Do you know what is good and what is evil as readily as you know day from night? Do you know God's will as clearly as you know the difference between day and night?
We are told that the difference between good and evil is so plain “that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.” (Moroni 7:15) Day and night are starkly contrasted, and obviously different. If the difference between good and evil were so easy to tell, you would expect that everyone would discern them correctly. And yet, the scriptures are full of admonitions not to misjudge them, suggesting what is plain to observation: People get it wrong all of the time. We are charged not to “judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.” (Moroni 7:14) but to “search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil”, and to “lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not.” (Moroni 7:19) Clearly, while discerning good from evil should be plain, our default process is anything but.
What is good? The Hebrew word towb is translated to “good.” If you look it up, you’ll find very many English words assigned as meanings. But this doesn’t really tell the whole story. If you look at these words—glad, prosperous, valuable, strong and fertile, attractive, positive, special, agreeable—you find that all of these are subsumed by another definition: beneficial.
Good means that which is beneficial. God is good. Everything he does is for the benefit of the world:
He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation. (2 Nephi 26:24)
[E]very thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. (Moroni 7:16)
If it leads to improvement—to that which is more or better than it was, or more or better than the common alternative—“ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.” (Moroni 7:16)
What is good, therefore, is good because it yields to God, who is the most improved of all, and the source of all that improves:
And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. I am the same that leadeth men to all good; he that will not believe my words will not believe me—that I am; and he that will not believe me will not believe the Father who sent me. For behold, I am the Father, I am the light, and the life, and the truth of the world. (Ether 4:12)
When God created the world, it says he “saw it was good.” That is synonymous with “it was better than it was before,” “it was happier than it was before,” or “it was beneficial.”
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)
Interestingly, happiness has been defined by specialists as progress towards a worthwhile goal. What is the manner of happiness? It is to improve! To be in a state of improvement.
Good, in a scriptural sense, means that which improves you. Nothing more, and nothing less.
What is evil? Evil, in a scriptural sense, means that which degrades you. Nothing more, and nothing less. “Whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil.” (Moroni 7:17) If it leads to your degradation, you can know with a perfect knowledge it is evil.
Irrespective of how holy that thing may seem to some people, you need not have any doubt that it is evil to you, “for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.” (Moroni 7:17)
While these definitions are simple, they are powerful, and their implications are tremendous in impact and eternal significance. To know whether something is good is quite simple, as long as you know these definitions.
How do you tell good from evil? You use “the Spirit of Christ [which] is given to every man, that he may know good from evil.” (Moroni 7:16) This is your individual repository of light. It is your best, sincere understanding of what improves and what degrades.
31 And now, behold, are ye sure that this is a good seed? I say unto you, Yea; for every seed bringeth forth unto its own likeness.
32 Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.
33 And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.
34 And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand.
35 O then, is not this real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light; and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernible, therefore ye must know that it is good; and now behold, after ye have tasted this light is your knowledge perfect? (Alma 32)
Deciding what is right is not usually as simple as “praying about it” and interpreting your feelings. Sometimes, what is right is very clear through such means. Most often, however, you need to graduate to a fuller use of the faculties God has given you:
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
You have to actively consider what is edifying and what is not: “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)
You have to actively consider what empowers you, and what exercises power over you: “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)
Anything that doesn’t edify is evil: “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” (D&C 50:23) This includes things you think you need, and certainly includes anything you feel you can’t help. If you do something that does not improve, or do not do something that improves, you are subscribing to evil.
The key to understanding what is meant by good and evil is the human conscience. The human conscience has been described in many ways. Here, we use the phrase to mean an individual’s sincere understanding of God’s will. This is one and the same as the person’s sincere understanding of right and wrong—which is important as not all people believe in God, but all people do have an understanding of right and wrong. To tell good from evil, you sincerely consider whether something matches your honest idea of right and wrong. If it does, that thing is good. If it does not, that thing is evil.
Critical to this definition is sincerity. Without “real intent,” it is not possible to be good (see Moroni 7:6,9). It is so common for a person to say that they believe something is ok when they actually don’t. What they mean is that they want it to happen, in spite of the little voice or feeling inside them telling them it is not right.
To be good is to perfectly reconcile your behavior to your conscience—to always act fully reconciled to your understanding of God’s will, at all times, and in all places. This facility can range all levels of sophistication. It can be as simple as a feeling (though that is a dangerous description, since impulses to do what is contrary to the conscience are almost always “feelings”). It can be as sophisticated as a complex analysis of similar situations, say, from the scriptures. It can be something in the middle, such as a person remembering a written commandment such as “thou shalt not kill.”
