{"id":80392,"date":"2020-09-24T15:06:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T12:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=80392"},"modified":"2020-09-24T15:06:07","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T12:06:07","slug":"psychology-of-good-and-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psychology-of-good-and-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology of Good and Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"80392","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":62571,"related_cahpter":"577","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Free choice is dependent upon it never being obvious in this life that evildoers are eventually appropriately punished and the righteous generously rewarded\u00a0","content":"

The 10<\/span>th<\/span> Psalm deals at length with the psychology of the evildoer, and the expectations on the parts of righteous believers for God to bring such people to justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Psalmist describes how the transgressor rationalizes and assures himself that he will \u201cget away\u201d with everything he does (see also Deuteronomy 29:18):<\/span><\/p>\n

The wicked crows about his unbridled lusts; the grasping man reviles and scorns the LORD. 4 The wicked, arrogant as he is, in all his scheming (<\/span>thinks:<\/span><\/i>) He does not call to account; God Does not Care. 5 His ways prosper at all times; Your judgments are far beyond him; he snorts at all his foes. 6 He thinks: I shall not be shaken, through all time never be in trouble.\u201d \u2026 11 He thinks: God Is not mindful, He hides His face, He never looks.\u201d \u2026 13 Why should the wicked man scorn God, thinking You do not call to account? (10:3-6, 11, 13)<\/span><\/p>\n

The author wishes that God would demonstrate that the sinner is mistaken, and refute his self-justifications by overtly punishing the sinner:<\/span><\/p>\n

1 Why, O LORD, Do You Stand aloof, Heedless in times of trouble?… 12 Rise, O LORD! Strike at him, O God! Do not Forget the lowly\u2026 14 You Do Look! You Take Note of mischief and vexation! To Requite is in Your Power. 15 To You the hapless can entrust himself; You have ever Been the orphan\u2019s Help\u2026 18 To Champion the orphan and the downtrodden, that men who are of the earth tyrannize no more (ibid. 1, 12, 14-5).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What the Psalmist obviously does not realize, is that \u201cfree choice\u201d concerning all things, including religion and morality, with which human beings have been endowed from the time of their creation, is dependent upon it never being obvious in this life that evildoers are eventually appropriately punished and the righteous generously rewarded (<\/span>see <\/span><\/i>Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance Chapter 5<\/span><\/em>.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Catholic thinker Blaise Pascal famously formulated that religious belief entailed the believer living life on the basis of a \u201cwager\u201d regarding God\u2019s existence that could only be resolved after one\u2019s death:\u00a0 either there is a God, and all of the sacrifices made during one\u2019s life were worthwhile because of the great benefit that will be enjoyed by the soul in the World-to-Come, OR there is no Deity and no eternal soul, resulting in the logical conclusion that it would have been ultimately more pleasurable to have lived self-indulgently without restraint.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether as a victim of callousness, or just a bystander of reprehensible actions, one would be forgiven for wanting to witness the downfall of the wicked. Yet, Jewish belief assumes that the choices that are presented to each of us are not always clear-cut, and require a deep belief that all will work out in the end – if not in this world, then in the next.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Psychology of Good and Evil","main_caption":"Free choice is dependent upon it never being obvious in this life that evildoers are eventually appropriately punished and the righteous generously rewarded\u00a0","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80393,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80392\/revisions\/80393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}