Good and Evil: Righteousness and Unrighteousness

Lesson Objective: Understand that righteousness and unrighteousness are dependent upon whether a person furthers or prevents God’s purpose of creation.

Divine Principle Reading:

An act or the result of an act is considered good when it fulfills God’s purpose of creation. This takes place when a subject partner and object partner unite through the harmonious and spirited give and take of love and beauty, become the third object partner to God, and form the four position foundation. On the other hand, an act or its result is called evil when it violates God’s purpose of creation by forming a four position foundation under the dominion of Satan.

Activity: Good & Evil

1. Explain: Good & Evil are determined based on their fulfillment or violation of God’s purpose of creation.

2. Good & Evil Application: 

    1. Ask each person to write down one of each of the following on separate pieces of paper: 

  • A person (Mom, Dad, teacher, etc.), 
  • A location (school, submarine, forest, etc.)

    2. Collect all the papers, fold them, and put them in a bowl/container.

    3. Have each youth pick out a person and location and come up with a scenario in which:

  • That person does a “good” act in that location
  • That person does an “evil” act in that location

    4. Explain: Good and evil are relative based on whether or not we are fulfilling God’s purpose.

3. Explain: 

  • A key component of determining whether or not something is good or evil is the internal heart and intention.
  • The result of our actions could be the same, but our intentions could be different.

4. Practice serving with a good intention:

  • Find a partner of the same gender and give them a back massage for a couple of minutes.
  • Try to focus on massaging them with an intention to love and serve them instead of focusing on the fact that I’ve asked you to do this.

Concluding Point: Good and evil are dependent on whether or not we are fulfilling God’s purpose of creation or fulfilling it and can also be measured on the internal motivation and intention.

Divine Principle Reading:

Righteousness refers to that quality in a person which leads him to pursue goodness and further its purpose. Unrighteousness refers to that quality in a person which leads him to pursue evil and further its satanic purpose. A righteous life is absolutely necessary for the attainment of goodness.

Activity: Righteousness & Unrighteousness

1. Explain: Righteousness and unrighteousness are determined based on whether or not a person is pursuing goodness or evil.

2. Discuss:

Righteousness:

  • According to the Divine Principle, righteousness is a quality in a person which leads you to pursue goodness and further its purpose
  • What righteous characters can you think of in movies, TV shows and books that you are familiar with?
  • What was righteous about them?
  • What motivated them?
  • What goodness did they pursue?

Unrighteousness:

  • According to the Divine Principle, unrighteousness is a quality in a person which leads you to pursue evil and further satanic purposes.
  • What unrighteous characters can you think of in movies, TV shows and books that you are familiar with?
  • What was unrighteous about them?
  • What motivated them?
  • What “evil” did they pursue?

Concluding Point: We have a choice to be righteous or unrighteous people and our actions are the measure of those choices.

section-fourManish Saluja