness.
The grateful person can enjoy what he possesses. The generous person can delight in another’s flourishing. The humble person does not have to win every comparison. The forgiving person is gradually released from the exhausting task of carrying yesterday’s injuries. The faithful person can enter the extraordinary security of being deeply known and deeply trusted.
Virtue enlarges our capacity for certain kinds of joy.
And vice does the opposite.
Envy makes another person’s happiness painful to us. Greed makes “enough” perpetually inaccessible. Pride turns other people into competitors. Lust can turn persons into objects. Resentment permits someone who injured us years ago to continue occupying rooms within our hearts.
The terrible possibility is that evil does not merely prevent us from obtaining happiness. It can damage the person who must experience happiness.
And then comes the glorious second half of the proverb:
“But they that seek the LORD understand all things.”
Notice the word seek. It does not say that those who seek God already possess perfect understanding. They are travellers too. They can make mistakes, take wrong turns and misunderstand the landscape.
But their compass is continually being brought back to true north.
Perhaps this is one of the deepest lessons of Proverbs 28:5. In the great human race for happiness—indeed, for eternal happiness—the first question is not simply, How quickly am I travelling? Nor even, How happy do I feel at this moment?
The greater question is:
What direction am I becoming pointed in?
For if God is the source of goodness, truth, love and ultimately happiness itself, then seeking Him is not a diversion from the human search for happiness.
It is the recalibration of the compass by which we hope to find it.