For some reason, we try to ascribe fixed, static meanings to good and evil. It is as if we have two buckets, one for good, and one for evil, and we try to put every concept, thing, and action into each bucket, never to be moved again. This is a grossly oversimplified representation of learning to discern between good and evil. It doesn’t take into account several factors, such as the fact that knowledge is an individual quality, and that it is variable in both its native disposition and in the effort expended to acquire more of it.
Good and bad are, in fact, abstract concepts. They are not concrete concepts. They are sets (or buckets) and the membership of each set (or what goes into each bucket) depends on several things. The assignment is specific to an individual, and based on that individual’s awareness of reality.
Because awareness is fluid (it can increase or decrease, and differs between individuals), so is the membership of what is good and what is evil. Though the membership changes, the rules of membership do not.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This is one of many sayings that can be helpful or hurtful, depending on the interpretation. Nothing is good or bad of itself— your understanding dictates which it is.
What is good and what is evil is specific to an individual. It will depend on the individual’s understanding of right and wrong. One’s conscience is not static. It will be different not only from person to person, but in the same person, from time to time, depending on the person’s situation, experiences, and so on. Because good and evil are contextually defined by the state of the individual (conditioned on their understanding of God), what is good for one person may be evil for another, and vice versa.
The dynamic nature of good and evil and their contextual anchoring to an individual’s understanding is not a license to do evil, to excuse evil, or to call good evil and evil good. On the contrary, this idea is much harder to live than a static understanding of good and evil. The increased cost yields the invaluable reward of a growing understanding of God. A static concept of good and evil limits your understanding to the static level of how you now see God. To know him better, you must free yourself of the limits of your traditions, which requires you to acquire knowledge that will change your comprehension of good and evil.
The amount of knowledge a person has is wholly dependent on their obedience to what is already acquired and their diligence in seeking more. Because no two people have the same set or depth of knowledge, any correct framework of good and evil must provide a variable definition of these two. In other words, the buckets are not the same for any two people, and even for one person, what goes into each bucket will change as they acquire or lose light and truth.
Obedience to what you already know will open more opportunities to acquire more light and truth. As you acquire more light and truth, your perception of what is good and what is evil will change. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by becoming aware of the moral nature of situations that you were previously unaware of. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by breaking up items that are already there into several more specific concepts. The items in each set might change from good to evil, or vice versa. On the other hand, if you are disobedient to your present understanding, you will lose light and truth, and your conscience will deteriorate. You will be less capable of discerning between what improves you and what pulls you back.
Another thing that ought to be clear is that, as simple as this metric is, very few people employ it. Most people evaluate what they should do not based on whether it will improve them, but whether or not it will make them feel good. James 4:3 says: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” In literal Greek it says “You ask and not receive because wrongly you ask that in the pleasures of you you [sic] may spend it.”
Improvement is a much broader concept than mere pleasure. While pleasure can accompany both good and evil, pleasure from evil comes with a mortgaged price in suffering, a price that must be paid eventually and is much larger than the pleasure received. Improvement frequently includes pleasure and pain, pain that leads to joy.
God is more aware of reality than any mortal, and his assignment of that reality into good and evil is more advanced than any mortal’s. His work of salvation is, described one way, to provide a means by which mankind can become aware of what God is aware, and learn why God views good and evil how he does.
God’s level of awareness of reality and his assignment of it into good and evil is available to all and at all times, because that intelligence is radiated to and through all things. He is not inconsistent or arbitrary in his broadcast of this information. Rather, we are inconsistent and arbitrary in our obtaining it. It cannot be obtained all at once. There are things in and about us that prevent us from receiving this. This information must be acquired and assimilated. This is what it means to learn to discern between good and evil.
As we see in the creation account, God’s instructions to proceed from one level to another, to improve, are given in each step of creation. God had a goal, and a plan to achieve the goal. Each time he gives an instruction, he watches the object until it obeys him. God broadcasts the signal until the object chooses to align with the instructions and become what God willed it to be. It was not an event, but a process; A process of gradual instruction that began where the object was and ended with the object obtaining the state God willed it to be in. It was like a non-pilot conducting an emergency landing via guidance from an expert over the radio. The guide has untold experience with the process, and sees the end from the beginning, but the emergency pilot only has their trust in the ground guide and their obedience to the step by step instructions they receive.