We balance our lives with emotion on one side of the scale and reason on the other. We love certain persons with what we call unconditional love, but we know their faults. If indeed our love is much, we reason with understanding as to how to address them in any confrontation of their faults. Our reasoning, if it is in the proper direction prevents us from excusing the faults while maintaining love quotients related to them. Our emotional relationship, if it is strong enough, prevents us from rejecting them for the thought and/or conduct that we reason to be unsatisfactory. In a court case involving family members the testimony of a family member, if permitted, is subject to suspect. The member is presumed to love the accused so may shade truth, or deliberately lie, to protect the accused, or in a spirit of revenge for perceived family violation may shade or lie to disadvantage. Love and reason may be distorted, evading truth. So firmly is emotion/reason balance found in us we privately, sometimes publicly, are offended when we feel that truth has been distorted or lost. This matter dominated public life when one of the eminent trials of the twentieth century related to murder by a suspect was decided so that one race was comforted by the acquittal, and another felt the evidence warranted guilt. This tension of emotion and reason related to balance is often challenged in confrontations in society. It is a factor in divorces, labor/management problems, racial conflicts, and the like. Often the conflicts are so stern and intense that there is no way that truth to reconciliation and solution can be found acceptable for those most affected by the issues. The process in greatest disorientation can lead to terrorism, even international warfare. Terrorism is sometimes used as demonstration against terrorism. Such are the contradictions and paradoxes of mankind.
Scripture supports the concept that when we are violated by others, we should respond in acceptance and forgiveness. This is the first step to solution. It is not a step of weakness or in naivete, but of strength, virtue and wisdom that are necessary to clearing the decks; to learning for problem-solving; to concentration on the future rather than follow a plan of revenge; to solutions for the good of the future; and, to healing processes to function in cooperation. We leave judgment and justice to God. He alone knows the facts, not only for current situations, but the causes, the influences, the guilt of others not seen by the human eye, so not a part of the present human scenario. This is partly used even in common court procedures. Is the accused also a victim that led to this incident? The matter may be resolved as accident, as temporary insanity, or some other acceptable factor or motivation. Mankind simply doesn’t have enough information to identify the actual cause for the guilt of wrong-doing. In this light, crimes are given various levels of punishment in the law that indicates the degree of guilt as determined by the interpretation of a judge or jury. The verdict of a case may be, in itself, a wrong thing in that the emotions of the judge or jury overshadow the evidence. The imperfections of human beings are partly minimized when the evidence and the emotions related to the matter are in balance to gain a truth verdict that satisfies justice. Mankind is partly crippled in many decisions because truth (cerebral) conflicts with emotion (feelings). The point becomes humanly mysterious in that it takes the brain to register either truth or feelings without evaluating contradictions. For masses of persons evaluation is difficult. This is commonly demonstrated even in official judgments (based on truth), and responses (based on emotions).
We have nothing on the horizon that suggests we will do better than we have done heretofore. There could appear improvement if persons were better educated in the disciplines of learning, the objectivity of truth to justice, the meaning of emotion for support or resistance, the concepts that right must be to advantage, and the honor that accrues to mankind, as well as God, when truth triumphs. There are only a few factors that are really intense to the meaning of life as demonstrated by God: love, truth, peace, forgiveness, service, thankfulness, faith, commitment, joy, freedom and faith to immortality. It takes a whole life to coordinate all that, not only for the pleasure of God, but for life success on earth as God interprets success. That success is measured by righteousness to service reflected from God’s holiness. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020