Natural Change versus Ungodly Violence

Violent mobs threaten and attack monuments, buildings and people, especially law enforcement officers.  Their slogans and placards attempt to justify their actions, but violence is unjustifiable.  The most self-righteous have even tried to justify breaking into commercial businesses and looting as some kind of supposed “reparation” for injustices suffered by the ancestors of the looters!

They demand change, but are not willing to wait for things to transform by the natural process.  That process includes the science and art of politics which is the fruit of human reason to form and operate systems of government.  Reasonable people naturally act this way because we were created in the image of the Creator, Who is the God of law and order.  Violence, on the other hand, disrupts and interferes with nature as an extrinsic power.  The violent act unnaturally due to a privation in their reasonings.  It is from the darkness of their minds and hearts that they lash out like wild savages going berserk.

Natural change is evolutionary.  Things develop in time through the process of generation and corruption.  Carnivores are not violent for killing and eating their prey because that’s naturally good .  Violent change is revolutionary, but that is not a condemnation of every revolution.  For instance, the American Revolution resisted tyranny by confronting a despotic ruler, but President Donald Trump is no King George III nor are the police generally guilty of “systematic racism” justifying their overthrow.  The revolution that the mob currently seeks to ignite is Marxist in design and hence demonic at its core.

God is not violent.  Now, some may disagree because they look at the Jewish Scriptures or Christian Old Testament and point to many stories in which the Lord calls for the destruction of peoples and even the complete extermination of nations, including livestock.  Beyond that, Ezekiel once saw a prophetic vision in which the Lord sent angelic scourges to wipe out, without pity, every Jewish man, woman and child in Jerusalem that failed to grieve and lament over the abominations that were committed in the city.  (Ez.9:6)  Still, God forcefully counters violence or violations of nature to restore the natural process.  Although two wrongs don’t make a right, two negatives make a positive.

A surgeon may need to remove a cancerous tumor by cutting it from the body, but there’s nothing violent about surgery.  It’s the tumor that causes violence.  For this reason, Saint Thomas Aquinas said that judges who were appointed for the punishment of criminals rightly incarcerate, and in some cases even execute, those who do violence to society and threaten the health of the community.  Such a judge is not violent.  Like the surgeon, he or she saves lives and protects nature.

Elijah experienced violent phenomena, a fierce wind crushing rocks, an earthquake and the fire of lightning, but God was not in any of these.  Rather, the Lord manifested Himself to the Prophet in a tiny whisper.  (1Kgs.19:11-12)  Likewise, as the storms of nightly riots rage, we can be sure that God is not in the clamor.  Isaiah foretold the Messiah, saying, “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets.  A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.”  (Is.42:2-3)

When Cain killed his brother, Abel, God punished him by separating him from nature.  He couldn’t be a farmer anymore because the earth would not cooperate with him.  In fact, he couldn’t even find stability anywhere, but was compelled to drift as a fugitive, living in fear.  (Gn.4:11-12)  Later, Jesus said that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.  (Mt.26:52)  The violent, therefore, eventually succumb to violence, like a snake consuming itself by eating its own tail.

Any sin is an act of violence against our nature as God intended us to be, but physical violence that causes destruction or injury is gravely sinful.  Believers living in a state of grace with God present in their hearts don’t throw bricks through windows of innocent people or at the police trying to maintain peace and order.  The souls of such violent demonstrators are lost in the dark chasm of malice and ignorance.

It’s really no wonder that people who violently abort their own children, take contraceptive pills to interfere with fertility, vainly change the appearance of their bodies permanently or mutilate their genitals, or merely approve of such behavior, are more prone to act with violence against nature.

On the other hand, we thank God for Pro-Lifers who love their own children and try to save others, who are open to new life or have the temperance to control themselves, who accept their body as God created it and their sex which has its origin in the soul.  They are more prone to support the institutions of society that are the products of western civilization and the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

Saint Paul repeatedly spoke of the God of peace, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace…”  (1Cor.14:33)  The Lord, however, is not irenic.  He doesn’t compromise with violators of the natural law.  Paul assures us that the Almighty will use force: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”  (Rm.16:20)  He crushes to maintain peace.  Likewise, shouldn’t police crush violence to restore peace?

Law and order are qualities of the divine nature.  Even God obeys the eternal law, for He is bound to act according to His nature in a godly way.  We too are bound to act according to nature, but our free will is often misguided by bad ideas that seem good.  Violent protestors, like Antifa, believe erroneously that they’re on the side of justice, that they’re making the world a better place, but graffiti and arson, desecration and murder, do not cultivate culture and civilization.  We can only foster real justice as a natural development when we oppose ungodly violence to restore peace.