Are you saying that having morals can be bad?
Did you say this out of ignorance or do you really believe this way?
Isn't being good often the most effective way of doing evil? Has the United States not bombed people out of a sense of moral righteousness? Are university cancellations not carried out in the name of virtue? Moralism is a destructive force, and both Jesus and Paul are relentless in opposing it.
Their target is the moralistic spirit, exemplified by the Judaizer who weaponizes the Law to dominate others. Their critique is not of goodness but of goodness-as-power, goodness-as-self-exaltation. In this sense, moralism is not merely a mistake; it is a spiritual pathology.
Nietzsche argues that moral righteousness is often a mask for resentment, domination, and cruelty: "Moralities are the masks of power." He shows how "goodness" becomes a tool for punishing others while feeling virtuous.
René Girard's theory of scapegoating shows how communities expel individuals in the name of "the good," convinced of their own righteousness. The scapegoat mechanism is always moralized: the victim is portrayed as a threat to purity, unity, or virtue. Contemporary university cancellations follow this pattern with remarkable precision.
Ivan Illich, in
Medical Nemesis and
Deschooling Society, argues that institutions founded on moral ideals, such as health, education and welfare, often generate outcomes directly opposed to their stated aims. The more "good" they intend, the more destructive their unintended consequences become. Illich calls this "the shadow side of institutionalized virtue." It is precisely this dynamic that explains the morality of "bombing out of goodness."
Kierkegaard attacks the moralistic complacency of Christendom, where people believe themselves good because they conform to social norms. He calls this "the most dangerous form of evil," and it is precisely the evil Jesus confronts in the Gospels.
Hannah Arendt shows how bureaucrats commit atrocities not out of hatred but out of moral duty, obedience, and the desire to "do the right thing." Evil becomes banal when it is moralized. This is a secular version of Paul's critique of the Law.
How can good become the engine of evil? Christian theology has long insisted, Augustine most clearly, that evil has no independent substance. It is parasitic, feeding on the good that God has created. Deprived of that good, evil collapses into its own chaos and incoherence. Its only power is borrowed power.
For this reason, the greater the good, the greater the possible distortion. Evil thrives only where goodness is abundant. It insinuates itself into what is healthy, true, and life-giving, building upon those very gifts until it reaches the limit beyond which God does not permit it to go.
This is why we cannot imagine ourselves living in an age where evil is slowly disappearing. The opposite is true. Wherever genuine goods flourish evil finds new hosts: in technological power, moral zeal, political idealism, religious conviction. Evil is a leech, and our age is thick with leeches.
He asked a simple question, politely. It might not be out of "unconsciousness" or "blindness", but because he found your statements unclear. That's a perfectly valid reason. So why did you respond in this way?
The psychologist Carl Jung argues that "one of the toughest roots of all evil is unconsciousness" (
Psychology and Religion: West and East, para. 291). He explains again and again that unconsciousness is the primary root of evil, the condition that allows destructive forces to operate unchecked. This is why Jung insists that genuine moral effort must be directed towards the expansion of consciousness rather than towards moralistic self-perfection. Evil thrives where people refuse to know themselves.
Jesus makes a similar demand for a union of moral clarity and strategic intelligence: "Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16). The force of the saying is that Christian action must hold both qualities together: moral uprightness without naivety, and shrewd discernment without malice. It is not easy to combine a dove and a serpent. In fact, it is extraordinarily difficult to be a truly good person. Innocence without awareness is no virtue, because naïve people leave the door wide open for evil.
